Friday morning, Matt was up early. He had resolved to go for a run before work, another first for him. Sabina didn't know how his sojourn into exploring the intersection of finance and the outdoors would turn out, but for her part, she hadn't seen this much energy in him since they started dating when he was in the Army.
Matt went to go find another podcast from Sparky. This was titled, “The Monopoly of You.” Matt bounced down the front stairs of the condo, dropped in his earbuds, hit play, and was off and running.
“Listen – I want to talk about monopolies.” Sparky was unusually serene at the start of this one. “'But, Sparky, you say to me, aren't monopolies just for big utilities, and aren't they a bad thing? Well, maybe before they were. But today, in a talent economy, if you create something that is so distinctly YOU, that no one can just copy or paste, then you can create a monopoly. And it's in the monopoly that we create value for ourselves. Every great artist has done this – created his own style. You can't copy it. There is no competition, per se. Average artists focus on perfecting other people's styles. Great artists create their own style. Average business people do business the way school taught them to. Great business people break some of those rules to do it on their own terms and create break-through value as a result.”
Matt picked up his pace, feeling an energy spurt.
“My guess is that if you are listening to this podcast, it's because you're a little insane like me, and you have some burning desire to do something with your life. My other guess is that you have some weird idea that has been tumbling around in that brain of yours. And this idea, this thing, that is your monopoly. I'm not saying go out there and do what you love because I want you to feel good or because it sounds nice. I could care less. I'm saying go pursue that idea because it's the only thing that you are obsessed enough to keep going with after the stuff hits the fan and it gets harder than you ever thought. Loving this idea, and being obsessed about it, is the fuel to keep you going another day. When you do pursue it, you'll become the world's foremost expert and create for yourself a nice little monopoly, not because you are smarter or better, but because no one did it the way you did it, and no one had thought about it as much as you had thought about it. There are certain things that only you have: your personality, your networks, your life experience, your weird ideas, and your specific passions. If you put those things together in a way that makes sense, people can't compete with you. And that's your little monopoly of one – the monopoly of YOU in the world.”
Matt hadn't noticed how fast his pace had increased. The podcast continued and Sparky told story after story of people pursuing really specific ideas tailored to their personalities. A woman who built a YouTube channel with cats doing puppet shows…a guy who had an unsuccessful taco truck for a while until he moved it to the roof of a building…an older couple who opened a nursing home that had a waterpark on site to entice family and grandkids to come hang out. He was winding back toward home but caught himself in what was nearly a sprint, definitely faster than his normal jog. Monopoly of one. That was an interesting idea. What was that for him? He hardly felt unique; being a guy in finance was not terribly original. Being interested in the outdoors, treks, or camping was not terribly original, either. So where was his monopoly in all of this? That was the question that would carry him through the day.
As he was ending his run, he got a text message. “Morning, Matt. Alberto here. Hey, I'd like for you to come see Apocalypse: The Experience this weekend. Sunday at 7:00 p.m. – I got you two tickets. 43rd and Halsted. Text me when you get there.”
Matt laughed at the tone. The people in this group always surprised him. They didn't ask; they just told. But he found himself eager to comply. “See you there,” he texted back, “thank you!”
Apocalypse: The Experience. What on earth could that be?
Matt now had two appointments on the books for the weekend ahead, one with Sabina to go climbing with another couple he'd just met on LinkedIn and then another to go to a show on Sunday in a neighborhood he had never been to at the invitation of a guy he'd met less than a week ago. Strange as that all seemed, however, this was the first weekend in a while where he felt excited about what lay ahead.