"The Fred Factor" by Mark Sanborn, Currency Doubleday, $14.95.

What we can learn from the Freds of the world? Plenty.

Fred Shea is the author's mail carrier; but he isn't just any mail carrier. He excels at what he does by making customer service and relationship building part of delivering the mail.

You'll meet many Freds in the pages of this book. All of them share these "Fred Factor" principles:

Everyone makes a difference -- Only you can prevent you from being exceptional. You choose how you do your job. You choose your responses to situations. Feds understand that "there are no unimportant jobs, just people who feel unimportant in their jobs."

Success is built on relationships -- It's interpersonal; nobody succeeds on their own. Asking for and sharing information broadens one's perspective of situations and life. Others help you open doors to opportunity.

Continually create value -- Sanborn doesn't define value in monetary terms. For him and the Freds, value means the impact you make on others and imagining what could be.

Creating such value is part of an employability skill set. If you don't value what you do, you won't do it well, nor will you create value for your coworkers. Fred Shea didn't see himself as a blue uniform delivering mail. He saw himself as important; his job was an extension of him. If he didn't do his best, he was letting himself down.

You can reinvent yourself regularly -- People should look at themselves as works in progress. Sanborn believes people should apply a one-a-day principle to their reinvention. One what? One step that takes you closer to where you want to be.

He says, "Measure what you treasure." is the way to implement your one-a-day plan. How? A five-step process: awareness of what you want, an agenda that will get you there, a positive attitude, the action you take and expected accomplishments. If you can't give yourself an "A" for accomplishment, you need to tweak one or more of the other four steps.

Jim Pawlak is a national reviewer of business books.