Do What You’re Great At, Not What You’re Good At
Sam Nazarian is a business tycoon. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s a big time business mogul in LA whose company sbe (Sammy Boy Entertainment) owns some of the most successful restaurants, nightclubs and hotels in LA, New York and Miami. His restaurant and nightclub concepts have huge hype in LA, perhaps in no small part due to their prominent featuring on The Hills, Keeping Up with the Kardashians and other reality shows. The first big TV appearance Nazarian ever made was of him boarding a private jet to Las Vegas with Heidi Montag to review his plans to renovate the Sahara hotel (which, more than three years later, sits closed and waiting to begin those renovations). In terms of strategy, he couldn’t have made a better public debut. His bread and butter market is Los Angeles, and he was shown on The Hills lightly mocking Heidi and looking extremely powerful and poised. Smart.
But what’s more impressive was Nazarian’s refinement of his business strategy. For a few years, sbe had a production company, Element Films, and was producing films with success, including the movies Mr. Brooks (a great movie) and Waiting. But Nazarian shuttered his film business even though it was doing well. His talents in business were developing and executing lifestyle brands in hotels, nightclubs and restaurants. His brands exude exclusivity, which LA types love. His every venture attracts celebrities and he works with the best in every aspect of his business, from Philippe Stark in design to José Andrés for dining. He has brand marketing down pat in an industry where restaurants can only be cool for a few years and nightclubs are lucky if they last a few months (one key to sbe’s success is that its nightclubs are often rebranded and redesigned to stay extra trendy). So even though he enjoyed the film business, he ultimately decided to end it, explaining it this way: “You have to do what you’re great at, not what you’re good at.”
It’s pretty simple but powerful advice. Have you found what you are great at? Are you constantly refining that work and making it better? Sometimes you don’t need a complicated business plan or sophisticated media planning to get yourself going. You’ll need those things eventually, but for an idea of yours to be successful, you should be able to look at the heart of it and say, “I’m great at this. I can do this better than I can do anything else.”
What do you guys think? Have you found what you’re great at? What if you’re great at something but you don’t like doing it? Does that still count as being great? For me personally, I know I love to write but I’m not sure I’m great at it. I think I am great at developing ideas and turning them into something bigger. I think that’s still kind of vague so I’m still working on my “great thing”. Let me know yours!
Good Post – I think for some people it takes a long time to find what they are great at, or to realise what specifically it is that they are great at. I guess some people never find it.
I agree though, the world is a more competitive place than ever – it’s the only way to truly make it big.
I think I’m pretty great at spending money…too bad I wasn’t born a Rockefeller!
Seriously though, I think sometimes good is good enough. Sad to say, but not everyone can be great, if they were then great would just be good right?
Even so, I think everyone should strive to be great. Sometimes the act of trying to achieve greatness is great in itself.
interesting thought…
unfortunately for me, the things i am *great* at don’t seem to offer many prospects for income: water polo, scrabble, playing EA Sports NHL hockey games..
the things i am good at, however, have paid the bills so far in life: figuring out computer issues, writing, etc
It takes guts to dedicate yourself to greatness at the expense of good, but profitable ventures.
@jefferson – I hear ya. I wrote a post once about finding passions and ways to monetize seemingly “worthless” passions. (it’s the url linked to this comment). It’s not comprehensive, but I’d semd some time spending some time checking out how others make $$ with those passions. Combined with your computer/writing skills you could definitely make some money.
Just think… scrabble + computers = words with friends. So someone’s making millions with scrabble greatness…
Interesting. I’m not trying to be a bummer, but I don’t think I’m really great at anything. I’m young, so I guess I’ll find something I’m great at eventually, it maybe it will be my chosen career path once I get more comfortable with it and have more experience.
The word ‘great’ is subjective. You can work at something that you are good at and become great. The key is to focus on your strengths. For example, with my websites I used to try to do everything myself…programming, design, content writing, marketing, etc. Eventually I realized that my designs were lousy and my programming was subpar. I realized that to really get to where I wanted, I had to embrace outsourcing and focus on the areas I was better at. It freed up my time and produced an all around better product.
Wow, you guys are making some awesome points. I think I should have mentioned that this is an idea for when you have A LOT of different things to take on, like Jeremy says in the comment above. You can’t do all of them really well, but you can focus on the areas where you can get better and work with a team to take care of the rest. Nazarian is the big time, but we can do what he does too. My site is about interesting idea topics, NOT an in-depth guide to IRAs. I’d rather give people a link on that topic than try to be some one-stop shop on everything finance (hmm, although, maybe someday!).
But I think you guys made the point better than I did
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Daisy- you ARE young. Are you 23? You are way ahead of me when I was 23. It takes me forever to figure things out sometimes and even move forward on an idea. I like blogging because it’s pushing me to move faster in other areas of my life as well. I think you will definitely the things you are good at and can become great at!
I am still trying to figure this out. What are my real strengths? I know for one I am great with people and network really well. I try to use this in my existing job right now. I am also high energy so I can handle a large workload.
I think finding what you are great at is a life’s journey because you are always learning and improving.
Definitely! I like that perspective. I am still finding a lot of things out about myself…
I’m pretty good at a number of things. I definitely get me by. Watch out though, if I ever get great at something I’ll definitely be out making money off of it.
[...] American Debt Project posts Do What You’re Great at Not What You’re Good At. [...]
How do we figure out what we are great at though, and make sure we aren’t being delusional?
@jefferson —
I thought I posted a comment to this yesterday, so if it suddenly appears, sorry for the duplicate.
I just wanted to mention, with Jefferson’s greatness in mind that there are certainly ways to make money off of passions that don’t seem to equate with money – especially with Jefferson’s computer skills.
You’re great at scrabble? Well someone just made a TON of money with scrabble. Scrabble + computer skills = words with friends!
(I posted about finding ways to monetize odd passions a while back – http://www.stepawayfromthemall.com/2011/12/finding-your-passion-four-questions.html. Very 30,000 feet, but maybe it would help.).
Nick, your first comment fell into spam, but I approved it because both comments had some good points and they weren’t really duplicate!
Sam- That’s a good point. I think Jeremy (Modest Money) says it best above. Great is subjective- but we can become great if we can find the things we are good at. It’s NOT the same thing as finding your passion, because I would bet that Sam Nazarian was passionate about movies, most people who can afford to finance and produce movies are usually great at making money elsewhere and they now have the means to do something they love (and attract hot young actresses as a bonus). But the point was that Nazarian cut back his production activities because even though he was good at it, he was great elsewhere and there are already a lot of people who are very very good at making movies. So how do we find what we can be great at? It’s definitely a journey of figuring out what capabilities you have that you can develop and being realistic, like you said. I’m a good tennis player, but it would be unrealistic for me to want to turn pro at 28. So spending all my time trying to train like professional athlete doesn’t make sense. But spending a chunk of time everyday taking something with potential (like my eBay business) into something much bigger with better marketing, supplies and logistics? Now that makes sense!
That’s a great quote. I’ve learned this the hard way, as I started off in freelance writing tech articles – not exactly my forte, but they paid the bills. I’d add that you also have to do what you’re passionate about. If your heart isn’t in it, it’ll only get you so far.
I know not everyone has something they’re great at, but I think those people just haven’t dared to be great yet. To become great takes work and the ability to free yourself from the fear of failure. One of my favorite quotes came from Steve Jobs. How cliche, I know, but he was daring.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
That is a great quote that bears repeating! Loved it.
Unfortunately, I know that I’m great at my full-time job. But just because I’m great at it doesn’t mean I’m a good worker or even a happy worker. It just means that I found a job that I can do.
I think it’s hard for us to objectively define what we’re great at, especially as it comes to talents like writing or drawing. I can tell you concretely that I’m great at Name That Tune but I don’t think I’m a great writer. The difference between the two is that there is proof for being good at Name That Tune but what’s the proof for being a good writer?
Great questions!
[...] from American Debt Project said that we should Do What You’re Great At, Not What You’re Good At. I totally agree…now I just have to find what I’m great at (and get paid for [...]
I think for me it’s trying to figure out how to enjoy the things I’m “great” at. I’ve been told I’m very good (even great) at my current day job, but I can’t imagine being able to sustain working there for more then the next year or so. There are other things I’m good at and really enjoy, so I guess like Jeremy said, I need to focus on how I can turn “good” into “great”.