Good Enough is Good Enough
The Amplified Impact Podcast
January 11th, 2023
Are you aiming for greatness and self improvement but feel overwhelmed by the effort it takes to be one of the best?
In this episode of Amplified Impact, Anthony talks about the idea of greatness and what it takes to truly be the best at something.
He argues that many of us vastly underestimate how good we actually need to be at something to be above average, and that the gap between good and good enough is surprisingly small.
He emphasizes that to excel in business or life, we don’t need to be great at something, but rather good enough, which is attainable through consistency, foundational skills, and applying them over time.
Anthony also references Pareto’s principle and the 80/20 rule, stating that 80% is good enough, because the last 20% takes just as much time to achieve as the previous 80%.
He also suggests thinking about skills in terms of skill stacking and finding the combination of skills that can make you the absolute best in the world in that specific intersection.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“The gap between good and great is surprisingly big. The gap between good and good enough is surprisingly small. Most of us can clear that gap. Fundamentals consistently applied, eventually win.” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of Amplified Impact. I want to share today a tweet that I sent out a couple weeks ago by the time you listen to this podcast, it’s actually been a couple months because I kind of front load these podcasts. I record them well in advance of when they go out. But, um, this one, this one I was thinking about a lot.
Anthony: It has, it ties into the idea of like greatness and what does it, what does it mean to truly be the best at something. And so much, so many of us vastly underestimate what it takes to be great at a thing. But we also vastly underestimate how good we actually need to be at a thing to be above average. So the quote, the tweet goes like this, it says “The gap between good and great is surprisingly big.
Anthony: The gap between good and good enough is surprisingly small. Most of us can clear that gap. Fundamentals consistently applied, eventually win.” So here’s the story. Here’s the thing: You do not need to be great [00:01:00] at a thing to far surpass and excel in business, in life, whatever skill, like, you just need to be good enough.
Anthony: And if you can get to good enough, like good enough is actually very attainable. Like you really just need to focus on consistency, foundational skills, and like just showing up and applying those skills on a long enough timeframe. So it’s like consistency plus a modicum of skill plus time will get you to good enough and good enough.
Anthony: I, I’m telling you, it’s surprising, um, but it is, as the name would imply enough to help you vastly surpass the competition. Mostly. Not every time. Like again, you’re not going to be the very best. But here’s the thing is that Pareto’s principle says, you know, the 80 20 rule that, um, what is it, 20% of inputs account for 80.
Anthony: 80% of the outputs, and in my experience, what I always say is that 80% [00:02:00] is good enough because that last 20% takes as much time. There’s the previous 80%, and you could sit there and focus and like if we think about this as a business or a skill or product or whatever it is, instead of trying to get that skill or that product from 80% all the way up to a hundred percent, which will take us just as long as it took us to go from zero to 80%, we would be better served just going to the next skill, the next product, the next thing, and taking that from zero to 80.
Anthony: And then once we get to there, go to the next thing and go zero to eighty. So we think about this from a skill stacking perspective. I can’t remember who it was. It could be Scott Adams, the, the cartoonist from Dilbert, maybe. I think he talks about skill stacking and how instead of trying to be the absolute best at one thing, like the best cartoonist in the world, he focused on being the best cartoonist slash business
Anthony: pundit in the world, right? So he took two different skills and combined them. And so he didn’t need to be the best cartoonist. He didn’t need to be [00:03:00] the best business pundit. But if he could be in the top, say 20% of those two things, and then combine them, he could be by default, the absolute best in the world at that combination of two things.
Anthony: And so this is where the combinatory factor of skills, instead of trying to just be the best at a single thing, figure out what is the combination of skills that you could put together that by default, if you could get to, you know, the top 80% in each one of those, that would make you by default, the absolute best in the world.
Anthony: And Naval Ravikant talks about this concept too. For me, it would be kind of like the intersection between writing, uh, business and real estate investing in particular, or mindset or psychology, right? Like I try to take a lot of different. and the more skills that you can, you can bake into your, um, your skill matrix, then the, actually the less good you have to be at any one of those things because the combinatorial effect, again, is going to make you by default the best at those seven things of anybody on the planet.
Anthony: So, [00:04:00] and, and I think this is important because like the perfection, like the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of done, right? Like, and the whole idea of that one is better than none. And if you just. If you can separate your ego from saying like, or not even ego, but like the fear of actually reaching completion and saying 80% is good enough and being comfortable to move on to the next thing, knowing it’s not as good as it could be.
Anthony: Like truly, mastery, like true mastery is overrated. You just need to be above average and most things, and that’s going to like, it’s going to accelerate your, your progress through life so much faster than if you just sat down and tried to be the best thing at that one thing, and that’s why the gap between good and great is surprisingly large.
Anthony: Larger than you even realize. Like the difference between being in the top 80% and then getting the top 90% is light years of difference. Much less the difference between 90 and a hundred, like the difference between 98% and a hundred percent is light years. So [00:05:00] like we just have a hard time conceptualizing that.
Anthony: But what we don’t realize is that the gap between being good and good enough, it’s actually really small. It doesn’t take all that much effort and whether it’s like copywriting or marketing or product design, like you could become good. With a surprisingly, um, low allocation of time and energy to the study and development of that skill, like couple weeks of 20 hours every single week dedicated to your copywriting skills will make you probably good enough.
Anthony: If you just dedicated two months of like 10, 15 hours a week at that one skill, you would become so far above average that it would be sufficient for you to be amongst the best. Definitely to the 80%. So focus on that and realize that the fundamentals are going to be the things that, uh, ultimately went out. So that’s my, that’s my story.
Anthony: I’m sticking to it. Don’t try and move me off it. It won’t happen. All right. For those that don’t know, I’m Anthony Vicino. I’m just, I’m just a guy. And did the guy [00:06:00] who built some businesses, wrote some books, bought some real estate. My biggest, probably my biggest win is the fact that I turned my ADHD into a superpower and I make this podcast so that entrepreneurs just like you can, you know, hopefully hyperfocus learn how to hyperfocus on the things that matter in life, such you can get the most out of this crazy ballerina ride around the sun.
Anthony: So if you got some value out of this, go drop a review. Go leave a light, go subscribe. Make sure that you get notified whenever a new podcast goes out, which is every single day. So I expect to see you back here tomorrow. Okay? Maybe not. Well, if you do, that’d be great. If not, I forgive you anyways. See guys later.
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