Inform Yourself

My good friend Jay Niblick , founder of Innermetrix International, recently completed a study called The Genius Project. His study became the basis for his latest book, What’s Your Genius?

This is the second part regarding the why success is so rare.

Instead of trying to be good at lots of things, pick something that you love and are very good at and figure out how to become even more specialized in that area, and how to make a living at it.

“I don’t know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone”
Bill Cosby

The diagram below illustrates the concept of increasing performance by decreasing scope. Notice how the more specialized you become, the greater your chances of success are. I need to point out that this is not the result of any empirical study, but something very noticeable as a trend in those we’ve worked with.

Levels of Performance Scope/Specialization
_ Level 1 - Below Average/Poor (very broad, no specialization)
_ Level 2 - Average
_ Level 3 - Above Average/Good
_ Level 4 - Excellent
_ Level 5 – Genius (very focused and specialized)

The higher the level of performance rises, the narrower the scope or specialization becomes. Meaning: reaching the 5th Level of performance means becoming as specialized as you can.

When Marshall Goldsmith set out to establish his professional niche, he wanted to be the world expert in one very specific area, so he chose a very small focus that added exclusivity to what he did (i.e., coaching successful executives, typically in the Fortune 500, to be even better). By doing so not only did he reduce his competition but more importantly his specialization allowed him to occupy a space (role) that depended almost exclusively on his talents.

Your task in becoming more authentic is to prune your role to become more exclusive, more rare - more specialized. In so doing, at the same time you prune your dependence on non-talents and leave your success dependent only on that which you naturally do very well. You in effect create a strengths-based reality.

To help you determine how you can become more specialized, list your industry below and any sub-categories that exist in that industry. If you can’t think of any that’s great because here is your chance to create some. If you get stuck here’s some tips. Look at others to see how they have managed to specialize in their own niche:

Who in your industry is considered an expert?

Who do you know that specializes in anything?

What is one area of your industry that is very complicated or in high demand?

If you can’t think of anything within your industry, could you become a consultant to that industry, thus creating a specialization in the consulting industry?

My Industry:

Industry Sub-Categories (areas within that Industry that could be considered a specialty):

Based on what you have learned from your Genius Profile, which of the Subcategories above could you specialize in? Which parts of your industry do you find more enjoyable, exciting, interesting and in which parts have you found that you are just plain “better”?