How To Become A Master Of One

I’ve had many successes in my life, but I’ve also learned my limitations. 

In today’s episode we talk about the dangers of trying to be an all-rounder who’s ‘good’ at many things when you can be brilliant at one thing. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn new skills, but in business I believe you need to focus on what you’re great at and become the master. 

Applying these principles to yourself can be challenging, but by applying this standard to everyone involved with your business, you can reap the rewards for years to come. 

Transcript

0:00

- I hope everyone is well, we are here with the I Am Rami the podcast. Today what I wanna try and achieve is, I wanna get people to focus on what they good on, what they good... what they good on? What they're good at. What they're good at? Let me explain what I mean. I see a lot of people and especially the people who really wanna try hard and wanna overachieve. They don't focus on what they great because they see themselves as already something, they great at something. So what they wanna do is become all rounders. Say if they're good at, the first thing that comes to my mind, IT. If they good at IT, great. And I'm talking about... I'm not talking about an IT person here. I'm talking about a person who's a businessman if you like an entrepreneur. Somebody who's building their business. Say if they go at it, they leave that alone and they try to start working on other things. They start working on marketing. Which is something they're not good at. It doesn't come natural to them. They start working on accounts. Again, something that's not natural to them. And the thing they're really good at, they leave, okay. And that's I think a massive massive error that people continuously make. What I suggest is if you're good at something, that's what you focus on. Focus on what you're great at. And let me break it down even more. If you're good...I'm gonna use IT. I'll continue on with IT, I don't know why but I will. If you're good in IT and you're good at let's say programming, we'll again get deeper into programming. Get deeper into what you are really good at. Don't try and be an all rounder. Don't try and be the master of everything cause what you end up being is a master of everything, okay, and I don't know what the saying is. So I'll say it in my way and you know and you don't end up being good at anything at all. You end up being good at everything but not brilliant at one thing. That's what I'm trying to get to. And the success and I say that because I look at my success and I relate it back to my life. The thing that makes me honestly and that's the thing is the fact that I'm honest with myself. I know what I'm good at and I now what I'm not. And I'm very... I'll make sure I'll make sure the only thing I do in my business is what I'm good at. Even if I'm half good at something else, I will not attempt it. I will leave it to someone else. I'll give the ownership to someone else to do. That is such an important point, you know and the reason, and you know, it's even, you know, I always like giving the sport analogy and I'm gonna go there again. Sport. Let me go down cricket. I've been at cricket recently, sorry guys. I've been to the cricket on Friday watching Indiana Australia side. Again, if you're great at playing one shot in cricket is over a dozen hundred shots he can play. And what people try and do is, they try and play all the shots. But you look at the greats and you listen to the greats. They will focus on that brilliant shot that they've got and they will master it. And that's what will get them to the top of the game. So again, let me bring it back to business now. Whatever it is in business that you do, okay. If you've got a retail shop and you know there's two of you is in the retail shop, put yourself in a position where you're brilliant. If you're brilliant at selling then get behind the register. You know, if you'll brilliant at saying goodbye to somebody, by all means , get behind the register. Pick your points, pick where you're gonna go and make sure you apply yourself 100% to what you're brilliant at. Let me give you another example of something that I could give you. Let's say you got an accountancy business. Yeah. Accountancy business, great business. You need a bit of marketing, you need a bit of, I guess you need to do your accounts, you need to do your recruitment, you need to do your growth of the business, whatever it is. Again, why did you start your counting business? Is it because you're a great accountant? Is it because you're a great marketer? Is it because you are... work out what it is. I'll give you a bit of my journey. You know, I..(Rami laughs) You know, when I opened my first cafe, right? I'm not the person that's going to take a great order. I just don't have that in me. Even what image does not suit somebody who's walking over to your table. That's gonna be the person who's like, Oh hi. How are you? How was your day? Lovely shirt? I'm not that kind of person. It doesn't suit my personality, you know, one. Number two, I'm the worst cook in the world. I can't cook. I don't have the patience. My head races too fast. Okay, so it's not good me being there. Did I do all that when I was needed ? 100%. Can I still do that if I'm required? 100%. But did I do it as good as a 16 year old girl that a hired to take order? No way, no way. The 16 year old had her nice little makeup on, had hair done, she looked pleasant, looked her apart and went up and took an order. And she was non... You know, I almost felt when I took an order, I felt like I was, what do you call it? Like intrusive. I felt like I was a bit, how can I say, I bit attackive? Is that the word? Can you say that? I feel like I attacked the customer as opposed (indistinct) It just comes in my personality I guess. So I'm not the right person for it. But that didn't stop me from being able to grow and having over a thousand staff members who take orders across the country. Because I'm hopeless on it, that's not what stopped me. And the same thing with cooking. I'm not the greatest cook. I would say I'm a bad cook, you know? And if you ask my wife, she will kick me out of the kitchen. But at the end of the day what I did was, I made sure I placed someone in there that was a good cook. And the same thing at the cash register or the whatever it was that was in the restaurant. So you asked them, what was I good at? I'll tell you what I was good at. I was good at identifying people who were good at doing other jobs. And I made sure my primary position was continuously identifying those people and giving those people energy and giving those people power to grow so they could grow my business. You see what I did? I didn't try and be... I didn't keep on fighting the natural. I didn't try and become a great waiter. I didn't try and become a great cook. I didn't try and become a great coffee maker. As a matter of fact, I got a big secret to share with you guys. 23 years I've been selling coffee for, I still can't make a cup of coffee. I'll still wanna come in here and rely on Sammy to make me a cup of coffee, you know? And, but I tell you what, is it that hard to make a cup of coffee? The answer is no. Can I learn how to make a cup of coffee? if I really put the effort and time into it, 100% Can I be brilliant at it? The answer is no. I don't have it naturally, so I shy away from it. I allow the... And then what happens in a business and it doesn't, it no longer becomes more responsibility. You know, no one ever says in my business that coffee's bad. No one will come to Rami and go, "Oh coffee's bad" because they know it's not Rami's job. Somebody else has... Somebody else has the full responsibility and ownership. But when it comes to people development, yeah I do have people jumping on my back. I do have, you know what, you know our path to growing is not great at the moment, you know, we don't have great training, we don't have great that. cos they know that's me. That's what I do. So that's, you know, that's the thing that could really grow your business. That is a difference between people who really excel, I like what I said, the people who usually pay the price for that, are the people who, you know, who think very highly of themself, who aren't prepared to say I can't do that, you know? And that's the people. They're the guys, they're the people who usually suffer. And as a result, their business suffers and they go "why isn't my business great?" Well your business isn't great. cause you might have a great idea, but to execute it you might not be the right person. Did you see what I mean? You might not be the right person. You gotta to find that right person for that position. And then help them, help them become great and advise them on how to become great in that little section, in that department or that, whatever it might be. And again, you could break it. You could... And I said it earlier and I'll try to explain a little bit more. You could break it right down to the... You could break it right right down. Even if you're a cook, right? I mentioned cook. Again, there's so many departments within cooking. There is chopping ,there's plating , there is whatever it is baking, there is... Again, you gonna have a different skill. Break it down again and for yourself and for others. When you identify somebody who's a great baker, don't let him go and chop vegetables. Keep him in bakery. Keep him or her in bakery, Make them great at bakery. And again, break bakery down. I hopes you can understand what I'm saying and you could relate it to.. and you could relate this example to any kind of business that you want. Anything, anything, anything. Photographer, an editor, you're a photographer, you could be an editor, you could be a camera person, you could be a producer, whatever it is.L Work out what you're brilliant at and become the master. And become the master. You know, and that goes again depends on how size of your business, you know. You might have to be everything at one stage, but then again you see how much you could break down things? That's something that I find the people, you know really shy away from and I believe even schools and the normality, normality of life. I think they teach us from young kid to become all rounders. They show us how to sort of know a little bit about everything. And that's okay. You need to know a little bit of it and everything, but for yourself I think you gotta become the master of one thing. What you're good at. Break it down and break it down. Break it down until you workout, you pinpoint what you're good at and then just work your off on that and you'll achieve. That's it guys. Until next time (indistinct) Bye-bye. See you later.