Unless It Involved Free Margaritas and Jason Bateman

I’ve been thinking about my question from Thursday: Do I spread the risk with multiple projects, or put all my eggs in that basket and go for expert status with just one?

I recently joked to a friend that I’ve made the most important decisions of my life with one simple question: What the hell? Despite the flip attitude, I make informed decisions – I research, talk it out with trusted advisors – but ultimately, it comes down to two things: listening to my gut, and imagining the worst-case scenario.

In this instance, the gut says: One project. Focus on it until the end of next year and see where it goes. Learn a hell of a lot about one thing, get really good at it, share my knowledge and experiences. If I’m passionate about this thing, I’m guessing there are others out there like me. Because really, who isn’t passionate about raising ring-tailed lemurs?

Ha, ha! I mean, of course, going on the road with the Scamp. The worst case scenario of going all in is sure, I may have less money in the savings account by next December, but I’ll have also traveled all over the country, met lots of different people, seen the incredible beauty (and weirdness) that is the U.S., and gathered tons of material for a blog, articles, and maybe a book.

In other words, What the hell?

I found this blog post about being the best in a niche, or what Calvin Newport (via The Four-Hour Work Week) calls the Superstar Corollary. Here’s a snippet, where he talks about a high school student who got into Stanford despite less than stellar grades and SAT scores:

Starting as a freshman, he focused all of his extracurricular energies on a serial string of environmental sustainability projects. He started by submitting a model of a green house to a competition. This led him to discover that a local energy company offered a grant program for local high school students. He won a modest grant, and used it, with the help of a retired engineer from his hometown, to retrofit a golf cart to run on biofuels. Leveraging this success, he earned another grant which he used to install solar panels on his school's maintenance shed. This earned him press coverage, and the resulting Superstar Effect helped wow the Stanford admissions department into overlooking his borderline scores.

In other words, pick a tiny playground, and become the best in it.

Newport makes another good point from comedian Steve Martin’s career:

He notes that diligence was crucial in his rise to comedic fame, but he's quick to redefine the term away from its standard definition of "hard work applied consistently over time." To Martin, the key to diligence isn't the work applied to your pursuit, but instead the work you don't apply to other pursuits. He succeeded in reinventing comedy because he kept his focus on comedy, even when other, more shiny and interesting side projects presented themselves.

That last sentence hit home with me, because God knows I’m easily distracted by the shiny and interesting.

So here’s what I’m thinking. Why not focus on solo female U.S. road travel – a tiny playground, but what a blast! – and learn all I can about it. Where to go, how to go, what it’s like traveling this big country alone, and most importantly, how many times can you wear the same pair of pants without stopping at a Laundromat?

I can’t think of a better way to spend the next year of my life.

What about you? What would happen if you went all in on your biggest passion?