Are You a Niche Master or Jack of All Trades, Master of None?
For most of my young adult life, I bounced from job to job, never really finding where I was really supposed to be. I came to realize that what I was good at was sales and marketing...a skill, but not a NICHE. I often felt like a Jill-of-all-trades, knowing a bit about many things, but not a master of any.
In 2002, I met a fella at a Quik Print. He was holding a water-color rendering of a beautiful lake cabin. We got to chatting and I was mesmerized, asking him, "Where is that?" He said Fishhawk Lake and after only five minutes, he looked deeply into my eyes and with a twinkle, said, "Maybe this was meant to be". SUCH TRUE WORDS!
By discovering Fishhawk Lake it held the key to my future. We moved to Fishhawk Lake full time in 2005 and I "retired", went back to school at the tender age of 50 and became the realtor for the smallish private lake community called Fishhawk Lake. No one had ever heard of it, including me and I'd lived only 90 minutes away since 1979!
There are some main reasons why I now am a master of my niche, Fishhawk Lake.
Passion. If you don't have passion for the niche or career that you are focused on, then I don't honestly feel that you can be a master at it. Those who don't have passion for what they're doing, get bored and and don't stick with it. That is not a sign of good mastery skills.
Come back to the source. As with a healthy tree, there can be many branches, but all are fed from deep roots, and a healthy trunk, foundation, source. As you dig deeper into learning about your niche, you may find ways to branch off from it, doing localism posts about your niche for example, but wandering too far away from it doesn't keep you or your clients focused. Always come back to the source.
Learn everything about one thing. With passion, also comes the desire to continually educate yourself about your niche. Find out about its history. How did this come to be? What future does it hold? How can it be rewarding to both you and your clients? What are the fine details that someone else might miss who isn't an expert in your niche? There are so many layers both from the past as well as the changes currently happening that can affect your niche and can create a new future for you or for your clients.
Repetition. You have to practice over and over to become better at what you know about your niche. Conversations, facts about it, repeating what you already know and doing it over and over again until it is an intrinsic part of you makes you a master. As with superior athletes, they may be good at many sports, but choose to focus all of their efforts on ONE to be the very best at that one thing. And it's not necessarily a God given talent, but the reality that they have to keep honing their skills, keep learning, keep practicing. The best athletes will tell you that they continually work on their basics over and over again.
It took me many many years to find my niche, but it has made me feel so successful and young and useful and my passion for Fishhawk Lake has never waned as I know I have much more to learn and share as I continue to master my niche!
Signed,
No Longer a Jill of all Trades
A Master of One!
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