Aha.

Dear Essentialists,

Are you good at too many things? Have you gained a reputation as the "go-to" person? Do you get stuck doing things you're rather not be doing? You may have the curse of capability. 

This may seem like a nice problem to have, but that doesn't make it less of a problem. 

Take Gretchen Rubin, my guest this week on the What's Essential podcast. She went to Yale law school. She was editor-in-chief of the law journal. She clerked for the Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. That's a gold-plated beginning for a legal career. 

She might well have stayed in the law. But she had an aha. You can listen to her tell her story here. Fortunately for us, her natural curiosity led her to write books that have been read by millions.

Here's how to start to make capability your servant not your master:

1) Take a sheet of paper and list everything you're pretty good at (4 mins).

2) Take a sheet of paper and list everything you really like to do (4 mins).

3) Look for any overlap on the lists (2 mins).*

There are lots of traps in life. There are failure traps when we aren't good at something. But there are also success traps where we are good at something that isn't our highest point of contribution.

For more inspiration: Listen and subscribe to the "What's Essential" podcast here.

Thank you for reading.

Greg

* A shout-out to TyAnn Osborn who made this suggestion after discussing this week's episode with Gretchen Rubin. Thank you from the Essentialist Tribe!