Oye amigos,

Good news! An email not about Black Friday Offers. I had intended to give the whole manic buying spree a big miss this year as, after all, you get a 100% discount on the things you don't buy.

But I succumbed after receiving a price alert on the DeWalt hedge trimmer I've been after, and so went my principles.

I went with the bare option but my mate Marius, who has a plethora of DeWalt batteries still buys new tools with battery and charger and then flogs them to end up with the bare option even cheaper. Makes sense.

💪 The Talent Stack & The Power of The Generalist

If like me you don't feel you have any stand-out talent, this might make you feel a whole lot better about it.

---

You've got to feel for tennis players. Imagine being in the top few hundred at a certain skill IN THE WORLD and making next to nothing. That's harsh by any standards but seems even worse considering how popular tennis is.

In tennis, you have to be really specialised (top 100) to make good money but the same specialism = reward is true for more common areas of work. Doctors, dentists, lawyers and software engineers make far above the average wage.

But what if you have no speciality or particular stand-out strength? Or perhaps you don't want to do the same thing for 40 years 🙋? Enter the Talent Stack.

---

Instead of being really great at one thing, you instead become reasonably competent at two or more different things. Once you stack and combine these talents the result can be as unique as someone who's spent years obtaining their PHD in a narrow field.

Perhaps you're above average at both writing and gardening - you could write a book on gardening. They'll be plenty of better writers and gardeners than you but very few who can compete in the gardening book niche.

If I use my Youtube related stuff as a personal example. Even if we put the DIY stuff to one side, this has required stacking a bunch of other skills:

Understanding camera settings and framing shots, video editing, writing, narration, audio, website design, SEO, simplifying complexity, storytelling, marketing, social media, thumbnail design...the list goes on. 

I'm really not very good at any one of these things (perhaps being able to simplify and explain stuff is my best skill) but I've learnt a bit about all of them and put them all together into something that has had some results*. I continue to improve at each of them and add more on top but I've had countless emails from people guessing my profession, swearing I must be/have been a carpenter, graphic designer, or more recently, in finance. Nope, but I appreciate the vote of confidence!

The trouble of course is that the world is set up for specialists and as companies grow and swallow others, being a special cog in the machine is how we're valued. To make the jack-of-all-trades system useful you either have to be:

• a CEO type where knowledge of different areas of the business is helpful...but you will likely have had to have been a specialist in the past.
• work in start-ups where they don't yet have all the cogs in place so your value is in being able to wear many different hats...but you'll likely need to jump ship as each start up grows or fails.
• or go your own way.

I think the last one, entrepreneurship, while hardest is the best option to take and you may be able to find your niche by finding an insight at the intersection between the varying disciplines you've become above average at. I'm still figuring it out but hopefully this is inspiring to all the generalists amongst you!

Incidentally, can you guess what my favourite use of a garden room is? Business premises. Amazon, Google, Apple and countless other massive companies started out in garages after all.

*The channel passed 50k subs this week. A big thank you to you all for watching the past few years. Perhaps if I'd been more consistent and treated it more like a business and less like a hobby I'd have gone further, faster. Still, a moment to be proud of ☺️.

🥾 Hiking

The past week has been a little overcast and drizzly so we haven't been doing as much as we did the previous week but Abi was kind enough to offer to take the baby for the day so I could go hiking in the mountains solo. It's been a long time since I've struck out on my own and I must say it was fabulous going at my own faster pace, climbing up rocks and exploring dried up water courses.

Growing up, I remember feeling distinctly disappointed finding out that the world had been (pretty much) fully explored, that over the horizon had been seen many times by many people already. Still, it's fun to pretend I'm an intrepid explorer.

👋

Merry December to you!

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

P.s. If you think a friend will enjoy this newsletter, feel free to send them this link where they can sign up.

P.p.s. You can find all previous newsletters here.