I’m good at a few things. Most things I’m just average. Better than some, not as good as others. Some things, I’m bad at but do them because they have to be done (by me) and don’t take a lot of time.

How about you? Pretty much the same story?

The thing is, somewhere we got it into our heads that we should work at getting better at everything we do. But that’s not true.

Excellence in a few things is much more important. Besides those few, our core competencies, everything else takes a back seat.

But. . . having them in our back seat matters.

Let’s take our old friend marketing for example.

It may not be your thing. You may not be good at it, you have to force yourself to do it, spend too much and accomplish too little. But at least you’re doing it.

Which means you’re getting better results than the lawyer who does no marketing.

Because what you do is more important than how you do it.

How you do things speaks to your efficiency. What you do is far more important because doing it at all contributes to your effectiveness.

Want to write a book but not sure you can? “Write two crappy pages a day,“ Tim Ferriss recommends. Want to grow your practice but don’t have enough time or skills? “15 minutes a day (doing anything marketing related)” says I.

Over time, you can accomplish a lot by writing two crappy pages a day or doing anything marketing related 15 minutes daily.

Much more than you would if you didn’t.

The converse is also true. You may be a brilliant writer or consummate marketer, but if you do no writing or marketing, you can’t expect much to happen.

Because what you do, and don’t do, is more important than how you do it (or could).