Comparative Advantage: Career and Life Planning

One of the concepts that influenced my thinking to a great extent and helped me shape my career has been the "Three Circles or the Hedgehog concept" that I came across in the book - "Good to Great", by Jim Collins.

After going through the session on international trade and understanding the concept of comparative advantage, I have realized how close both the concepts are. The gist find out what all you can do, find out what you can do better than other things and focus on that.

Though there are slight differences, the key point is to that one should take time out regularly to identify what is that he/she is better at and see how it is valuable to the society in economic sense. This kind of exercise brings in focus and satisfaction. Many times during my 12+ year career I used to feel shaky because I was not sure whether I was good enough only to realize later that I was among the top few. As I used to realize that very late, I couldn't capitalize on my strengths. Once I started thinking in this direction I quickly realized what I can do better and capitalized on that aspect quickly. This is one aspect that helped me to realize the results personally.

On a broader front, I would like to think that all of us are same in certain things but are different in certain few. While keeping in mind the universality keep identifying what's different about you. That understanding alone can take you to places.

Once again, do you know What's your comparative advantage?