In high school, I joined the wrestling team. I thought it looked like something I could do. Okay, I thought I could meet some cheerleaders. Turns out, the wrestling team didn’t have any.
Anyway, the coach told me that with my height and frame, I should be in a certain weight class and suggested I drop some weight before the weigh-in which was two weeks away.
Off I went, running, lifting weights, dieting, and drinking gallons of water, determined to get down to the lower weight class.
I missed it by two pounds.
There I was, forced to wrestle bigger guys, exhausted by my efforts to lose weight, and not particularly good at wrestling.
I lost every match.
Turns out wrestling wasn’t my thing. And I’m fine with that. I found other things I was good at and enjoyed.
Author Richard Koch, in one of my favorite books, The 80/20 Principle, says
Everyone can achieve something significant. The key is not effort, but finding the right thing to achieve. You are hugely more productive at some things than at others, but dilute the effectiveness of this by doing too many things where your comparative skill is nowhere near as good.
High school is a place to try things. I’m glad I tried wrestling, and I’m glad I found out it wasn’t for me.
In college, you try more things, and find your career path, or at least a place to start.
In law school, and your first legal jobs, you narrow things down further. You find the practice areas that appeal to you, and the ones that don’t.
When you start your own practice, you learn more about what you’re good at. Or you find out that practicing law isn’t for you and you move onto something else.
If you’re lucky, you find your “thing” early in life. You find what you love and do best and eliminate the rest.
But the quest doesn’t end with the choice of careers. You try different partners, employees, and office locations. You try different niche markets, and different marketing techniques, continually searching for things where you are “hugely more productive”.
If you get it right, you are happy and successful. Things click for you because you’ve found the right path. If not, you keep looking.
I’m glad I found the right path. Because God knows, at my age, I would not look good in tights.
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[…] the 80/20 principle that I talked about recently. We are much more successful at some things that others. Choose the right things to do, and you […]