Spread Yourself

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Spread Yourself
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I didn’t post last week. I was doing too much and that’s about that.
This is relevant for this weeks topic of spreading yourself too thin.
In our modern hustle and bustle, always-on culture it’s natural to overcommit to too many things. Work priorities, side hustles and portfolio careers mean we can pile up a bunch of responsibilities.
Then there is actual life and trying to be social. To have time for family and friends, and then friends problems and their kids and their failing love lives, for birthdays and weddings and all these people you would have forgotten about if it wasn’t for social media. Then there is social media and liking stuff and posting stuff and mindlessly watching stuff.
You also need to find time to feed yourself (sometimes others as well). Despite our lack of time for this we somehow manage to feed ourselves too much. If we’re really lucky we might even find some more time to get the headspace to work out a way of feeding ourselves less. Odd right.
I haven’t even gotten into hobbies or creative pursuits or the important time needed to philosophise about the point or pointlessness of our existence. This tangent is already giving me anxiety…
Yet some people really go out of their way to do too much. Like way too much. (I think I’m one of them)
From my podcasting, I’ve seen some extreme ends of this can affect us.
I interviewed a semi-famous person last week. He runs a TV show and a podcast and writes books. He has a personal mission to help 1 billion people be happier. He will take a 3-minute call with anyone. He appears on a lot of podcasts and is constantly trying available.
This man has a natural flair for speaking. He can sound poetic and when he talks, it can sound almost like rapping.
He schedules his day to the nth degree so that he can squeeze every single second of his time into adding value and I guess making people happier.
Except that’s not actually what he’s doing.
He was boring as hell for 90% of the interview with me. We had 30 minutes. He was a few minutes late. He was anxious about what he had to get to next. He wasn’t present, he wasn’t funny, he wasn’t interesting. He was boring.
His answers felt like a tired man giving me a list of stuff. No stories or depth, just some information. He’d dump a big list of stuff and say it quickly. His words sort of rhymed and flowed but they had no energy or passion. I could see the glimmer of his brilliance and talent, yet it wasn’t radiating.
I don’t even remember what he said because his energy was so uninspiring. I do remember trying to listen to him and realising how bored I was.
(I managed to provoke something interesting out of him eventually but it wasn’t easy)
After the interview, I started to wonder what the hell is the point of his 3-minute call rules with strangers. In 3 minutes how are they ever going to get past his initial boring lists of life advice? After 2 minutes he is already going to tell you that you have 60 seconds left. 60 seconds later the phone will go dead.
I mean 3 minutes of someone not paying attention to you isn’t great. If you ask someone a burning important question and then they are in a rush it’s unsatisfying, to say the least.
It seems like he is determined to give away a large amount of his time each day to be useless to a lot of people.
Spreading yourself too thinly sucks. It wastes your talent and your time. Don’t do it.
Derek Sivers built and sold CD Baby. He has also written a lot of books (which are some of my favourites) . He doesn’t run a podcast but the podcast episodes he appears on have been some of the most downloaded podcast episodes ever.
He will answer any email that is sent to him. However, to get him on your podcast you have to send a list of questions that truly excite him and are worth his time answering. He will then spend 2-6 hours preparing the best answers he can for that interview.
He accepts very few interviews and he will only do them during a time of the year when it doesn’t interfere with the rest of his life.
For the interview, he will give you 1-2 hours of his time and won’t schedule stuff before or after so that he can be really present and energised.
When you hear Derek on a podcast episode, you hear an energetic man who is there to truly amaze you with his best ideas and concepts. After listening you want to find more episodes he has appeared in because he is so damn interesting.
Derek doesn’t spread himself thinly. He is very concentrated. When you experience Derek you get the full force in all his glory.
To be someone who shows up with a bang.
To have positive energy for the things you do.
To feel like you give everything your best shot.
If you are doing too many things you exhaust yourself, you cut yourself off from the source of your brilliance:
You can’t put your best foot forward.
You experience a lot more opportunities to be great and yet you reduce your chances of being great.
You don’t give your best shot at anything.
When you do too much you are more likely to feel imposter syndrome and feel that you aren’t talented. The issue isn’t your lack of talent. The issue is that you’re slicing your talent into a thousand pieces. Trying to use it everywhere and instead just throwing it away.
If you want to break a window, throw a rock at it, not a handful of dust.
It was sad talking to the first dude in this post and seeing the glimmer of his gift and yet totally wasting it trying to spread his gift everywhere.
Whatever your talents are. Be mindful of how to make them truly shine. Don’t overwork them.
Be kind to yourself and spread yourself thickly.
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By Michael Schreiner | November 17, 2014



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Would you rather be a jack of all trades or wield true mastery over just one? The trap that a lot of talented people fall into is that they spread themselves too thin. They’re good at most things they try so they enjoy doing a lot of things. And that’s great up to a point, diverse interests keep us from tunnel vision and from becoming too obsessive, but at some point we all have to make the choice on how we’re going to allocate our time because time is finite. The only way to achieve mastery at anything is to fully dedicate to it, and this necessarily means leaving some other interests by the wayside, at least for a while.
Being pretty good but not great at everything does have its siren song, which is that you get to float in a comfortable, warm bath where you never have to exert yourself too hard and you never really have to experience the pain of frustration and failure because you don’t go far enough to seriously test your abilities.
That single minded determination where you fully commit to an aspiration requires discipline, patience, courage, faith, and a lot of hard work. This is why so many people never reach mastery in anything, not because they lack the innate ability but because the road is long and difficult and they choose not to take it.
But it’s a road that humans are meant to take, a necessary road for self-actualization. What you do, what you fully commit yourself to and live, makes you become who you are. What starts out as an interest comes to define you, but this can only happen when you choose to devote yourself to it.
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You've just signed up for extra projects at work, said yes to plans for the next five Fridays, and agreed to walk your friend's dog while she's away (for the next two weeks). It feels good to be so wanted, needed, and successful. And yet, you soon start feeling like you've spread yourself too thin .
One look at your calendar confirms the sneaking suspicion. It's so covered in ink and scribbles and dates that you aren't sure when your next day off will be. Reality sinks in, and soon you're filled with terror and dread for your busy, busy schedule.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It's normal to want to be all things to all people — the best friend, the hardworking employee, the social butterfly, the helpful neighbor. And yet, saying yes to everything can quickly lead to overwhelm.
So what should life look and feel like instead? "When you have a good balance between your work life , personal life, and social life you feel: centered, grateful, fulfilled, content, energetic, motivated, connected, and stimulated," says Kim Chronister, Psy.D., in an email to Bustle. And that usually means putting an end to 24/7 obligations , as well as learning how to say no. Read on for signs that it's time to do just that.
Even if you're one of those rare people with ceaseless energy, a super busy schedule will eventually burn you out. And when it does, it's possible to become more susceptible to sickness. That's because stress releases the hormone cortisol , which can become depleted over time and negatively affect the immune system, according to Diana Kelly on DailyBurn.com. So if you're always sick, that busy schedule might be to blame.
If you've been overwhelming yourself with obligations, then don't be surprised when you start to feel cranky. Irritability is a sign that you're spreading yourself too thin , according to Chronister. This is most likely due to tiredness, as well as resentment for an over-packed schedule. Totally understandable.
Working from sun up to sun down might feel like the productive thing to do. But this plan often backfires, leaving you feeling tired and unable to concentrate. "When you’re too overwhelmed to focus on what’s in front of you, or you can’t remember simple things like a coworker’s name, it could be a sign you’re overworked ," said Kelly. Don't let yourself get to this point.
While not everything in life can be fun, it's a bad sign when all your obligations feel like a chore , according to Amanda Rose on the blog ScoutieGirl.com. Whether it's going to see a movie, meeting a friend for lunch, or catching up with family members on the phone, these things shouldn't feel agonizing and terrible. If they do, it may be a sign you need to take a break.
When your schedule is overwhe
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