2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

We like the Tiger Woods story. Where you work at golf all your life, and eventually make it big.

We liken that to our own careers, where we think that specialising deeply in our career skill, whatever that one may be, is ideal.

That may be neat and tidy, but that doesn’t necessarily always work.

I confess.

I failed in my career because I was interested in many different things, and never seemed to have coherence in what I was doing.

I was trained as a social worker in university and could counsel and do case management.

Then I was writing articles in my spare time. Giving speeches to audiences. Along the way, I started facilitating discussions and strategy meetings.

Then I started making websites for a living.

Web developer. Speaker. Writer. Facilitator. Counsellor. Social worker.

That’s been my career, even though I’ve worked for exactly 3 years, and 6 months since graduating in September 2019.

It’s been almost impossible for employers to figure out where to fit me in their organisations.

And that may be you today. You’re interested in many different things, and find yourself doing many different things for a living.

But when it comes to your career, employers see it as incoherence, rather than strength.

I remember the day when an interviewer asked me,

You seem to be able to do many different things,

but what can you do for us?

My answer?

I can do many different things for you.

Where do you want me to start?

They rejected me.

I don’t share this story to boast about what I can do.

But rather it’s because I think as a society, we’ve become so accustomed to shoehorning people into comfortable holes, that we forget that the range of human potential is huge.

Varied.

And perhaps just impossible to fit into a single job description.

1 talk

Specialization is for insects,

Robert Heinlein, author

1 tip

How would this work out if you were a generalist, with a range of skills?

First I think it’s recognising that.

Maybe you’re someone who finds himself struggling to do a particular skill very well, and instead find yourself more interested in a broad intersection of skills.

Maybe you find yourself constantly picking and choosing between different skills, taking a dip at this, and dabbling in that.

Maybe you find yourself losing interest fast.

Maybe you’re just better at range, rather than depth.

Secondly it’s building match quality between your range, and the work you do.

Many ‘rangers’ (it’s what I call generalists, because generalist sounds derogatory) find themselves working well in starting businesses.

Because business forces you to get good at many different skills, quickly, or risk dying.

It’s like you’re thrown in the deep end of the pool.

You don’t know how to swim.

You’re not going to care about the stroke then. Whether it’s the butterfly, or the dog paddle, or the freestyle, or the breast-stroke. You’re just going to try surviving.

That forces you to graze the range of skills, desperately trying to keep afloat, rather than specialising deeply to try and survive.

You’re going to kick and paddle and smack the water. You aren’t going to worry whether this is leading to a certificate.

Of course I’m biased towards generalists, because I think specialisation is a luxury.

But I also think that the world doesn’t have much space for generalists, because it tends to see them as ‘unskilled, average, mediocre’. Not great.

Nah.

I will tell you a superpower generalists have.

Its integration.

It doesn’t matter if integration results in something better.

What matters is that you, see your range, as something better.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

P.S. Think others might benefit? I’m counting on you.

Forward this to someone who might find it helpful.