Stacking the deck in your favor

Starting with the right foot.

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Greetings friend.

Welcome to a new month. 6th month of the year. They call it June.

Since it’s a new month, we’re starting a new series.

The previous posts were to equip and get you prepared when you’re out in the field practicing and getting results.

This time we’ll see how to start taking directed action to get those results.

So, let’ssssss get it started… in hereeeeee.

Main quest 🛡

Now that we’ve addressed the main pitfalls we can encounter along the way, it’s time to shift focus to the action.

As we’ve talked several times before, getting pretty damn good at one particular skill won’t cut it anymore. You gotta pool together your natural abilities and talents with what you’ve learned along the way and create a combination that’s particular to you.

It’s what I’ve named “Skill Stacking” and what’s been giving people results whether they’re aware of it or not.

(And if you want to review that concept, here’s the OG post about it 😉 )

Now, you might have already a solid understanding of what you’re good at, have many different interests that you’ve pursued, or have just done work in an area without thinking much what you can do outside of it.

It is important to know that whether you realize or not, there are several skills and abilities you have used in the past even if you weren’t consciously practicing them.

Those skills and abilities form the base from where you do better work or prepare yourself for something greater.

And when opportunities come, they can either find you well positioned to take ‘em or they can slip by without you noticing.

The difference is you taking action to get those opportunities (or even influencing the environment to make them happen) instead of waiting for them to come by.

A great way to do that is having a particular skill stack. It’s like equipping yourself with the right tools and the practice before going out on a mission.

An example of that is the story I shared last year, where I became the lead engineer + technical partner of a company working on an AI avatar.

I didn’t search for the role in the traditional way.

The role wasn’t advertised in any job board (heck, I wasn’t even looking for a job. I was busy working in a few projects).

The opportunity came and I was the only right fit for the task not because I was the “best” technical candidate. It was because I had a particular combination of technical knowledge, startup experience, product sense, and marketing chops developed over the past several years.

That’s an opportunity that a “classical” specialist couldn’t have taken.

And while that can look like a once-in-a-lifetime chance that just a few “very lucky” ones can get… there’s a way to get opportunities like those. A “method behind the madness” if you will.

Mining the story

When serendipity happens, we have no involvement on that current moment. What we can do, however, is to prepare the field for those times to happen more often.

And one of the ways to do so is through curiosity.

I already talked before about the combinations that can emerge by exploring your interests and taking time to follow your curiosity even if it doesn’t make sense at the moment.

And if you remember from that post, I referenced Steve Job’s quote of “connecting the dots”.

In hindsight, it makes sense how the dots connected so I could get the role. But it only happens when looking back (which doesn’t help when we’re trying something new, or getting into a different area).

You can read that post again if you want the details to start pattern matching.

The important part here is that this applies to all of us. Most haven’t paid enough attention to it.

Now with the whole talk of AI going to “replace all workers” and the “end of work”, some people think they need to do crazy or radically different activities to get a shot in the new economy.

WHat’s more important, and I’d say more useful, is to think:

What have you already done well? What have you built or created that’s been useful to others?

Your stack might already be there, just unrecognized. You haven’t paid attention to the connecting threads between the roles you’ve had, the activities you’ve done, how you’ve helped others but dismissed it because it came easy to you so you would think “it’s not that valuable”.

That’s the real gold right there.

The “Dot Audit”

Here’s a practical exercise for you to try.

It’s the first step of a practice I use with the folks I’ve personally worked with.

You are going to pull up your favorite note-taking app, a notebook or a whiteboard (if you like being more ol’ school).

And you’re going to list every skill, interest, talent, or domain you’ve spent meaningful time in. Ask a couple of friends of family members to help you out with what you might not remember or deem not useful.

Put it all in there without judgement or filtering. Even if it’s an “useless talent”. Go ahead and list it out, don’t censor yourself. We’re going to give it some order in the next time we talk.

So take your time today, tomorrow, this coming week, and get it together.

Next weekend you’ll see how that blob of random things will start taking shape. 😉

Experiments 🧪

This week’s experiment was related to what I’ve told you before of having a “properp setup”.

Even though I wasn’t consciously “experimenting” I can look back and see that the days I was able to get a lot done… was because I had clear goals, had the space in mind and time, etc.

And then there were other days where I had meetings that took most of the morning and then the afternoon went by in a flash.

But I can say that this previous week didn’t go by in a blur like others before. I was able to get some time to tackle down priorities and making progress even with the usual misc tasks that creep up.

To consider 🤔

Take some time and do the “dot audit” for your particular story. Put it somewhere safe cause we’re going to be using it for next weekend’s quest. 😎

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That’s it for this week.

Hope you enjoyed and found it useful.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

I’m gonna go take care of some animals. 🐄

Talk soon.

Cheers,

Juan.