How To Find Your “One Thing”

Timothée Chalamet, the rise of the superstar, Will Smith, and finding your one thing.

May 22, 2025

Pursuit Of Greatness

Upon accepting the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Award, for his performance in Bob Dylan movie, Timothée Chalamet delivered an impassioned speech about greatness:

“The truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight. I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there. So I’m deeply grateful.”
Timothée Chalamet

Chalamet was likely driven by something much deeper than money. But the reality is, it pays to be the best.

It Can Pay To Be The Best

The road to becoming #1 in anything is challenging. Few actually end up becoming the best. But if you can become #1, it pays well.

A 1981 study in The American Economic Review coins the term “Superstars”, or a small number of people who earn an enormous amount.

There’s a steep demand curve for the best.

Everybody wants to hire the best.
Few wants to hire average.

The reason, cited by Alfred Marshall in Principles of Economics (1947):

Whereas average gets paid chump change, the best gets paid well.

What Does It Take To Be The Best?

The number of hours to achieve mastery depends on the level of competition in the field you’re competing in.²

“There is nothing magical about exactly 10,000 hours. Winners of international piano competitions continued full-time practice for many years beyond age 20 and thus accumulated around 25,000 hours at the time of their success.”

While something as competitive as piano might take 25,000 hours to become among the best, less competitive domains are much easier to be the best.

“In other domains, especially less competitive ones, it is possible to reach an international level in much less time. In the early 1980s my colleagues and I demonstrated that college students could reach a world-class performance for memorizing digits after 500-1,000 hours of training.”
K. Anders Ericsson

What you become the best at is just as important as actually making progress to become the best.

Personally, I want to be among the best at sales and writing. That’s my goal. Anyone can be the best at whatever they want. Will Smith puts it well.

Will Smith

Mark Manson followed Will Smith for months while co-authoring Will. Manson described a particular conversation with Will about excellence.

“It’s simple. I’m world class at one thing: acting. Doing anything else would take my time and energy away from being world class.
My chef is world class at one thing: cooking. By sending him home would be taking him away from the thing he’s world class at. To send him home would rob him of an opportunity to be excellent.”
Mark Manson paraphrasing Will Smith1

Will Smith chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool. Probably shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.

To Will Smith, pursuing excellence is a moral obligation. It’s your responsibility to be world class at your one thing. When you take time and energy away from that one thing you rob yourself of the opportunity to be excellent.

What Is Your One Thing?

Your one thing is rarely actually one thing.

Will Smith’s one thing was acting. But it was really a unique combination: acting, dancing, rapping, and now producing.
Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, made comics. But in reality, he combined jokes, illustration, and business acumen into a combination that was uniquely Scott.
I bring together my background in athletics, sales, and philosophy into a combination that’s uniquely me.

What is your one thing? Respond to this email or comment what that thing is.

If you don’t know, this is how you find your one thing.