Adding perspective through the competence canvas

‌We each have different levels of competence, manifested in different ways across a universe of possible knowledge and skills.

I call it the competence canvas.

Will I ever be that good?

I was being choked again. Tap, tap, tap.

Being choked sucks. Your vision darkens on the periphery. You start seeing stars. Sometimes you "snore" trying to pull air. All the while, you're balancing navigating the line between escaping and passing out.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is humbling. Due to its competitive nature, you're constantly faced at a visceral level with your gaps and other people's competence.

"Will I ever be that good?"

I often wonder about that on BJJ and my other interests, such as writing, guitar, and math.

In most pursuits, we do grow as long as we practice and focus. Sometimes, we grow a bit even by just spending time on it.

But there are levels to almost every game. Sure, I can learn math, but not John von Neumann or Kurt Gödel math.

Nope. I'll never be that good.

But then .. is it worth pursuing it? And how should you think about it?

Why invest in a skill when you'll never reach the top tier? Can you embrace this ceiling that ends way before other people's floors even start?

To work through that, I suggest you think about how your unique set of competencies grow and work together.

No two painters are alike

Imagine a skill: BJJ, writing, cycling, or management.

I like to think of all the possible knowledge and skills in a particular area as an empty canvas. Every part of the canvas represents a part of that area of competence.

The empty canvas represents all that could be known about a field – all the possible skills, knowledge, and mastery that allow one to excel in that field.

As you learn the field, you start painting the canvas with your paint. Just a small part of the canvas at first, but with time your paint will expand further and further into the canvas.

That splat of paint that covers some areas with color and drips on some other areas is uniquely yours – your unique set of competencies.

You can compare your painting with hundreds, even thousands of other paintings. In most fields, these paintings will look quite different.

The fact that no two painters are alike doesn't mean that every person deserves a spot under the sun. There's limited space on the gallery wall, and your painting either makes it or it doesn't.

But you don't need to paint like other people do. Some painters are just too good. Some painters are just too different.

Instead, if you intend to be highly competent, the point is to be the best painter you can be. To try to paint your best paintings.

And because we're complex individuals, with many interests and abilities, the paintings we paint are quite also complex.

The canvas of all your competencies

If the above was the canvas of one of your skills, you can expand it to see how your overall painting is turning out: the canvas of all of your skills.

Here you see your skills in perspective: communication, programming, philosophy, running, woodworking, etc.

When looking at your whole set of competencies, it all comes together on a painting that's even more uniquely yours.

Yes, some people will paint areas of the canvas you'll never get to.

Yes, some people can paint things you can't even see.

But that's alright because it's impossible to paint the whole canvas with all the different colors at once anyway. You have to pick the best painting you can do and stick with it.

Even if you could be as good as someone, you can't be as good as everyone. It makes no sense.

And so you must choose carefully what you paint.

There's limited time to paint.

And a virtually infinite canvas.

The virtual infinity of competence

In the end, there's just too much to learn. Choosing what to focus on is as critical as how much you grow.

The canvas of all possible knowledge is vast, and when you die, your canvas will look something like this:

Yes, there are a few dots here and there. But when looking literally at the big picture, the dots are unremarkable, and the canvas is mostly empty.

Your goal is not to paint the whole canvas. This is not a coloring book.

Like a musician, you must explore the pauses, the rhythm, the tones, and the textures. Be selective and unique.

Art, it turns out, is an excellent metaphor for the uniqueness of competence.

Competence, like art, is personal.

And as much about what you don't do as it is about what you do.