I don’t visit LinkedIn very often because technically I don’t have a “real” job, but every once in awhile I like to see what all the cool kids are doing. The other day, I was reading a post penned by a former neighbor that was all about supply chain logistics, and I’ll have to be honest—I didn’t understand a word of it.
“Gosh, this is over my head!” I said to my husband.
He just looked at me blankly.
“What?” I shrugged my shoulders. “It is. I don’t understand a word he’s saying.”
“That ‘s okay,” he said. “You’re not supposed to understand it. Supply chain logistics isn’t what you do. It’s not ‘over your head.’ And it doesn’t mean you’re not smart; It’s just outside your realm of knowledge.”
Your realm of knowledge.
And of course he was right.
We can’t be expected to know everything. But I’m an Enneagram 5, and my natural tendency is to want to know everything about everything. In fact, when I discovered this book, I thought all my dreams were coming true.
How Not to be Wrong
But there’s real freedom is focusing only on the things you do know. After all, I’d venture to say you’d probably add more value to the world by becoming an expert at one thing than by knowing a little bit about a bunch of different things.
I’ve been doing a lot of research these last two years on women and work—how it evolves over a lifetime and how we grow and change in the midst of it. It’s easy to get sidetracked by all the other cool things there are to learn about, but all those things are just distractions from the one thing I really want to deep dive.