The idea of “less is more” was popularized in 1947 as an argument for minimalism. But today, more than ever, minimalism is important in all aspects of life. You can see it in the resurgence of simplistic design, or Marie Kondo, or in the re-popularization of stoicism.
There’s too much competition for our attention. We can’t buy everything we see on TV, deep-dive into every interesting topic we learn about on the internet, or track everything that’s happening in the world.
Instead, we tend to focus on what is relevant or interesting to us.
In business, there are Specialists and Generalists. It isn’t hard to imagine that their reading lists, habits, and sources of happiness or fulfillment are probably quite different.
The same is true for Simplifiers and Multipliers (which is a concept that Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach has written a book about).
In your business career, to get to where you are, you’ve been successful at two things. You’ve simplified things, which gave you an advantage. And you multiplied things, which gave you an advantage. Said a different way, as a simplifier, you took something that was complex for everybody else, and you made it simple. And as a multiplier, you took something that was a new solution, and you had successes multiplying it out in the world so that a lot of people could get the advantage of your simplifications.
But the truth is most people are either primarily simplifiers or multipliers. The best partnerships happen when you pair the two. Amazing conversations happen when a simplifier says to a multiplier, “I’ve got this really neat solution ... What would you do with it?” Each has something the other doesn’t; and the combination is often exponential.
I am primarily a simplifier. So, I tend to look for people or technologies to multiply what I produce.
I shot a video on the topic. Click here to watch.
The internet and global digital economy enable you to find an audience for almost anything.
No matter how far you niche down to find your true calling, there are likely people who are just as excited about what you do as you.
So, sometimes less is more.
Are you a simplifier or a multiplier?
