Leap Walking

If you want to get ahead in life, specialize. Don’t generalize.

Take it from me – I’m jack of all trades, master of none.

I do fairly good pencil portraits. I used to freelance doing graphic design. I also used to play in a college rock band, fronting the vocals and rhythm guitars. I founded a college newsletter when I was 18. I’m quite good at resume writing. I absolutely love writing and I maintain 2 blogs. I’m a software engineer by profession, but I also am a certified project manager from PMI. I have experience in more than 2 dozen software languages. Now I’m thinking of building a social network. And writing an e-book. And offering resume writing services. On top of that, I think I’m pretty okay in husband-wife relationships. And in children education. And cars. Oh, and I scuba dive.

I’ve never had a problem thinking about ideas. The problem is getting them to work. There are only a few ideas that have really taken off the floor, and that only happened because the conditions were appropriate. One of them was the college newsletter I founded, Taylor’s College ADP’s “Flipside”. As far as I know, it is still in operation today. By my time with college newsletters is far gone.

Everything else I’ve started hasn’t gone very far. Some are still standing, but getting it to the next level requires real dedication, and I’m too interested in too many things to pursue one thing for a long period of time. A lot of this has led to burn-outs. I’m making a decision today to make the change.

If you’re young, and you want to get ahead in life, generalize enough to get the job done, and spend more time specializing. Choose ONE thing that is close to your heart, and defines you best as a person. It could be something that’s related to your current job, or not. It doesn’t matter. In the course of time, this is that ONE thing that will remain part of you no matter what.

For me, it really has to do with computers. And the Internet. And design. These three things put together are really all I have really cared about in my life, from the very start.

It’s not about service to the world. It’s not about earning big bucks. But it’s something people should know you for, and something you’ll feel confident being associated with, for better or for worse. It’s like marriage, but it’s a profession, not a relationship.

If you’ve already started asking yourself HOW you should be generalizing, don’t worry – it’s really simple.

Just choose not to do anything that’s not related to that ONE thing you want to specialize in.

If you want to specialize in art, forget being an expert chef. If you want to be the world’s best pet enthusiast, forget about being the world’s best accountant.

I’m not trying to dumb down your strengths. I’m sure, with the proper dedication and time, you’ll get to be all that you can be. But there’s not enough time in the world to do everything.

My aunt used to say, “anything, but not everything”. And she’s right. You’ve got the passion, but you don’t have time.

Don’t get sidetracked. You have only one life. Choose the right battles. Make the memories count.

Don’t waste it by diluting the experience with too many things.

Resources:

• Expand your opportunities by finding a specialty
• Take the risk of specializing in order to stand out

I currently work in South East Asia, where the people around me are predominantly Asian. There’s a cultural stigma that seems to glorify traditional roles as they go – technicians, engineers, people managers, salespeople, big bosses. It helps to keep things simple and straightforward, but can get in the way of improvements, sometimes.

There aren’t many “custom” job roles, here. If any, they’re not the norm, and it would be difficult to find people with specialized skills – particularly because people don’t want to specialize.

Usability engineering is one such role. The demand for usability engineers in the country where I work is close to none. This is a stark comparison to the West. But my point isn’t about usability. It’s about its departure from “traditional” jobs such as software development or technical support, and that some jobs (and increasingly more jobs) are better suited for some people than others.

Being an INTP, my role as an engineer seems to fit like a glove. I’ve managed to bring benefit to the company by leveraging on my strengths. But I wonder how many people find themselves doing something that doesn’t quite match up.

Penelope Trunk thinks that it’s not about doing what you love, but doing what you are, that’s important. And she’s right – love can be temporary. It’s much better to do things that are a natural fit for you.

It doesn’t help that some jobs pay much more than others, either. Just because CEOs have high salaries doesn’t mean that I should strive to be one. There’s much more to a job than the salary, and I’m a firm believer that it would be increasingly difficult to advance if choices were made based on what jobs we wanted to climb up to, for money’s sake.

I do observe, however, that companies are more willing to explore new job roles these days, and are willing to allow employees to introduce improvements and ease into specializations that will benefit the company in the long run. This means that it’s possible for someone to carve out a niche role – and be rewarded for it.

This can especially happen to people who do a lot of pioneering work. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from taking the initiative to do something different and beneficial for the company – even if it’s potentially out of the job scope.

Specialization is a good thing to have these days.