The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

What’s the Future: Master of your Craft or Renaissance Man?

In this episode we revisit the great debate on talent, discuss listener feedback and explore two types of career paths. Is the future going to be about becoming a master of your craft or will you need to be a jack of all trades? Here are some of the highlights from our chat

The importance of getting clear on what projects you’ll be working on
Leveraging talent to overcome a lack of resources
Why grit and discipline still matter but may not be sufficient
Finding the balance between optimism and delusion
The question of whether there is a future for multipotentialites
Why having talent in multiple areas is unlikely for most people
Finding areas of mastery that with overlapping elements
Translating our creative skills into the world of life and work
The debate of whether or not we should diversify our skills
Dealing with an economy in which skills become obsolete
How not dabbling completely changed our business

People and Resources

Troy Carter: Fired by Lady Gaga and Loving It

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Broadcast on:: 24 Jan 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to unmistakablecreative.com/lifepurpose. In spite of all our communication technology, no invention is as effective as the sound of the human voice. When we hear the human voice, we instinctively want to listen in the hopes of understanding it, even when the speaker is searching for the right words to say. This is because the human voice resonates differently from everything else in the world. This is the unmistakable creative podcast. 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Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron. We donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's we call home. To help improve lives in our shared backyard. What's in Seattle, you're in Seattle, you're finally adjusting back to a normal life, right? Kind of, yeah, I'm doing outside of this show, I'm pretty much in a full-on digital detox hardly online at all, rarely checking email, turn off my phone for several hours a day. It's kind of nice, you know? And yeah, I'm up in Seattle working on a few businesses that I have up here. I'll tell you, I've actually been consolidating quite a bit, I've sold my position in four different businesses, backed out of another project that I was about to start, that would have been a two-year project and really, really getting clear about what matters to me and what I'm going to do going forward and what my next project will be. You know, most people who know me on this show probably know me because of $10 in the laptop, you know, the project I did in the last three years, but that's not the only project that I've done. I mean, before that I did "Why Waste a Good Recession", before that I did a couple of other different projects. So, you know, I'm always looking at what's my next creative project while I'm building my businesses, but right now it's all about consolidation and rest and no, and very little digital contact, which is nice. Yeah, I bet. I wish I could say the same. Yeah, it's exactly the opposite for you. Yeah, there's no way. It's literally the opposite for me. I mean, I am constantly inundated with interesting things all day long, but, you know, I think that, believe it or not, that makes a perfect setup to talk about kind of, you know, what we had discussed last week, you know, we had had this really interesting debate about whether or not talent matters in your ability to succeed, and a lot of you guys wrote in, you know, with some really amazing feedback. So we want to actually discuss the feedback, and I think that, you know, talking about, you know, tying 10-lap into this feedback from Holly might actually be a perfect way to really get a bit more in-depth discussion. She says, you know, what if talent or intelligence act as an amplifier, and can you do more with less if you have talent? And I think, in my mind, you know, 10-lap is a perfect example of that. Yeah, well, there's a few things there. I think it does act as an amplifier, and I think you stand out when you have talent. You know, and I think there was another gentleman who wrote in that said, you know, talent isn't enough, you know, it won't get you anywhere if you don't also have, you know, grit and discipline and other things, and I agree with that, and I think that the debate for me last week was really about this idea, if can anyone study something, can anyone throw themselves into something and be successful at it, and I personally think the answer is no. And I also think that talent matters a lot. Talent and intelligence matter a lot. I mean, you know, you're constantly asking that question in every episode on the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, you ask what separates those that are at the top of their game and everyone else trying to be. And in my mind, it's talent and intelligence. That's what separates them. It's not grit and hard work and dedication and those sorts of things. I know plenty of people who work very hard. I know plenty of people who have that kind of grit, but they just don't have that talent. They don't have that level of intelligence. And that, to me, you know, as I was saying last week, that was the thing that I was learning through $10 into laptop that surprised me. It surprised me that my hypothesis, which was anyone could do anything that resourcefulness would outweigh any amount of resources, I was wrong. I really felt like I was wrong on that. And so I do think talent is an amplifier, but I also think that not anyone can do anything. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, you know, by the time you guys are listening to this, you'll have heard our interview with a woman named Danny Shapiro. It's the Wednesday episode, and she's made her living as a writer for 20 years. And at the end of it, you know, I asked her this very same question. She's the first person who ever said, "Nobody wants to hear this because it's not very inspiring, but talent plays a big role." Yeah. And that was the thing for me. I didn't want to hear that either. I didn't want to hear that I couldn't just go out and help anyone, that anyone that came to me and said, "Greg, I need help. I want to do X, Y, or Z. I just need to be shown how to do it." I thought, "Okay, if you had the right information and you developed the right skill set, you could do it." And what I learned was, no, that's actually not the case. And I think it's still up for debate, which is why we've had these conversations and why it's awesome that people wrote in and shared their thoughts. But that's just what I've learned so far is that that's not the case. Well, I think that Gina writes in something that I think really is a fitting compliment to what you're talking about. She says, "I think it's a terrible thing that parents tell their children you can be anything you want when you grow up. I was never going to be a singer." I mean, she had a very lengthy piece of feedback that she sent us, but to me, that was the part that really stood out, which I think really speaks to exactly what you're talking about. What do you think about that? I have to agree. I mean, I'm not a parent, and so I don't know what you should or shouldn't do with your child because you can't crush their dreams, yet I tend to agree with that. I tend to agree that you can't do whatever you want to do. I mean, the bottom line is is that I'm never going to be able to dunk a basketball. It's just a fact that's a scientifically proven fact, and yet, and thankfully, I didn't have people telling me my whole life, "You can do it. You can do it. Just put in enough effort. Just go out there every day and practice. That's BS. I'm never going to be able to do that, period." I'm never going to serve the bonsai pipeline either. I think there's this fine line between having dreams and aspirations and reality. That's a tough place to be, because I don't know what the right answer is there, but there is a certain level of reality that has to be factored in. Yeah, I remember I was listening to Zig Ziglar's goal setting program, and he says he's like there are people who will tell you with positive thinking, you can accomplish anything. He said that's not positive thinking. That's new age thinking. He said Shaquille O'Neal, the most positive thinker in the world, but he would be an absolute failure as a ballet dancer. Yeah, and that's where I think that if you're talented and you're born with certain gifts or certain level of intelligence, and you think positive about whatever it is you want to achieve, then you will likely achieve it. But I think the key there is and, not or, and to me that's the difference. Well, if I tried to go out and surf the bonsai pipeline thinking positively, I would probably get washed up on shore injured. You need the skill to be able to do something that deadly and dangerous. Well, and you need to be born with certain abilities. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, so one other thing about this, you know, I mean, it's where do you find the balance, man? Like, I mean, on the one hand, you don't want to crush your kid's dreams. I mean, but let's face it. I mean, like I knew, you know, growing up, I was never going to be the next Michael Jackson. Like, my dad, you know, never said, hey, you know, you can dance, you can sing. It was like, clearly you have none of those talents. Don't do any of those things, you know, and I mean, even, even despite my tuba playing, my dad was like, I don't see a future in music for you, which he was probably right. I mean, what was like, you know, to be a tuba player, somebody in an orchestra has to die. Like, that's how the job opens up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know. That's the thing is, I don't know where that balance is, you know, I, because I sometimes feel really bad about this, because on one hand, I want to be encouraging to people. And then on the other hand, I wonder if I'm contributing to the misery of their life. Honestly, you know, honestly, I sometimes wonder that, you know, if, if, if, and yet, you know, on, on one hand, I mean, how many times have we heard the story of the very talented person who was told they couldn't do something who went on to do it, you know, I mean, Michael Jordan was cut from his junior high basketball team. So, so I'm not suggesting for a second that, that, that doesn't happen as well, you know, there's plenty of super talented people that are told by other people in their life. You can't do this or don't pursue this, but that's to me is different because they did, you know, Michael Jordan did have that basketball talent. So anyone that told him that was just flat out wrong in their assessment of him. And that's different than somebody who truly doesn't have that basketball talent that you say, Hey, you might want to give up on that dream. So I don't know. I mean, that's the classic example of the starving actor and everyone else. I mean, I don't know what the, I don't know what the balance is. I just don't know. Well, you know, what we want to hear your feedback on this, not on whether talent does matter, but you know, when do you give up on a dream? Let us know. I mean, especially your parents out there. You know, what do you tell your children about things like this unmistakable creative dot com slash contact? We'd love to hear your feedback on this. Yeah, I'm really curious to see what people have to say about that. Well, let's talk about what's going on this week. I mean, you know, now that we've talked a lot about talent, one of the things that we, we've been kind of noticing, you know, the sort of trending throughout the web and just in general is this sort of idea. Well, I mean, it's the idea of the multi-potentially, right? Like there's these people who have multiple interests and, you know, people are like, oh, you don't have to settle on one thing and become good at one thing. And yet we just had an interview with a woman who talked about mastering her craft. And then, you know, and then you have, you know, it's, there's two, you know, sort of two sides to this argument. Like somebody is saying you're not defined by this one thing. You can be multi-talented and make a living in multiple ways. And where this really came from is there's an article on Fast Company. 80 Gaga's, you know, former manager is no longer with her. And it turns out that while he was managing her, he did all these other things. Like he was an investor in multiple startups, you know, he's been involved in a bunch of different things. And so this is, it's kind of an interesting debate. Like, do you become a master of the crafter? Do you, you know, become a jack of all trades? Yeah, it is because we live in such an interesting world where you clear, it's clearly very difficult to have a career path with the exception of very, you know, there's a handful of careers that that's still possible in America at least. And, and yet, and yet if you never truly develop a skill at, at a, at a very deep level, you're going to struggle anyway. And so this is another one of those debates where, where is the line? I don't know, you know, I mean, one of the people I admire most is Pharrell Williams. And he's actually, he was actually on the cover, I think of that Fast Company magazine that you're referring to. And they talk, they talk about him being a Renaissance man, you know, because he, you know, he's, he writes music, he produces records, he, he has a clothing line and clothing label. He's got all these different things that he's, his hand is in. And to me, it goes back to kind of the talent debate where you look at somebody like that, who has their hand in many different things, who's not just mastering one craft. And, and when I look at it, I, I think that he has the capability to do that because he's highly talented. He was born with certain gifts that allow him to do that. I don't think most people can do that. I don't think most of us, most of us need to really hone a skill before we can move on to something else. And then if we never master that skill, we're going to struggle to, to make it. And so I tend to lean on the Cal Newport side, who we've had on our show, who, who talks a lot about the idea of be so good, they can't ignore you. And the whole idea of master your craft to the point where you can't be ignored. You are that good at the craft. You know, we have somebody like Malcolm Gladwell out there who talks about the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft. 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Now go to bombas.com/acast and use code ACAST for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com/acast and use code ACAST at checkout. Yeah, see this is an interesting debate for me. He was asking me about this the other day when I was being interviewed. I kind of feel like I fall kind of somewhere in between. I agree that you have to be good at something like, I mean, I've refined the craft of interviewing, but I think that to me, to grow as an interviewer, I think that doing other things actually mattered. So, I guess I'm not going to make a living drawing, but I can't tell you that doing those drawings didn't influence a lot of things. That 30-day drawing project sparked a lot of ideas which have made their way into what is now the unmistakable creative. The idea of working with Sarah probably wouldn't have come to my mind if I hadn't been teaching myself how to draw. Yeah, but let me ask you this, do you feel that, because I think those are two different things, I think one is, is you're sparking the creative energy in your brain to explore new endeavors and that give you a creative outlet for your own craft. It makes you a better interviewer, it makes you build your business better, but you couldn't go out and make a living doing that, you just said. No, I couldn't. So, that's the difference where you're talking about Lady Gaga's manager who went out and made a living doing other things. So he didn't do those other things to become a better manager. He did those other things to make a living doing them, and if you look at somebody like Pharrell Williams, the same thing, he made a living being a record producer, he made a living having a clothing line, he made a living doing other things, and to me that's the difference. If you want to go and have hobbies that help you become better at what you do, that's one thing, but if you want to make a living at certain things, I think you have to master your craft. Yeah. Unless you're super talented. Well, here's the thing, I think that if you master one craft, I think that, like, here's what's interesting to me, I think that the skill of mastering something in and of itself could translate to other things. Because if you can master one craft, I think that you have an innate talent for mastering things. Granted, like I said, I don't agree. Go ahead. I don't know. I mean, I think, for example, the skill of interviewing is not going to translate to me going and surfing the Bonsai pipeline. Like I'm not going to be surfing 70 foot waves because I've become a good interviewer. But I think there are certain elements of what I've learned from this, like just certain practices that would actually translate over into other areas of my life, where partially I think it has to do with overlap, like, is there overlap potential between those two things? Like, you know, learning to interview people has definitely made me a better writer. It's made its way into that. Am I a master of the craft of writing? But no, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I think that, you know, playing in both actually is possible, in my case, like, you know, the way I see it. It's possible for a lot of people. But I think that in this case, there's enough overlap between those two things, whereas, you know, like, I'm not going to be Richard Branson, where he can go and start something. Like, he can, you know, build Virgin Cola, and then he can go and, you know, launch rockets. Like, that's two totally different things. 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I think you're right about the idea that there's creative overlap and I think you're right about the idea that if you master something you learn certain skills like maybe how to be productive with your time or how to express yourself better or how to become a better communicator. Sure, you can learn those things, but when it comes down to the pursuit of excellence at certain things, I don't believe it translates over. If you're great at something and you've mastered the craft of something, I don't think that that can immediately transfer over to another skill that you can master because that skill requires a different skill set ultimately to master it and so I don't think it's a direct translation. I think that you can, you might become slightly better, but you won't be excellent. Well, yeah, I don't know, I would say I'll probably never be as good or writer as I am an interviewer, but I think the skill, like I think if I worked at it, I could definitely improve it significantly based on things I've learned from learning the craft of interviewing. Sure, but I guess the question I would have is, so what, so what, so what that you can improve it? What does that mean? Can I make a living doing it? How does that translate into the world of life and work? And so, okay, so personally that's great for you because you want to be a better writer and personally that's fantastic. Now how does that translate into you selling more books? How does that translate into you being an author that people respect? How does that translate into you having a bestseller? How does that translate? And that's, I guess, where I go with it is in the pursuit of excellence, how does that translate over and I don't believe that it does. Now, I believe that it makes you personally better. That's great, but I don't think professionally it translates over. Okay, so let's see, this is cool because now we're actually having a debate on the air for once, which is awesome. But let's look at the flip side of this, what happens when you've got all your eggs in one basket? So let's look at the example of the guy who has worked at Lockheed Martin for 50 years and he gets out, and you've even met lots of people like this through your journey and they have no skills that are translatable to something else. What do you do in that situation? Are you putting all your eggs in one basket, I'm not sure where we go with this, I think that the things that stand out in the world that we're in are people who are masters of their craft. That's what we look at when we say that is the standard of excellence. But on the flip side of that, what about these people who don't have a built-in talent, shouldn't you think maybe their whole deal is becoming multi-potentialized because they're not set good at any, just superb at any one thing? I don't know, the honest answer is I don't know, and I'm so torn after doing this three year project of traveling around the country, I could not be more confused about what people should or shouldn't do, and I actually think that's a good healthy thing for once instead of feeling like I know the answer, I really just don't know, because I had a coffee with a gentleman who's in his 50s just two days ago, I think it was, over the weekend. He's been out of work for 18 months, he worked for the same company for 30 years and he can't find work in unemployment, just ran out, Congress didn't renew it locally, and so he's not sure what to do. He's out of unemployment options and he doesn't have, he has one skill and that skill is no longer needed, and so I don't know, I don't know, I don't know that he would have ever got to where he was had he not had that one skill though, like if he would have been half asked at that skill but had a few other skills, would he have ever had a 30 year career with that company? I don't know, I don't think so. The fact that he had a 30 year career was likely the result, the fact that he was that good at that one skill, it just so happens that that skill disappeared. I think part of that has to do with risk literacy, understanding how risk really works and understanding your place in the world matters, where he should have seen the future a bit more and not become complacent so that he didn't find himself in that position. I don't think he should have become half as good at that skill and dabbled in a few others. I think he should have seen the writing on the wall in advance and started to develop a new skill and maybe that's the option. I don't know, I'd love to hear from our listeners on this, what's the unmistakablecreative.com/contact? So the real question is renaissance ban or master of your craft? Yeah, what's the future? Where are we going in the future? Are we going to all require to be, you know, renaissance people or are we going to be masters of our craft because it's really, I don't know that there's a set answer for this. Yeah, I don't know either. And the irony is, I'm sitting here saying that I think the best answer, I think the best route is to master your craft and the reality is I'm doing just the opposite but I feel like I feel like the reason I'm saying that is because I have certain talents that allow me to be just the opposite. And so that, and that may sound very conceited and I'll take the wrath of that if you guys want to write in and tell me so. But I really believe that, I believe that my mind works in an unusual way where I can actually be a part of many different things and run them very well and offer up a few different skills in each one and have them succeed at very high levels. But I don't know in my experience with the, you know, thousands of people that I've talked to and met with and worked with over the last several years, last probably 10 years, I don't necessarily believe that most people can do that. And I think they would be better off gaining a specific skill or a couple of very specific skills and mastering them. I think they would have a much better opportunity at being successful. Well, I mean it's interesting because I mean you've kind of even guided me down that path of it because, you know, the school of life has kind of just died out a little bit and I'm focusing entirely on the unmistakable creative, like I'm not spending time on the school of life. Yeah, I'm writing. But like, you know, when it comes to the business, it's like, this is it, this is the focus of it. Yeah, and you stopped marketing other people's books and you know, you cut out a lot of stuff and that's because in my mind when we first started working together, I saw somebody doing a lot of stuff very average and that's what I saw in you. And yet I saw a specific talent and skill that you had that was underdeveloped because you were dabbling in a bunch of other things being very average at them. And so my thought was is why, why not drop all that stuff that you're average at and capitalize on the fact that you have a certain skill and really develop it and work hard at developing it because I think you'll go a lot further, a lot faster if you do. And I mean, we'll see time will tell, but I think, you know, you would say that in the six months that we've worked together, even in that short period of time, you've gone a lot further, a lot faster than you did the previous five years. Yeah, there's no question in my mind about that. And I think that's why you stopped dabbling, you stopped being a Renaissance man and you focused. Yeah, so I mean, I think it really, to me, it's just a matter of how you're built as a person and you know, whether you have a specific talent, I think only time will tell like, do you need, you know, do you need to be a Renaissance man or do you become a Master of your craft? And you know, we want to hear your feedback. You guys think about this unmistakablecreative.com/contact, you know, as you guys, you know, we loved all the feedback that you guys sent in last week. It was really cool to hear from so many of you. Yeah, absolutely. I'm digging this. This is fun because it's causing me to, you know, I'm reading all these responses from the listeners and I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, you know, and then I read another one that's completely the opposite. I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So it's fun. Well, and you know, I mean, I think that one of the things we had told you guys last week is we're still, you know, trying to get a sense for what we want to do with the Friday segment. But I think what I'm at least what our sense is right now is that this is really about the listeners. Like it's an opportunity for, you know, you to interact with us and really, you know, bring your feedback into what's going on in the world and what's going on, you know, in the creative universe. I mean, the interviews are really not an appropriate place for that. But, but this Friday segment really is all about you guys. Yeah, absolutely. We're loving it. So keep, keep chiming in, keep writing in, keep sharing your thoughts. You know, we love hearing from you guys and we love to know what you guys think about all these topics. Yeah. And we'll do one quick shout out for iTunes review. Kevin Bradbury, he says, this has become his number one list and the guests are great. The questions dig deep and the ideas help make my life better. Kevin, thanks for that. You know, as we've mentioned to you guys, these iTunes reviews make a big difference in our ability to bring you guys guests that, you know, are not people you would find in other shows. They also help us with our sponsors. So, you know, definitely, if you haven't left us an iTunes review yet, definitely do that. And Greg, anything else to add? No. Thank you guys for all the support and the iTunes reviews fabulous and, you know, write in and tell me I'm crazy. I want to hear from you. Unmistakablecreative.com/contact. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening in on another candid conversation at the unmistakable creative embrace your inner misfit, express your creative voice, and remember, the goal isn't to live forever, but to create something that will. Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind, but still really important. Life insurance. Why? 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The importance of getting clear on what projects you’ll be working on
Leveraging talent to overcome a lack of resources
Why grit and discipline still matter but may not be sufficient
Finding the balance between optimism and delusion
The question of whether there is a future for multipotentialites
Why having talent in multiple areas is unlikely for most people
Finding areas of mastery that with overlapping elements
Translating our creative skills into the world of life and work
The debate of whether or not we should diversify our skills
Dealing with an economy in which skills become obsolete
How not dabbling completely changed our business

People and Resources

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