Following up on my finding your passion vs interests post, I wanted to pursue another idea.
Follow and find one thing that you can make amazing.
Being a generalist is fun but hard. While many people would see having lots of interests as a good trait, it can limit you. Unless you can find one thing to focus on that you truly believe in and are able to devote most of your energy too, then how are you supposed to be successful? Think about experts you look up to, or people that you admire. Usually you find that these people focus on one thing and they do it really well.
Someone who puts this better than me is Bill Taylor at Harvard Business Review where he says:
If there’s one message I have stressed more than any other over the last few years, it is that it is not good enough to be pretty good at everything. The most successful companies, products, and brands have figured out how to become the most of something — not just adequate, but downright amazing.
Picking one thing does not mean that you have to limit yourself to that forever, but really you need to make your name in one area before you move on to something new.
How Specific Do You Have To Be?
In the world of internet marketing you will always hear about focusing on a niche. Get specific. The more micro your market it, the less people will be going after it and the easier it will be for you to stand out. Also, you will get highly targeted customers for your business. That is the theory anyway.
Lets take the broad market of travel. If you are looking to do a climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, do you look for a travel expert or a Mt. Kilimanjaro expert? Of course, you look for the latter. Their expertise is highly specific to what you want to do. It still comes under the umbrella of travel, but it is a highly specific niche. You can get more specific than this, for example what about an expert in a single route up the mountain. Someone who has dedicated their whole life to a single route, and everything about it. That is even more relevant to what you want to do, assuming that is the route you are interested in of course.
So how do you find a single thing to focus on and make amazing? It’s something i’ll be exploring over the coming weeks and any insights you can give on your own experience would be great!
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