This verse closes the chapter as its own saying within the Sayings of the Wise.
Quick answer
Excellence gets noticed upward. The man who excels in his work, the footnote reads "is prompt in his business," skilled and diligent both, ends up standing before kings rather than laboring unseen.
Read both lines
The saying opens with the sages' favorite classroom device: do you see him? Look at an actual case, a craftsman whose work is consistently excellent, and watch his trajectory: toward thrones, away from obscurity, the footnote's "unknown men." The observation held flesh in Israel's memory: Joseph's excellence carried him from a prison to Pharaoh's right hand, and Daniel's from exile to three successive courts. The saying is an observed tendency about how skill travels, not a contract for a promotion; its wisdom is in where it aims a young person's energy. Reputation cannot be engineered directly, but work can be excellent today, and excellence is the one résumé that writes itself. Standing at the end of this chapter, it closes the collection's opening argument with a door swinging open: the sayings you have just inclined your ear to are themselves the training of the man who will someday stand before kings.
Related: Genesis 41:39–41 · Daniel 6:3 · Colossians 3:23–24
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.