339 - The Truth About Niching Down - With Chris Do

In this episode, I challenge the common belief that you need to niche down to succeed. Many creatives look at artists like Post Malone, who seamlessly transitions across genres, and assume they can do the same. But the reality is, these people mastered one thing before expanding. I discuss why copying someone’s success without understanding their journey is a mistake and why intentional practice and depth of knowledge are key. We explore the concept of the T-shaped skill set, the risks of diversifying too soon, and how social media growth favors consistency. If you’ve ever struggled with whether to specialize or go broad, this episode is for you.

Timestamps:

(00:00) - The problem with copying success

(00:39) - Post Malone’s career evolution

(02:12) - Why success leaves clues

(03:35) - Finding your starting point

(04:17) - The power of deep expertise

(05:00) - Social media and consistency

(06:15) - The restaurant analogy for niching

(07:01) - Outro and call to action

Check out The Futur:

Website: https://www.thefutur.com/

Courses: https://www.thefutur.com/shop

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-futur/

Podcasts: https://thefutur.com/podcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefuturishere/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theFuturisHere/

Twitter: https://x.com/thefuturishere

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thefuturishere

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/thefuturishere

Check out Chris Do:

Website: https://zaap.bio/thechrisdo

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechrisdo/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/BizOfDesign

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/thechrisdo/

Twitter:https://x.com/thechrisdo

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@thechrisdo

Threads:https://www.threads.net/@thechrisdo

Zaap: https://zaap.bio/thechrisdo

Clubhouse:https://www.clubhouse.com/@thechrisdo

Behance: https://www.behance.net/chrisdo

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The mistake would be to copysomeone's ending when you're not
studying their beginning,because you're at the beginning again,

(00:20):
this monster rears its uglyhead. Should I need, shouldn't I?
Aren't there more examples ofsuper hyper successful people who
aren't locked into a nichethat are doing really well? And why
are you, Chris, telling us weneed to niche down? Let's take for
example, Post Malone. He's hada really interesting career arc and
who knows where he's going togo next. He first started out with

(00:41):
rock, which I didn't even knowabout, and then he went into hip
hop and now he's doing countryand he's dominating every category.
This man, this creative humanbeing, has such versatility and a
breadth of work and stylesthat we kind of admire it and we
see it for like, this abilityto blend so many different things.
The mistake that you wouldmake is you're not Post Malone, you're

(01:04):
not the weeknd. You're not 21pilots. You can't be jumping genres
and mixing things up. And ifyou are, you won't be watching this
channel because you're alreadyrich and famous and you have all
the options in the world. Thatwas just a joke, by the way. The
mistake that most people makeis is they copy someone's ending
versus their beginning. Justlet that sink in. There's a long

(01:27):
period of time when PostMalone or the Weeknd are doing their
thing before anyone even hearsabout them. They could be in a basement
working on some music playingor DJing for a wedding or a birthday
party. We don't know. So theyput in all this time and they start
to refine their craft. We onlybecome aware of them when they become
famous. And depending on whereyou are on the adoption scale, it

(01:49):
could be you're a laggard. Youonly find out after the fact that
everybody's on it and you'relast to do it. Like Facebook. Oh
my God, Facebook's so hot. Youknow, 20 years later, that's the
person you are. So the mistakewould be to copy someone's ending
when you're not studying theirbeginning. Cause you're at the beginning.
So Jim Roden said, thissuccess does leave clues. The unfortunate

(02:10):
thing is we just want whatthey have right now. So if you take
me for example, you're like,oh, yeah, Chris is going to not work
for clients. He's going tospeak about a broad number of subjects,
and he's got two buildings andhe has a team of people working for
him. Why don't you try andcopy that? What's the problem there?
You don't have the resources,you don't have the experience. You
haven't read the books, youhaven't done the work with the clients

(02:32):
that I'm going to be able todraw on. You haven't been coached.
You haven't seen a therapist,you haven't done all the work. And
you're going to go out to buywhat buildings now with what money,
with what resources? So youcan't compete on that level. Not
yet. Unless you arefinancially independent or you're
well financed, you don't dothat. And the reason why you're not

(02:52):
getting that money right nowis because you haven't done it. Because
no one's going to bet on you.Right now.
It's time for a quick break,but we'll be right back.
Enjoying the conversationyou're listening to right now. You're
going to love what we have foryou inside the Future Pro membership.

(03:14):
From live group calls withmyself and vetted guest experts to
over 600 hours of proexclusive trainings and monthly networking,
you'll have everything youneed to fast track your growth. Check
it [e-mail] pro.
And Rebecca, welcome back toour conversation.

(03:35):
So you start, guess where youstart at the start. You take that
first step and you start tofigure out who you are, what your
voice is in the world. And youstart to put in the intentional practice
to be good at something andeventually get so good at it becomes
so second nature to you thatit seems boring and you need a new
challenge. That's when youstart to incorporate different genres,

(03:56):
different styles, differentexpressions of your creativity. Maybe
you're working in tv, now youwork in film. Maybe you're working
in Broadway and now you'reworking on pop albums. We don't know.
And you can do that. Once youachieve some level of mastery and
you compound the skill setversus being very, very thin in terms
of your depth of knowledge.There's an expression. You don't

(04:19):
want to go a mile wide and aninch deep. You want to go an inch
wide and a mile deep, thenwhat happens is you have this thing
called the T scale. What'sfascinating is I've discovered this
recently is you can have a T,but if you add another column of
expertise that's called thepie scale, like the math symbol PI,

(04:39):
and you can do the multiplecolumns, one where, I don't know
what you call that, they callit the Parthenon, where you have
a bunch of columns and youhave a roof that's super interesting,
but that takes a long time toachieve. Let me translate this into
how it might live on a socialfeed. I don't know about you. When
I follow someone, it's becausethey've given me something that I
think I need to pay attentionto. I want to be able to reference

(05:01):
later. And then every once ina while on my feed I see this random
weird thing, right? And I havefriends who do this and I'm about
that far away from unfollowingthem because I'm like, what the hell
is this? Then I'm like, who isthis person? I look them up like,
oh yeah, they promised me thisand now they're giving me that. I
don't want any of that. I justwant this. You want more of the same.
The people who have grownreally fast on social media have

(05:23):
figured out a format whoconsistently show up and do the same
thing again and again andagain. This seems illogical to me
to find success at somethingand then not to do it anymore. It
doesn't make any sense. Andvery few people get away with the
I'm going to post and talkabout lots of different things because
of who they are, how theybuilt up their fan base and how they

(05:44):
consistently continue to grow.And you have to run this risk. And
if you're willing to take therisk, go for it. Which is you'll
gain new followers, but you'lllose a lot of followers too. And
if that doesn't matter to you,do whatever the heck you want. And
God bless you, be happy. Andthat's all social media can be for
you. And that's totally fine.But I'm telling you right now, if
I followed you for tips oncooking and you start showing me

(06:05):
gardening, I may not likethat. If you show me things on gardening
and you start to do fashion,I'm going to follow people who are
very good at something becausethey're going to show me the very
best. So when your feed getskind of junked up with other things
that don't belong, chances arepeople are going to follow you. And
you can see this played out inmany different ways. When you go
to a restaurant, you want therestaurant that makes something really.

(06:28):
Well, not a lot of thingsmediocre. Well, when you go to a
department store, you want toknow it's selling me clothes at a
certain price point. Not ultrahigh end premium luxury goods and
also discount goods. Itdoesn't work that way. And if you
go to the store to buy amagazine, most magazines if you still
read magazines, focus on onevery specific topic and they go as

(06:49):
deep as possible because theywant to be the de facto standard
in their space, not just oneof many.
Thanks for joining us. If youhaven't already, subscribe to our
show on your favoritepodcasting app and get new insightful
episodes from us every week.The Future Podcast podcast is hosted

(07:11):
by Chris do and produced andedited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank
you to Adam Sanborn for ourintro music. If you enjoyed this
episode, then do us a favor byreviewing and rating our show on
Apple Podcasts. It will helpus grow the show and make future
episodes that much better. Ifyou'd like to support the show and

(07:32):
invest in yourself whileyou're at it, visit thefuture.com
and you'll find video courses,digital products, and a bunch of
helpful resources about designand the creative business. Thanks
again for listening and we'llsee you next time.