Leaning into your Natural Advantage

There is conventional wisdom about what one should do, where should one live and how should they do it which is generally applicable to everyone. And then there are natural advantages which are uniquely applicable to you. Its quite tempting to not do the work and ignore your natural advantages and follow the herd because its easy but it will always lead to a net suboptimal outcome for you.

So why is leaning into your natural advantage so important? While doing anything new you usually start at level -2 because of lack of experience, unknown unknowns, starting inertia, etc.. A natural advantage allows you to start at level >=0 which dramatically increases your odds of success. The bigger the natural advantage the higher the odds of success.

If you are convinced, the first step is to identify your natural advantage. Sometimes its pretty obvious, sometimes its a little more subtle. Your natural advantage can be anything like there is a macro trend that you find yourself in the middle of, you have a family business that aligns with your interests, you are uniquely experienced in a certain industry or a profession, you have certain important industry connections related to a business opportunity. The best natural advantage is you are extremely interested in something or you get a lot of joy out of it. So it helps knowing yourself well and the best way to know yourself is trying out a lot of things and observing yourself doing those things. I love robotics and engineering so I consider that as my strong natural advantage. Everyone usually has multiple natural advantages.

Once you find your natural advantages you should tap into them. Dont leave your natural advantage on the table. Lean into it just means dont run away from them, run towards them. Set up your decisions and life so that you are dead centre of the intersection of all your natural advantages. This can be hard. This sometimes involves not listening to the conventional wisdom. Going against the wind currents. A lot of your peers might even find what you are doing surprising or borderline stupid because only you can see your natural advantages as clearly as they are. But believe in the magic of the natural advantage and make sure you lean into them to maximise your potential!