Good To Great Math From Marc Andreesen

You’re doing good. Why aren’t you doing great? Good question. I can’t answer it specifically, but I can tell you how to get there. And, it might not be what you think.

Kris Abdelmessih went full Personal Archive mode on my Intentional Investor interview with Kevin Muir. He listened to it on a long drive (or two), pulled down the entire transcript, and extracted some favorite quotes he wanted to expand on. With or without me being a shred of the source material, I love seeing people do this so much.

I won’t give you too much math, but Kris added a point I needed the reminder of today:

The Luck of Being a Computer-and-Markets Guy: Reminds me of Marc Andreessen’s advice about how if you are 90th percentile in each of 2 domains, you are 99th in join probability space (.1 * .1).

Let that sink in for a second. In non-mathematical terms, being pretty good at two different things can make you exceptional overall. Andreessen’s math proves it.

Let’s say you’re doing well at something. I say “well” because “let’s say you’re doing good at something” isn’t proper English even if it’s what I’d say in conversation. I’m committed to making you feel like we’re on the right track here, got it?

So you’re doing well, but you want to be doing great.

It doesn’t work. Sorry English teachers. It’s better if this sticks than avoid your red ink. Better to be authentically wrong honorably than inauthentically right on honor role. I’m too old for this crap.

So you’re doing good, but you want to be doing great.

That’s better.

If the great-ceiling is hard to hit, what’s another category you can also be doing good-level at that’s also complimentary?

The story Kevin told, that apparently kicked both Kris and I in the butt, was about how he was a markets person with some basic computer programming skills in an era when no markets people were using computers yet.

Even though, within a few short years, the computer people would take over, he was there right before that happened, and so he got to be first. He was a pretty good markets guy, with pretty good computer knowledge, and if you sprinkle in a little luck for him being at the right place at the right time, it turned him into being GREAT at his job, and for his firm.

That’s Marc’s math in story form. You don’t have to be great at any one thing. You can be combinatorically good at a couple things and that might be the trick that makes you overall great.

It’s Marcy Alboher’s entire study of “slash artists” too. It’s the magic behind comedians who understand psychology (ex. Derren Brown). Or chefs who know chemistry (ex. Kenji). Or teachers who can code (ex. KRIS). Many of the world’s most interesting people aren’t specialists so much as they’re combinatorial tinkerers.

I was always good at music but not great (re: success? nothing traditional I can point to) and good at writing but not great (re: I’m still practicing, let it cook) and good at finance but not great (re: I can tell you a bunch of mistakes I intend to avoid, I can’t tell you an ingenious thing you need to invest in today).

You put those things together, and - combined - I’m a halfway decent blogger and podcaster (which, not tooting my own horn, but I see a lot of other attempts and I’ll go toe to toe on writing something interesting with most of them, with this math in hand). Music taught me about structure and performing, writing is my favorite habit, and the finance stuff gives me a business sense I couldn’t have gotten anywhere but in real world reps where I am desperately trying to avoid working in a traditional job setting.

Now do you. Look around. What are your good things you wish you were great at but just aren’t quite there? Let the pride sting a little, it’s OK (hello guitars, sitting behind me as I type this). You have some mixing, matching, and combining options in front of you too. You just need to play around with them a little bit.

Your path to leveling up is waiting. Start by reading Kris’ entire post. He’s doing a whole lot of good things at a great level, it’ll be immediately apparently.

Then, if you want to mix some ideas of others up, in search of greatness, but don’t know where to start, try Kris’ appearance on JUST PRESS RECORD. Last but not least, if you’re anywhere near finance in the past 30 years, like Kris, I bet you’ll relate to a ton of stuff Kevin Muir talked about on The Intentional Investor (not to mention, he’s SO funny, you probably have no idea. He could have a been a comedian too. Even if he was never destined to be a pro hockey player… like his Stanley Cup winning brother. Seriously).