The PMF of "what you do"
Be the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. - Naval
I came across an old tweet from Naval this past week and have not been able to stop thinking about it.
Right away, I thought of household names like Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc. You know. The all-time greats in their respective fields.
I’ve always wanted to be good at the things I do. But there’s something about “being the best in the world“ that felt so distant and intimidating to me.
However, as I took a deeper dive, I realized there are two discrete decisions you get to make here in order to achieve mastery:
get better at what you do until you are the best
define what you do
There’s no doubt that practice makes perfect. But WHAT you practice/do can make the difference between being good vs “being the best in the world”.
The reality is that YOU get to define “what you do”. You can say “I’m a basketball player.” But if you suck at basketball, go try doing business. If you suck at doing business, go try creating art.
At some point, you’d realize that you suck less at something compared to other things you did. From there, you repeat the same process, but on a finer scale. Imagine the following evolution:
“I make videos.“
“I make videos about bikes.“
“I make videos about DIY bike maintenance.“
“I make videos about DIY bike maintenance for semi-professional cyclists.“
“I make videos about DIY bike maintenance for semi-professional cyclists on a budget.“
There are infinite ways for you to differentiate and niche down. Keep redefining yourself until you rise above the competition and reach the top.
“what you do“ & PMF
The more I think about this process of figuring out “what you do“, the more it feels like the experience of finding PMF as a startup founder - an iterative process of trying, learning, and pivoting.
Maybe one day I’ll finally find my own PMF and be able to tell you “what I do”.