This post follows on from Why you should never stack side jobs (circle of competence, part 1).
Why you should never stack side jobs - staying inside your circle of competence
Last time we looked at how much it matters to stay inside your circle of competence.
It’s hard to keep your eyes off whatever the world is shouting about, stocks, real estate, coins, app rewards. But now we know why the circle deserves the attention instead.
That post introduced the idea. Your circle of competence is what you do better than other people.
A whale’s circle of competence is swimming. Out of the water like this, it’s at a disadvantage.
Outside the circle is everything other people do better than you. Compete out there and you’re at a disadvantage. Compete strictly inside your own circle.
Today I’ll go over how to put that circle to work.
1. Map your circle accurately
Warren Buffett said this.
The size of that circle is not very important. Knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.
Your circle is narrower than you think.
Doing something about as well as everyone else doesn’t put it in the circle.
You have to be far better than other people for it to count.
To map the circle accurately, think of what you’re good at that other people can’t do.
Judge yourself that strictly and the circle shrinks. You also start noticing how often you’ve been playing a losing game outside of it. Knowing where the boundary sits lets you skip the competitions you were going to lose.
2. Grow your circle
If your circle is too narrow, you can widen it.
One warning here. Competing with a skill that’s still under construction puts you at a disadvantage.
Be careful about competing until the skill is actually competitive.
You don’t have to widen the circle, though. You can build it taller instead.
The same circle gets more competitive the higher you stack it.
Some restaurants are good enough for the neighborhood, and some pull customers in from across the country. Both are good restaurants, but their revenue differs by a digit or two. Depth of competence varies the same way from person to person.
The more competitive your circle, the bigger the reward.
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3. Buy what sits outside the circle
You don’t need to turn every skill into a competence.
Developing one costs something. So unless it’s a core skill, hand it to someone else or pay for it. The Eisenhower matrix says the same thing: delegate what’s urgent but not important. Handing that work off and putting your attention on what matters beats doing all of it yourself.
Do it myself? Or hand it off and focus on what matters?
The days you spent wrestling with a small repair, the 10 won you earned from an app, the few thousand won you shaved off by checking every shopping site. That may not be saving at all. It may be spending the time you needed to grow your circle. Delegate and buy what falls outside it.
What’s in your circle of competence?
And what have you decided to hand off?
Books and articles referenced
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The ONE Thing: https://www.amazon.com/ONE-Thing-Surprisingly-Extraordinary-Results/dp/1885167776
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Circle of competence, intro: https://blog.naver.com/jeunkim/223195237481
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Circle of competence, intro 2: https://jmagazine.joins.com/economist/view/325343
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Circle of competence, intro 3: https://fs.blog/circle-of-competence/