My Average is Better than THE Average

First of all, don’t take this as criticism.

If anything, take it as a challenge.

And a learning lesson to go deeeeeeeep… not wide.

It’s probably too late for you to go wide (unless you’re reading this graduating high school)

Here’s why my average is better:

I spent the last 13 years doing everything business-related, collecting fairly deep knowledge, experience and success shipping ideas.

Not just thinking about ideas, actually putting them out into the world.

Nothing happens until you launch.

As soon as you hit that “Publish” button, all the mistakes, missteps, failures and subsequent lessons pour in.

If you get one thing out of this, create and hit play.

What have I shipped? Here’s my list:

• A clothing company in high school

• 2 years in a network marketing company, even selling door to door

• A personal development blog in 2010 called Action Catalyst

• An event / community idea called Flash Klatch (Klatch is German for an informal social gathering, especially one held over coffee for the purpose of conversation)

• A creative art project called Big Ass Canvas

• A travel blog called Take Over Your City

• A little brand called LIVE A GREAT STORY

• Two podcasts

• A successful (kinda) Kickstarter

• Two group trips to different countries

• 20+ events

• The LIVE A GREAT STORY Conference with 175+ people

• Facebook marketing campaigns spending $250,000+

• Email marketing campaigns generating $250,000+ in revenue

So here’s what this means: I have a deep and successful history of doing things, making things happen and learning lessons in a wideeeeeee variety of areas.

Take alllllll of that experience, average it out and it’s greater than most people’s deep experience.

*This is all business talk, this doesn’t apply to your life which is a totally different story, we’re all on the same playing field there*

Here’s where I find massive value in my wide skillsets = “Geometric Application”

The puzzle pieces of business don’t stand alone, they fit together.

And pretty much always you need multiple puzzle pieces to make something work… and if you don’t know what those puzzle pieces are or how they fit together… whatcha gonna do?

You can’t learn them all. You just can’t.

To learn most of the puzzle pieces with deep enough knowledge and execution to make it worthwhile will take too long.

It’s taken me 13 years to amass my toolbelt of skills… you think you can watch some Youtube videos, take a course and successfully launch your idea? Nope… and definitely not alone.

So you’ll have to hire those extra puzzle piece people.

But here’s where everyone gets screwed.

Those puzzle pieces you’re hiring are singular.

They’re probably really good at email or Facebook ads or copywriting or design… but that’s it.

They’re one puzzle piece and unless you understand which other puzzle pieces need to fit with which, you just have independent puzzle pieces floating with no final image.

I’ve been alllllllllll the puzzle pieces and have hired nearly all the puzzle pieces, too, which gives me the deeeeeeeeeep understanding of how that videographer piece needs a marketing piece which needs a product piece which needs an operations piece.

So you have two routes to go.

1) Try to learn most of it (you can’t learn it all) and stumble forward, taking your time, being methodical, failing small and moving slow.

2) Hire people to be the other puzzle pieces, though this is really hard if you have no experience with putting a puzzle together or really don’t even know who/which puzzle pieces you need or how they work together.

Ok ok ok ok.. so what do you do?

First of all, just keep going.

I’m coming at you with 13 years in this which is a helluvalotta “keep going”-ness.

Don’t take this as a sign to stop by any means… KEEP GOING.. you will figure it out.

But are you a specialist or a generalist?

You should probably know this about yourself by now.

If you’re not a generalist, hire specialists.

If you’re are a generalist, focus your generalism to a few key areas… and you’ll still need to hire specialists.

If anything, ONE OF MY MOST IMPORTANT lessons is that going deep is better than going wide.

It sucks and I’m telling you that having gone wide af… in the grand scheme of it all, it doesn’t work.

Eventually you have to go deep (I’m about to do this in a new project)

Pick one thing and become the world’s best at one thing.

But sometimes you need a generalist who’s better at most things, even more so than others are good at their one thing.

If you’ve made it this far and want to talk more of this through, I’d love to share my generalist knowledge about all of the pieces of the puzzle and how they fit together most efficiently, because I’ve learned a lot of lessons messing up a lot of puzzles and I’d love to talk about how to make your puzzle simple, gorgeous and complete.

HMU, really reallyyy!