Stop Being A Jack-Of-All-Trades

For the last 3 years, I worked my a** off to build my own business from scratch, and results would only come slowly.

This frustrated me deeply, as I thought I could pull off a miracle and start making enough money after a few months to quit my 9-5 and be my own boss, especially when I learned that my wife and I were expecting a baby.

Now, it wasn't about me anymore.

I needed to make money to take care of the three of us.

But to get there, I had to learn the hard way that it isn't only about working hard but also working on the right things.

Because most 20-year-olds like you and me are focusing on the wrong skills.

Research shows that 20% of skills create 80% of career and life results. Meanwhile, we focus on 80% of the skills that will only get us 20% of our desired results.

That is one of the reasons I failed to make money online before and the reason why I spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours learning and developing low-impact skills while neglecting high-leverage skills.

That's why I am writing this letter—to prevent you from making the same mistakes as me and show you how skill leverage works.

Here is what you will learn

• Why working harder isn't working

• and the 4-step blueprint for finding your highest-leverage abilities.

Let's start.

The Low-Leverage Trap (Why Working Harder Isn't Working)

Most people approach skill development incorrectly.

They learn what they think might be valuable but don't consider what skills have the highest leverage that get them the most out of their input.

In recent years, this trend has only gotten worse.

We tend to focus more on the skills that are trendy or easy to acquire.

• Productivity app optimization feels productive but rarely improves actual outcomes.

• Social media algorithm hacks that are constantly changing and unreliable for long-term growth unless built on a deeper content strategy.

• Copying online business models or templates is easy to start but rarely generates unique value or sustainable differentiation.

Can you spot the problem? How short-sighted those "skills" are and that they are literally meaningless?

Good.

Because most people can't.

They think that learning any of the skills is all that they need.

But they are more than wrong.

As well as those who think they need to learn all the skills in the world - the Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None.

Because you can…

• be a decent writer

• have video editing skills

• be proficient in graphic design

• have basic website-building skills

• understand social media marketing

And still get nothing for it.

I know it seems unfair, but skills don't equal the outcome.

Or any outcome.

The problem is that focusing on too many things at once is counterproductive. You will spread yourself too thin because your attention and energy are divided between multiple minor skills.

Therefore, you never become truly exceptional at any one thing.

You can do most things well, but nothing really great.

This is why people will always choose those who can do one thing but are the best at it—they know they will get the results they want.

It's all about return on investment (ROI).

The business wants an ROI on the money they spend. That's the most common theme out there.

And you should do the same.

That is why you should focus on your Skill ROI.

Skill ROI measures the impact a skill generates relative to the time, energy, and resources required to develop it. Because not all skills are created equal — some offer exponentially higher returns than others.

And your job is to find those skills and adopt them.

High ROI Skills create compound returns, scale without your direct involvement, and unlock new opportunities.

As you have seen, it is not about how many skills you have, but which ones you choose to get exceptional good at.

For me, it is audience building and writing.

I am not quite where I want to be, but daily training and iteration will potentially get me there.

If I had to focus on more than those skills, it would take me 10x as long, and I most likely would never get there.

I would burn out after months of trying to do so.

I would be the bottleneck of my own business.

And I guess I don't have to tell you how bad this is.

But what I want to tell you instead is how you can avoid this and find your highest-leverage skills with the following 4-step process.

The 80/20 Skill Blueprint: Finding Your Highest-Leverage Abilities

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

— Archimedes

I was drowning in the ocean of skills I thought I needed to master.

I spend years trying to become good at everything, spreading myself too thin, and wondering why I am not seeing extraordinary results.

And this isn't only me.

Most people buy courses they never finish, read books they never apply, and chase the latest "must-have" skill that promises success.

But world-class performers know a secret most don't:

It's not about mastering everything. It's about mastering the few things that create disproportionate results.

The 80/20 principle applies to skills more than anywhere else. 20% of your abilities will create 80% of your results. Some skills have 100x more leverage than others.

The problem is that most of us have no system for identifying which skills actually move the needle for us.

Let me show you the exact process I've used to identify and develop the highest-leverage skills in my own life and how to implement this in yours.

Step 1: The Leverage Audit

Most people never actually analyze which of their abilities creates the most impact.

They assume the skills that took the longest to develop must be the most valuable. Or worse, they believe whatever skills are trending on LinkedIn are what they should focus on.

So take time and look back at the last 12 months of your work and life. Identify the top 10 results or outcomes you're most proud of. These could be

• projects completed,

• income generated,

• relationships developed,

• or problems solved.

For each outcome, ask: "What specific abilities enabled this result?"

Be forensic in your analysis.

Don't just list vague skills like "communication" or "leadership."

Break them down into specific sub-skills. Was it your ability to simplify complex ideas? Your skill in asking powerful questions? Your capacity to build systems?

Now, look for patterns. Which skills appear repeatedly across your biggest wins?

When I did this exercise, I discovered something shocking. My ability to create frameworks was behind 80% of my most valuable outcomes. Not my coding skills, not my design abilities, not even my writing — though I'd spent years developing those.

This one skill — identifying the core decisions in any area and creating simple frameworks to make those decisions — was my hidden leverage point.

Most people will find their leverage skills aren't what they expected.

The formal skills on your resume are rarely your highest leverage abilities.

Step 2: The Force Multiplication Method

Certain skills don't just add to your effectiveness — they multiply it.

This is because of skill synergy. Some abilities combine to create something far more valuable than either skill alone.

Think of it like this:

• Skill A is worth $50/hour

• Skill B is worth $50/hour

• Skills A + B together are worth $500/hour

That's force multiplication.

Take your top three leverage skills from Step 1. For each one, ask: "What complementary skill would make this ability exponentially more valuable?"

Don't just think laterally (more skills in the same category). Think across domains.

• For technical skills, the multiplier is often a communication ability.

• For creative skills, it's often a systems thinking ability.

• For analytical skills, it's often an empathy ability.

My personal example: When I combined my framework skills with my storytelling ability, the value I could create exploded. I could now not only design effective decision systems but could explain them in a way that made them irresistibly compelling to others.

This combination became my new superpower — more valuable than either skill alone.

Look for these unconventional pairings in your own abilities. The most powerful combinations often cross traditional skill categories.

Step 3: The Constraint Analysis

In any system, improvement is limited by the weakest link.

Your progress is currently being held back by specific skill deficiencies that are creating bottlenecks in your effectiveness.

But most people try to improve everything rather than focusing on what's actually constraining them.

Look at your biggest goals for the next 12 months.

For each goal, ask: "What specific ability, if improved, would make achieving this goal 10x easier?"

Be brutally honest about what's holding you back. It's rarely what others suggest you work on. It's usually something you've been avoiding because it's uncomfortable.

For each constraint identified, ask: "Is this really the root issue, or is there a deeper skill gap causing this problem?"

Keep digging until you find the fundamental constraint.

When I did this analysis, I realized my biggest constraint wasn't what I thought.

I believed I needed to improve my technical skills to reach my next level. But the real constraint was my ability to set boundaries and protect my deep work time.

No amount of technical improvement would matter if I couldn't create the space to apply those skills at their highest level.

Identifying your actual constraints is liberating.

Instead of trying to improve everything, you can focus on the one or two abilities that are actually holding you back.

Step 4: The Deliberate Practice Protocol

Once you've identified your leverage skills and constraints, you need a system to rapidly develop them.

Most people practice inefficiently.

They confuse repetition with deliberation and wonder why they plateau.

Here's how to implement deliberate practice for your highest-leverage skills:

Break the skill into its fundamental components.

For example, if storytelling is your target skill, break it down into elements like narrative structure, character development, tension building, etc.

For each component, design a focused micro-practice that isolates that specific element. The key is to create practice sessions that are:

• Challenging enough to stretch you

• Specific enough to target the exact sub-skill

• Brief enough to allow full concentration

• Frequent enough to create rapid improvement

I developed many of my skills through daily 30-minute sessions where I would take a complex problem, break it down with my own understanding and writing a newsletter about it to make sense of it and share with others.

This wasn't just "working on problems." It was the deliberate practice of a specific high-leverage skill.

I don't use this, but you can create yourself a minimal tracking system — a simple spreadsheet with three columns:

• Date and practice focus

• Key insight or improvement

• Next area to target

This whole process isn't about motivation or discipline. It's about designing a practice system so clear and specific that progress becomes inevitable because the compound effect of this approach is extraordinary.

When you focus your limited time on your highest-leverage skills, you create exponential rather than linear improvement.

This 80/20 Skill Blueprint has transformed how I approach personal development. Instead of chasing the endless list of skills everyone says I "should" have, I focus intensely on the few abilities that actually move the needle in my life and work.

The beauty of this system is that it's completely personalized. Your highest-leverage skills are unique to you — they're at the intersection of your natural abilities, acquired knowledge, and specific goals.

Start identifying the 20% of your skills, creating 80% of your results.

This simple exercise alone will reveal insights that transform how you approach your personal and professional development.

In skill development, selectivity beats volume every time. Master the few things that create extraordinary results, and let the rest go.

I hope this helps.

— Chris