One of the easiest ways to get pulled onto great projects or great teams is by standing out in the right ways.
But, when you have no idea what you’re doing, what you want to be doing, or what you should be doing – this seems like a daunting task to tackle.
If you don’t know what people want – how do you stand out to them?
If you do know – how do you stand out without being obnoxious or overbearing?
It can seem like a paradoxical chicken/egg problem. But, I assure you, it isn’t – it’s also simpler than you imagine it to be.
Grab a Book
First, I’d highly recommend you grab a book called “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” by Scott Adams. If you’ve ever picked up a Dilbert comic strip – you know who Scott is.
The interesting thing about said book, and Adams himself, is that he asserts that he isn’t particularly fantastic at any one thing. He’s simply competent in a handful of areas which – when those skills are combined – drastically increase his odds of success.
You can see that this is plainly evident – nobody would say that Dilbert is the most beautifully drawn or wonderfully written thing ever. But, it hit just the right note for its market – and Adams had the skills to ride that success wave when it showed up.
This idea – that you can be competent in a number of things and be successful – Adams calls skill stacking.
What it Looks Like
I’ve unknowingly used it often in my career, and when I point it out about myself I’m sure you can think of others who have as well.
I’ve become “known” for my audio skills and programming experience. I tell you regularly – I’m not amazing at either of those things. Regardless, I continue to get paid for programming and audio work.
Prior to working with games and programming, I was simply competent in a variety of audio disciplines. I became known to my clients as a “go-to” audio professional – if they had literally any task (even audio for a singer who flew a stunt plane while singing), I could and would take care of it well.
Someone like Ramit Sethi has used a combination of personal finance, business, and a connection to “high performing” individuals to make his work stand out.
The Coding Train is a YouTube channel that combines the quirkiness of a kid’s show with Javascript-centric creative programming with an empathetic, low barrier to entry.
The Punk Rock MBA combines video essays about music trends with an interest in hardcore music and DIY business ethics.
My dear friend Akash Thakkar wields sound design expertise and fuses it with business acumen, psychology/empathy, self-deprecating wit, and of course – anime and pro wrestling.
You’ll notice that each one of these people has some sort of “core” business – finance, programming, music, and sound design – but they combine that foundation with a handful of other interests or competencies to form something wholly unique.
It really is that simple, I promise.
How Do You Find Yours?
When you try and figure this out for yourself, you’ll quickly be caught up with the thought that you’re boring.
This is a trick that has been played on you largely by our connectivity and social media. When you’re comparing yourself to the internet all day – of course you’re going to find yourself boring.
There’s a never-ending stream of weird, quirky, interesting rabbit holes on the internet. Don’t worry about it.
Instead, think about the core of what you’re most interested in and what you want to get paid to do (or that you already get paid to do). I imagine for most of you, that’s sound design.
From that point, you’re then looking to find what quirk, interest, or unique thing you bring to sound design.
It could be literally anything:
- You always mix on headphones.
- You’re overly obsessed with shotgun microphones.
- You always use modular synths.
- You’ll do entire games using only Pocket Operators.
- You bought my ChucK book and now use ChucK extensively.
- You program Reaper scripts constantly and never actually touch audio by hand anymore.
- You’re an incredible dialogue editor.
- You’re a neat freak and make everyone’s studios impeccably clean.
- You know more about source control than any audio person in the office.
- You know a ton of interesting places to go record sounds.
- You have an unhealthy obsession with anime.
- You are aggressively opinionated about BBQ.
- You adore pop-punk bands.
Okay so those last few probably won’t be the reasons you get employed – but they will give you a personality that allows other people to connect with you and remember you.
I’m not kidding – I once had an interviewer inquire about my BBQ snobbery during the interview when trying to “break the ice” socially. I had a moment of “what the… why are you…?” before I realized that the conversation was code for “I read your website and found something interesting to talk about.”
I’d inadvertently helped the interview along simply because the interviewer knew something about me other than “audio” – which lead us to connect more easily.
That, my friends, is the whole point of this.
You might find any of the above things boring, rote, or mundane – but the person you’re connecting with won’t!
To you, modular synthesis may just be the obsession you’ve held since forever and you feel kind of weird about it and don’t bring it up to anyone other than other people who like it.
To someone else – that’s often an interesting topic of conversation about what you like about it, why, and how it’s useful to your work.
So, if you think your uniqueness is boring – you’re often on the right path.
In Summary
Wrapping it up, here’s what I want you to remember:
- Grab Scott Adams’ book
- Uniqueness is most easily found through skill stacking – being competent at a core skill and a handful of others, usually related
- For me it looks like audio + programming
- Yours will likely feel boring to you, but it won’t be to others
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