In a world where you once were pushed to be conservative and a jack of all trades it seems radical and foolish to push you away from the middle.
Here is what is wrong with the middle — knowledgeable but not good at anything is dangerous. Being broad without depth eliminates your ability to ‘level-up’ in any field, forget coming up with innovations and delivering heart warming customer experiences.
Embrace the middle and you’ll forever be chasing opportunity.
Personal development
If you are out of school or entering a new field — yes learn the landscape, but then dive seriously deep. Become the best at that task, and then feel free to shift left right up or down to another aspect or field. Again, get super deep in that new space. You see what is happening — you aren’t narrow for long, but instead you become a pivotal source of knowledge and that combined with hard work that delivers result is a powerful combo.
Build your career by finding a niche — getting super deep and then shift, repeat. eventually you’ll have such a base you’ll level up to a whole new space where you can repeat again. This is successful to entrepreneurs and to those running million dollars businesses, it’ll work for you.
Ever wonder why we say the boss does everything — janitor, mechanic, digital marketer, client delivery, and inventor — it is because THEY WERE ALL THOSE ROLES at some point. Be humble and be great.
Product development
Want to win the market, be the hardest edge of a space you can possibly find. Be the biggest drink; the craziest rollercoaster, the fastest most expensive car; the most obsessed fitness trainer specializing in olympic lifting on paddle boards… you get it. the edge.
That said — historically you needed to be broad and in the middle due to the available marketplace. Today that is gone, it’s called the Internet and you have the entire globe at your fingertips. That means you can be an expert at the transformers — a particular transformer (Bumble Bee anyone .. you know the one the movie was about), and do very well.
Own the edge, and opportunity will chase you
I have spent twenty three years working on inventing products; working with start-ups; venture capitalists; large global enterprise product teams, and scrum teams of college graduates chasing their passions in this internet crazed world. I can tell you right now — the nuances that are being created and marketed are outstanding and going to give huge value to the world at large. Albeit, a very fine slice of that world…. but, who is to complain if you get .01% of the world, that is 770,000 customers.
Not at a bad market of obsessed and unique clients. Serve your passion and niche market — the internet is your gateway.