the renaissance man: a celebration of intermediacy

This year I followed my mountain guide Patrick Delaney up some seriously hard frozen waterfalls. At 46, I do a lot less leading and a lot more following up ice routes these days. The risk and reward profile of the sport has changed for me at this point in my life. I still lead the moderate routes with my wife but leave the hard stuff for Patrick.

In some way this feels mediocre to me. I've had a struggle with this my whole life. A struggle with my ego that is. I feel the instinct for greatness, but the top climbers are always well above me, even though I've always been a pretty competent and confident climber. I'm just not an elite level climber. As a result I've always been close to, but outside the inner circle of the top climbers living in Canmore and Banff.

The same is true of every sport I do. I'm a pretty competent and confident mountain biker, golfer, skier, hiker and musher, but I'm not at the elite level in anything I do. I'm a solid intermediate in all of these sports.

The same seems also to be true of my professional and business skills. I'm the product of a rather varied apprenticeship. The clients I've been fortune to have in the past twenty-five years, along with my formal education, have given me a solid grounding in finance, production, entrepreneurship, research and development, marketing, human resources, health, fitness, philanthropy and relationships. I'm a decent writer and public speaker, I've learned to listen to people and I can resolve disputes. I'm not at the best in any of these disciplines. There is an elite level well above my head just like there is in climbing.

My references for my own personal greatness have in the past been the top people in each of these areas. I look at the level they operate at and sometimes feel deficient. I've judged whether I'm good enough based on the world-class in specific fields, which is just not an accurate way to evaluate someone who is, in effect, a generalist.

As a generalist, I'm reasonably competent and a confident in the bulk of personal and business growth disciplines. I'm not an expert in these areas, but I am a solid intermediate.

This leaves me with the question: if I have the instinct for greatness, what is my actual expertise? How does an intermediate person become great?

I think for me, the answer to that question is about perspective and alignment. With such a broad and but still reasonably deep background in all the major personal and business development disciplines, I provide a rare perspective that aligns the many forces acting on and through an entrepreneur.

I might not be an expert in finance, but I can support a growing business in breaking into a market niche to develop additional cashflow from the launch of a new service. I might not know as much about social media as the current marketing experts do but I have the capacity to help an entrepreneur realize that the problem he has with a teenager is the same issue he has delegating to his staff. I've helped venture capitalists and investment bankers lose weight and keep it off and many businesses make peace between their commercial ambitions and social responsibilities.

I have long associated intermediacy with mediocracy. This is a quirk of my own growth as human being. We all have the capacity for greatness in our own special way. Being good at a broad array of disciplines is, I guess, its own form of potential greatness.