Thread by @yemi_uc

Everyone wants to enjoy outlier success in everything they do, and I think @samaltman wrote a good post about it here.
blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-succ…

But I want to share an idea that @markessien told me.

To be successful, you need to have a technique many people cannot replicate.

To create a technique, you need to go in very deep on a knowledge niche that many people find very hard and become an expert at it. E.g: There are a few people in the world (<10M) who are very good at mathematics or using Excel because many people find it hard to do.

We all know someone that seems super productive and has a higher production output than the average. E.g: It is super amazing how @doubleEph can produce high quality reads on politics and economics in very short periods.

What he does is to apply a technique he has gone deep in and understands better than many people - comprehension, writing, and economics.

So he can apply his technique to literally any topic that comes across his radar even when he has a shallow view of another field.

His deep technical ability in reading, writing, and economics allows him to crunch out an authoritative expert take on any topic.

I recommend you visit his blog, and you might notice the pattern while you enjoy his hot-takes -aguntasolo.co

Another example is @dorischinemerem on Instagram, she is a DHL eCommerce executive.

If you are an IG vendor, you probably know her. The job of a DHL eCommerce executive is to acquire the delivery business of online merchants.

She learned how to do sales on Instagram, a seemingly hard technique, and she wins awards in her office for having a lot of clients and doing a lot of business according to her Instagram page.

If she was job hunting, she will most likely be very selective and find opportunities where she can apply the same technique she used at DHL to be very successful.

She would be shooting herself in the feet if she took on another job where she had no technique.

A final example is Google. The company got incredibly good at Machine Learning, a very hard technique for many, and used it to improve all of its products to be a lot better than the competition. They applied this technique to Maps, smartphone hardware, Photo recognition, et al.

You see the pattern again, they went in super-deep on a field that a lot of companies find hard to do, and they applied their technique across many products to achieve success.

So how can you use this to your advantage to be super-productive and successful?

Find a knowledge-niche that is very hard for many people to understand and go in very deep on it until you are an expert at it, then find other niches that can benefit from your deep expertise.

E.g: There is no depth in being a driver. Anyone can drive. However, if you were very good at Content Marketing & SEO, you could apply your technique across many industries and grow big businesses in those industries.

You do not need to change your industry to build a technique. It does not matter if the niche is very narrow too, as long as it is hard then it is worth building a technique there.

There are many opportunities to build a technique, you just need to choose to do hard things.

Also, note that over time some techniques are less defensible. E.g: Being good at social media gets less defensible as a lot more people flood into the profession.

Often, the Paypal Mafia is mentioned in the media, and we can all agree that they are not superhuman.

What they really learned at Paypal are certain techniques to build big companies and they are successful today because of those techniques.

Now you know one of the secrets to success. Pure hustle or waking up very early or reading 100 books a year will not make you successful.

But creating a technique will.