Is There A Different Way To Reaching Greatness
…of course, there is
Being the best in the world requires effort and time. Often it is a combination of nature and nurture. It is a rare person, like Spud Webb at 5'3", who becomes an NBA star. A 7' has a better shot.
OK, so that should be obvious to most that to get to a world-class level at any one thing will require gifts and hard work. To get to that 1% you have to be good and lucky.
Is there another way?
Well, if you are focused on being #1 in any field then the competition is pretty steep and it is hard to achieve. BUT what if you are good enough?
The first thing you laughingly say is that good enough is not good enough to be #1. And I would agree with your quick assessment.
BUT what if you combined good enough in 2,3, or even four fields into your own #1 field?
I have written about this idea before. If you look at success stories you often find people that were good enough in multiple fields that when combined because better than the parts. One such example is Scott Adams the creator of Dilbert who has combined good enough to become great. Consider his own words:
“I’m a perfect example of the power of leveraging multiple mediocre skills. I’m a rich and famous cartoonist who doesn’t draw well. At social gatherings, I’m usually not the funniest person in the room. My writing skills are good, not great. But what I have that most artists and cartoonists do not have is years of corporate business experience plus an MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In the early years of Dilbert, my business experience served as the fodder for the comic. Eventually, I discovered that my business skills were essential in navigating Dilbert from a cult hit to a household name. My combined mediocre skills are worth far more than the sum of the parts. If you think extraordinary talent and a maniacal pursuit of excellence are necessary for success, I say that’s just one approach, and probably the hardest. When it comes to skills, quantity often beats quality.”
So in a sense
Combination of (Good *Good * Good…)>Great
Consider for a moment that you have 3–4 skills in which you can be in the top 10%, 0.1, in the world. What is the effect of combining two skills?
.1*.1=0.01= 1%- you are in the one percent. (1 in 76,000,000- one in 76 million)
Or three skills
.1*.1*.1=.001 = 0.1%- you are in the one-tenth of one percent(1 in 7,600,000- one in 7.6 million)
With four
.1*.1*.1*.1=.0001=0.01%- you are in one-hundredth of one percent(1 in 760,000)
and so on…
This leads me to the point of this article. Can a person take a few of the skills that they honestly self-access as having the potential to be in the top 10% of the world and combine them into a niche?
YES…YES!!!
Which ones? Ahhh that is where the magic can be found. You are so unique that you are the only one that can determine which combination will work for you. Start by listing your top ten skills. Then ask a bunch of your family and friends to give you what they think are your top 10. At the end combine the lists into a final top 10.
Now take look and see if the top three or four are skills in which you are willing to invest additional time to improve and more importantly use. If you are good at programming BUT just hate to program then it will not work to use that one skill.
I believe that this exercise can help you determine your HOW. BUT in the end, you will need to make sure that your WHY is bigger than the HOW. The last part is determining WHAT you can do for the world.
Simon Sinek teaches us to start with the WHY but in my opinion, to determine your niche you must determine the HOW first. The WHY serves as a double-check to make sure you even want to do the combination.
Once you have determined your magic combination, you should rethink it starting with the WHY then the HOW and lastly the WHAT. This will help you explain to yourself and others why they should be working with you.
