In this episode, we discuss how the intersection of many different talents can create fantastic opportunities for yourself.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about talent stacking. Talent stack is a concept where you stack different talents on top of each other so that you become the best within that niche. This was term coined by Adam Scott who created the comic strip Dilbert. If you look at Adam Scott, he is not the best drawer, he is not the funniest guy, and he was not the best business person. But he is the best at drawing comics that make jokes related to the office workspace. You don’t want to be the top one percent in your field, you want to be the top 20 percent in four to six different fields so that you can stack those talents on top of each other and become the best in that intersection of skills.
It really tough to become the best in one field. If you want to be the best basketball player in the world, that is going to be a grind. Lebron James one of the best basketball players in the world trains harder than everyone, and he spends over million dollars a year for his training with chefs and trainers. He probably practices a lot too. I remember hearing a story of Kobe Bryant who would wake up at 4 am or something like that to go train, then he would rest, and go back to training at 11 am, then he would rest again so that he could train one last time at 4 pm. Then he would watch tape of folks during half time and late at night. He was always focused on the sport of basketball and had little time for other things.
Playing in the NBA offers a lot of money to be the best at basketball and it comes with endorsement deals as well, but it’s a grind to be the best, which means you have to outperform the other 7 billion people on this planet. When do talent stacking and follow the path of Dilbert, it’s not a winner takes all scenario. It’s an infinity game where your pay-off is limitless. You don’t have to be the best comic strip to make a good living and there is no barrier to entry. You can get on Instagram right now and start posting your material. Then you can be hired to do some work for another business, you can sell some mug or t-shirts, and maybe some advertisements down the road. If you have the right set-up, you can even make more than Lebron James.
In other jobs, you don’t want to be the best lawyer or best doctor, you want to be a great lawyer or doctor, that is also great in other areas. What is comes down to is finding your niches since the riches are in niches. You can try to own the entire market as Google does with search engines but that is going to require a lot of capital, time, and will power to make that happen. If you want something easier, find an area where you don’t have to play the winner takes all game. With services, like restaurants, dentist, personal training, and landscaping, you don’t need to be the best within your field, there are still lots of profits to be made by offering your services to people. You just need to make sure you’re in the right niche.
For me, I’m focusing on doing financial planning for Latino Professionals which also adds a development coaching component to it. I give business advice for business owners and I can tell people how to grow emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically so they can have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances. Thee is not many Latinos in my profession and I can do pretty well if I focus my niche on Latino Professionals. To help me become a better financial planner, I read a bunch of different books, I’ve taken improv classes, I’ve taken storytelling classes, and I’ve even written some jokes to become funnier. I’m not trying to become the best any one of those particular fields, but pretty good so that I have a pretty good talent stack going.
If you combined fast typing with Microsoft office skills, with any other job, you can become pretty good at your job. So your talents don’t have to be solely from your mind. If you’re really good at using Canva and using Facebook ads then you can apply that to a bunch of other fields because those can help you with marketing. I use Canva and Facebook ads all the time and I’m getting better at it but it is something that I really don’t enjoy so I’ll be delegating that task to someone else in the future. But being a level 4 in these skills helps me get started with the business. So whatever field you’re in, you can still use your level 4 skills to help you reach the next level. Then once you reach that level, you can decide what you want to focus on skill-wise. Maybe you get rid of skill, double down on one, or add a completely new one to help reach the next level or stay at the current level you’re at.
I would spend at least one hour every week trying to learn something new. Do it at work if you can or Saturday or Sunday Morning. This will ensure that you at least exploring what you should add to your talent stack. If you can’t do every week, then at least do something every month. Your development as a person is crucial and will help you gain new opportunities in the future.
Since you don’t have to be the best in one field, this will give you the opportunity to explore other things as well. For me to take the improv classes, I paid about $240 for six weeks of classes that went for two hours every Sunday at 11 am. Not a huge time commitment but these classes helped me out a lot. For the Story Telling class, I think I paid about $100 to take a 6-hour workshop. These are training activities that I’ve done that have more than paid for themselves.
If you’re looking for a short cut in life, try to find a place where no one else is competing yet. For me and providing Financial Planning to Professional Latinos, it’s going to take some work but once I get going, I know I can live a pretty good life just focusing on this niche. You can have a pretty good niche too if you just find your 1000 true fans in this world that will pay you $9 a month. If you can do this, then you’ll have over $100,000 in revenue for yourself. You don’t need everyone to like you in the world of 7.7 billion people, you just need 1000 people and that should be attainable for a lot of folks.
This takes some work because you need to build up your skills to be in the top 20% of that category but it will take you a lot faster to get to that point than becoming the number one person in that field. Then what if you spend all that time trying to be the number one person in the field and you fall short? That could be a lot of wasted time. On the other hand, being number two in something can also be a good spot to be in as well. It all depends on what you’re trying to do and who you want to be in life.
That’s it for today’s episode, and to summarize it, talent stacking is something that is going to help you out in the future. I spend the next month adding a new skill to your life, you can then stack your other talents on top of each other in order to be the best at the intersection of all your skills. Your pool of skills should then tell you where your niche should be and you have to remember that the riches lie in niches. Talent stacking has helped me out and hopefully, you start working on your stack this week or month.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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