Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to figure out your core competencies. That is,
Speaker 1: the things you do best that other people cannot do
Speaker 1: nearly as well. To spend your time well and to
Speaker 1: be effective, you want to focus as much time as
Speaker 1: you can on these things and spend as little time
Speaker 1: as possible on everything else. Today's tip, like some others
Speaker 1: this week, comes from my book One hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: eight Hours. That book was first published in late May
Speaker 1: of twenty ten, which means that it is fifteen years
Speaker 1: old this month. A lot has changed in the world
Speaker 1: since then, but we do, in fact still have one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, and so
Speaker 1: I am revisiting some of the tips in that book
Speaker 1: that I think can still be helpful. Today's tip is
Speaker 1: to know what you do best. There are lots of
Speaker 1: ways people can spend their time. There are also limited
Speaker 1: hours in the day. It is often more efficient to
Speaker 1: focus on the handful of areas where you can really shine,
Speaker 1: and then figure out ways to not spend your time
Speaker 1: on other things. This makes sense in a corporate context.
Speaker 1: If you make widgets, you generally don't also own a
Speaker 1: fleet of trucks that will deliver your widgets to customers.
Speaker 1: Depending on the size of the widgets, you use the
Speaker 1: post office or a commercial delivery service to do that
Speaker 1: for you. But we tend to be a bit less
Speaker 1: focused in our own lives. Sometimes people have figured out
Speaker 1: ways to delegate things at work, but in our home lives,
Speaker 1: people spend all kinds of time on things that it
Speaker 1: might be better not to do. I think part of
Speaker 1: this is that we don't always know what our core
Speaker 1: competencies are. We don't know what we do best and
Speaker 1: that other people cannot do nearly as well. So it
Speaker 1: might be worth spending some time thinking this through. What
Speaker 1: do people keep asking you about, When do people seek
Speaker 1: out your advice? What seems easy for you that other
Speaker 1: people find challenging. Sometimes there are things that we are
Speaker 1: good at across multiple dimensions and fields. For instance, in
Speaker 1: one hundred sixty eight Hours, I tell the story of
Speaker 1: Rold Hoffmann, the Nobel Prize win in Chemist. He spent
Speaker 1: his childhood hiding from the Nazis, watching the world through
Speaker 1: a hole in the wall. He became a very keen
Speaker 1: and patient observer, watching the changing light and the changing
Speaker 1: seasons this way. Eventually, this helped him become a very
Speaker 1: good scientist, as he would patiently observe experiments and see
Speaker 1: small changes. His powers of observation led him to making
Speaker 1: some real breakthroughs in the field. Now, a Nobel prize
Speaker 1: is kind of the culmination of a life. But when
Speaker 1: I interviewed Hoffmann, he was actually at a writing retreat
Speaker 1: working on his poetry. As a second career, he had
Speaker 1: started writing poetry that was also based on his patient
Speaker 1: observations seeing small changes in the world. This man's core
Speaker 1: competency was being a watcher, a skill that helped him
Speaker 1: survive as a child and then brought him fame later.
Speaker 1: Now we are not all chemical and poetical geniuses, of course,
Speaker 1: but we do all have certain skills. We also have
Speaker 1: certain zones of genius. So what are yours? What makes
Speaker 1: you feel alive? What makes you feel like you are
Speaker 1: making progress? I love writing. I love talking about counterintuitive
Speaker 1: and exciting ideas. I like performing. What do you like?
Speaker 1: Look at how you are spending your time? How much
Speaker 1: time do you spend on these matters? How much time
Speaker 1: do you spend on everything else. I believe over time,
Speaker 1: we can find ways to spend more time on the
Speaker 1: things we do best and less time on other things.
Speaker 1: These days, I really try not to do things like
Speaker 1: run errands when I could be writing. Sometimes people ask
Speaker 1: me about doing things like coaching, but it's not really
Speaker 1: something I do best or better than others would. I'd
Speaker 1: much rather be writing or speaking to a big group.
Speaker 1: What about you find your core competencies and you are
Speaker 1: well on your way to spending time well. It is
Speaker 1: worth the time it takes to figure this out, because
Speaker 1: knowing what you do best will help you spend your
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight hours well. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.