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Ep. 22 - Building Optionality in your 20s Part 2: Breadth & Range
17 Plays11 days ago
In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes continue their conversation on building optionality in your 20s by focusing on breadth and range. They dismantle the lie that career growth only happens by moving up the ladder and instead explore how developing a wide set of complementary skills can position you for long-term impact in the marketplace and the Kingdom of God. Drawing from personal experience, business insights, and Scripture, they offer practical ways to grow range without losing focus.
Resources Mentioned
- Range by David Epstein
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
- Rise Into Your Calling sessions (in the community)
- Portfolio Building Workshop (in the community)
Timestamps
- 00:00–01:30 – Introduction & the core lie: “I can only move up”
- 01:31–03:30 – Generalists vs. specialists & insights from Range
- 03:31–07:15 – Five truths about generalists and long-term career growth
- 07:16–09:05 – Biblical perspective on diverse gifts and faithful stewardship
- 09:06–10:55 – Defining your center of gravity
- 10:56–12:35 – Pursuing adjacent skills (including non-obvious ones)
- 12:36–14:30 – Networking, conferences, and hyper-learning
- 14:31–15:45 – Volunteering and side hustles as low-risk skill builders
- 15:46–16:55 – Letting mentors pull you into greater range
- 16:56–18:30 – Closing encouragement, prayer, and community next steps
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Bury Talent
00:00:08
Ken Freire
Welcome to Bury Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are. I'm
Building Optionality in Your 20s
00:00:18
Ken Freire
Ken Freira here with my co-host, Patrick Lowndes, and today we're talking about building optionality in your 20s, part two, breadth and range.
00:00:28
Ken Freire
Patrick, this is something that we are both pretty passionate about, and we didn't realize until we started actually talking about the scope of the content that we're addressing today.
Challenging Career Growth Misconceptions
00:00:38
Patrick
Yeah, it is, wide ranging in its implications, pun intended there, dad joke, uh,
00:00:44
Ken Freire
Yeah, I like, wow, the dad puns are coming out already. 40 seconds in.
00:00:46
Patrick
Oh my goodness.
00:00:47
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:00:47
Patrick
Coming on hot with the dad puns.
00:00:48
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:00:50
Patrick
No, when we talk about optionality, people like to quickly think about, there are different versions of this. And the core
The Value of Being a Generalist
00:00:56
Patrick
lie we're going to get after today is, once I've gone deep, I must now expand my career options specifically in that vein.
00:01:04
Patrick
So people many times are thinking, cool, how can I go deeper or maybe climb the ladder in this particular role? Like I started in engineering, like maybe I moved towards a manager role or, you know, they don't think very much laterally.
00:01:18
Patrick
And so I think the lie here is that, you know, I just need to climb the ladder somehow. And that's how I can build out technology.
00:01:24
Ken Freire
Or I can only move up.
00:01:26
Patrick
Yeah, that's right.
00:01:27
Ken Freire
Exactly. I can only move up.
00:01:28
Patrick
It's more than just going up. You got it. You got And you read a book that you probably read it before I did, but a really powerful book. Maybe kick it off talking about that book.
00:01:45
Patrick
Yes.
00:01:47
Ken Freire
And the book is all about how generalists will triumph over the world. And the reason why this book in particular was for me was because I remember when I was a young leader, I felt like I had to pick a route.
00:02:00
Ken Freire
And I wasn't sure what route to pick. I was like pretty good at a lot of things. And still, even now, I'm pretty good at a lot of things. And I was just like, man, God, am I really just called to one thing? I don't know how to pick one thing.
00:02:15
Ken Freire
And I felt stuck, though. So when I read Range, he just talks about how there is places where going to really competent in. But actually, the generalist is the one who's cross-functionally capable of doing a lot of different things because they're able to connect the dots.
00:02:33
Ken Freire
And I remember when he told me when I read that and he said, you generalists connect the dots of different functions and can utilize it. I felt like my brain clicked. And I was joking around with you before were recording. Like I finally felt seen from a business book.
00:02:50
Patrick
Yep.
00:02:50
Ken Freire
I read a lot of business books, a lot of type like self-help books.
00:02:52
Ken Freire
And I'm like, oh, they're always garbage. But this was like. Like, oh, it explained why I was the way I am. Like, because if for some of you guys don't know the VP of programs here Frontier Operators, I do a lot of the program stuff. I love it. But then I'm like, I'm also good at sales and marketing and ops. And I'm like eclectic enough that I'm capable of a lot of those things and how they connect well.
00:03:17
Ken Freire
And it's hard to always be like, oh, I just want to be programmed all day long. Like I'll get bored in 10 minutes. And then it's like, oh, I just want to do sales all day long. Like I'll die if I do that every day. You know, so finding that range was so powerful for me to know that I can walk in all of those, but I have to be very intentional about how I do it.
00:03:26
Patrick
That's right.
00:03:36
Patrick
Yeah. And
Truths About Generalists
00:03:37
Patrick
you know, what's helpful is we're just going to summarize five truths about generalists just for a minute here, a couple minutes. And then we're going to launch into what we normally do is trying to tie this back into the gospel and kind of what it, how it forms us. And we're going to leave you with five ways to build range without losing focus. So
Specialists vs. Generalists: Career Success
00:03:58
Patrick
let's start off with just, what are some of these truths about generalists? Just share a few of them, Ken, and then we'll kind of go back and forth.
00:04:05
Ken Freire
Yeah. So the first one I would say is that early specialists win early. Meaning like if you're starting your career and you become a specialist, you might thrive and become a high performer and get the accolades early.
00:04:16
Ken Freire
However, generalists typically win later on in life. So realize that it's the generalist who ends up being the expertise or the one that people go to.
00:04:21
Patrick
Yep.
00:04:28
Patrick
That's right. And so you might look like you're behind. So point
Five Key Truths About Generalists
00:04:30
Patrick
two is a lot of top performers, they sample broadly first, and then they specialize when they have more conviction, which was interesting because what it means is they kind of have to become that generalist. And then they realize, like, I even can for you, when we're working on a campaign for something, when it gets into the design area, you're like,
00:04:50
Patrick
I don't really want to jump in Canva and mess around with graphics. Right. Whereas I'm a lot more comfortable to say, I'll jump into that. But I hate, like, I'll pull my hair out if I have to get on, you know, like, you know, technical support calls and make a system work, which you're, you can survive those better than I can.
00:05:05
Patrick
Right.
00:05:05
Patrick
Like you're more like Jesus after those calls and I'm more like Jesus after design. Right.
00:05:10
Ken Freire
For sure, because I hate design. Yeah.
00:05:12
Patrick
That, but see, but you've, you've had time to test and sample. So that's the third one is, is sample broadly, but go ahead, Ken. Point three.
00:05:19
Ken Freire
Yeah, point three. So that was the second one. Point three intentional exploration leads to better long-term fit than rushing commitments. And this is really important for you is that like, you don't want to just start picking random stuff. Like you want to be really intentional about what are you doing to expand your range?
00:05:36
Patrick
That's right. That's right. And we'll talk about that in some of the tips here in just a second.
00:05:39
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:05:39
Patrick
The fourth one is about generalists is the more complex the problem, the more valuable range becomes. So again, if you graduated with a finance degree and you're in a finance job and you're like, okay, I'm looking at managing the books or I'm analyzing financial statements, very quickly you start to realize that when you're in finance, you have to actually understand lots of parts of the business.
00:06:02
Patrick
Or good engineer, like a software engineer, you're not just good at shipping code and making it clean. You're actually intuitive about what is the customer trying to accomplish with this code, internal customers or external.
00:06:13
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:06:14
Patrick
You're thinking about the complexity of what you're trying to deliver on. And so range helps you be more valuable in those circumstances. So that's number four, the more complex the problem.
00:06:24
Patrick
Yeah.
00:06:24
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:06:25
Ken Freire
And the last one is that excellence is rarely straight line. So think about this, like late bloomers, when it comes to business or leadership, whatever it is in the workplace, that's the norm. It's not the exception. Like a lot of us sometimes assume that the young 20s, you're going this awesome leader running a Fortune 500 company. And it's like, no, like 20s is a lot about learning.
00:06:49
Ken Freire
You know, 30s is about doing and then like 40s, 50s is like you're excelling now and you're leading. So if you have that frame of mindset of my 20s, I'm just going to learn a lot of good skill sets and be competent in each one of them.
00:07:02
Ken Freire
You're going to far.
00:07:04
Patrick
Yeah,
Biblical Stories and Diverse Skills
00:07:04
Patrick
that's right. I want to maybe hit on just, there's a lot of different angles you could take on from the Bible, like how does the gospel, how does the biblical stories or examples inform this idea of having more range?
00:07:25
Ken Freire
Yep.
00:07:27
Patrick
You talk about all the different roles and leadership and kind of what the church and Timothy, four is talking about equipping the saints, right? For the work of ministry. And then even just like the gospel going out, usually is following just faithful stewardship, right? It's, I was stewarding, Jesus would come in and he would see the needs and he would go and deliver, know, healing or do a miracle, right? And then,
00:07:51
Patrick
the kingdom of God, he would preach about it and people would come and want to follow him. That's how the kingdom expanded. And so we have those examples in scripture, but it starts with a point of what is the diversity of the skills and the things that I'm good at?
00:08:05
Patrick
So if you haven't taken like spiritual gifts inventory, like there's lots of tests out there. You can take and learn what are my spiritual gifts? What are the things, strengths finders, all sorts of things. And then how those things start to bleed into marketplace roles,
00:08:18
Patrick
right? And how those get interpreted into what am I good at? We use the working genius as an example, not for specific skills, but for ways and modes of working in our program.
00:08:28
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:08:28
Patrick
So lots of ways to see the kingdom of God be influenced by a wide range of skill sets. The point is, understand what yours are from a biblical perspective and also from a professional contribution as well.
00:08:43
Patrick
So that's just a note on how the gospel can tie into you exploring your range, your giftings. How do you fit in and how do you show up?
00:08:50
Ken Freire
Yeah, and that
Practical Ways to Build Range
00:08:51
Ken Freire
matters ultimately because the more you feel like it's okay to expand, God did it. I'm being faithful steward to what I'm doing. It gives you permission.
00:09:01
Ken Freire
I think sometimes we feel like we have to be stuck, like it's our only option. And if you realize, and this has happened to us before, right, Patrick, where you pick a lane, you think you're going to enjoy this lane of expertise. And six months in, you're like, I really don't like this.
00:09:16
Ken Freire
Or a year in, you're like, I don't want to do this. So you've got to find something that you're like, OK, well, what's adjacent to that? There's a reason why you started that thing initially.
00:09:25
Patrick
Yep.
00:09:25
Ken Freire
Maybe there's just another adjacent skill set that you got to find to really enjoy it.
00:09:30
Patrick
That's right. Well, let's make this practical. Five ways to build range without losing focus. And again, if you didn't hear part one, listen that first. Go
Identifying Core Strengths
00:09:41
Patrick
deep first, understand, clarify your calling and how God might be forming you to use your skills in the marketplace because that will inform where you go here. So point number one is define your center of gravity.
00:09:54
Patrick
So you're probably, again, you're probably your first couple jobs in your 20s, you're likely getting good at one particular skill. It might be a skill that you're known for. It could be sales, could be engineering, could be ops or finances, analysis and data, whatever it is. And when you start with that skill, when you think about your range around that skill, the range should be kind of like your orbit around your center.
00:10:19
Patrick
And we'll give some examples of that. But first, just get clarity on what am I really good at? If I asked three or four your coworkers, like, hey, what's Ken really good at?
00:10:29
Patrick
they should be able to kind of say, oh, well, Ken's really good ops and doing this and that. What would the answers be that your friends would give? Start with that for defining your center of gravity.
00:10:39
Ken Freire
Yeah, which leads to the second one is pursue adjacent skills, not random ones. And for good range, you want to think about it. Like, say you're in sales, you might go, hey, I should really learn marketing so that you understand how marketing and sales talk together. Or you may say, I'm going learn negotiation, which a great book by Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference, one of my top five business books out there that I love, right? You want to do that. Or leadership.
00:11:06
Ken Freire
You're trying to find adjacent skills that help.
00:11:06
Patrick
Yep.
00:11:08
Ken Freire
Now, I will say there are times that you're adding a new skill set that may seem a little random, but it's helping you unlock all the other potentials that you have.
00:11:19
Ken Freire
I'll give you a quick example. For those of you who've been listening to this, I've probably thrown this out a few times, I do Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I've been doing it for eight and a half years now. And it's like human chess.
00:11:31
Ken Freire
And some people might be like, well, how does that fit for all these other things? Well, because I'm using a different part of my brain to problem solve. And I'm processing new information and I'm able to take the way I'm problem solving there and bring it into all the other skills that I have when it comes to operations or sales.
00:11:39
Patrick
Hmm.
00:11:50
Ken Freire
I'm like, well, what's the problem we're trying to solve? What are we actually trying to execute here? What are we doing? What's the small levers that we can move that make big adjustments? So finding adjacent skills doesn't always have to be from a business standpoint. It could be an activity that
Networking and Learning Opportunities
00:12:04
Ken Freire
you do But just making sure that that activity has an adjacent skill that can uplift or leverage all the other things that you're doing.
00:12:13
Patrick
That's right. A lot of young people we meet are starting out in one job and I ask him, where do you want to be in three to five, maybe even 10 years? And almost every single one of them has an answer that is, if not a little bit different, a lot different than where they're starting out.
00:12:26
Patrick
So it's natural, it's common.
00:12:27
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:12:28
Patrick
All right, number three, use networking and conferences, I'll say, as hyper learning. So, again, you could just do some searches on LinkedIn and maybe automate a bunch of DMs and connection requests, and there's tools to do those kinds of things, which is going to feel a little bit like spray and pray.
00:12:47
Patrick
What we're talking about here is try to start, and we talked about this with clarifying your calling and rising to your calling, how do we start with the organizations or the companies that are working in sectors or solving problems that really inspire you? Sure.
00:13:02
Patrick
are really interesting, really fascinating. Or if you're, for example, if you're in engineering and you're like, hey, I
Exploring Skills Through Side Hustles
00:13:08
Patrick
want to get really good at product, cool, go hang out at a product conference and go rub shoulders with people that are good in that space. If you're interested in saying, hey, maybe I'm good in general in terms of my technical skills that I'm trying to go find people that want to that want to use more of a data analysis perspective, maybe go find a cause that there's lots of data needs that they're analyzing. This could be, let's say, finding a big data set that a nonprofit's trying to use. They would probably gladly take volunteers to help out and jump in and do some side hustles that actually could really expand your skill set. But where to find people, I would say start with conferences and groups like meetups, and then also just kind of going a little bit more specific in networking. But Ken, you can maybe double click on that point about the volunteer side hustle side on the next one.
00:13:58
Ken Freire
Yeah, absolutely. So for the fourth one, the best way to sometimes grow a new skill set is to, like Patrick just said, you either volunteer with a cause that you really like. This gives you close experience. Like, is this something that you want to do? And it also helps you grow the passion that's in your heart.
00:14:15
Ken Freire
Sometimes just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean that that should be your career. But again, that can help you grow your skill sets for other things. So find how your skills can best benefit volunteering in another place.
00:14:31
Ken Freire
Another way that you can expand your skills is side hustles. For those of you who are thinking about it, it could one, reinforce your main skill, or it could help you to learn a new skill in a low risk environment.
00:14:45
Ken Freire
So again, for some of you, we go back to marketing. If you ever want to run a business, you got to know how to market. You got to know how to generate leads. This is a great way to learn. It's just playing around, figuring it out, like figuring out what medium you like to use.
00:14:58
Ken Freire
All this adds credibility to you and doesn't distract you.
00:15:03
Patrick
Yep. And so the fifth one that
Mentorship and Fun Projects
00:15:04
Patrick
we want to give you today is more of the people side of this. So as you're doing all these things, you're meeting different, interesting people, you're doing maybe some side hustle stuff, is let mentors pull you into range, right? So as you're volunteering, you're probably going to be working with people that are more expert and skilled in the thing that you're working with. It might be a manager of data or a manager of marketing or something like that. And they can form you if you show, it's like, hey, I'm faithful, available, I'm teachable, like come here and help, help me grow in this and let them expand that skillset.
00:15:47
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:15:48
Patrick
Have fun. Lots of people get maybe too stressed out about, oh, no, should we form a company? Should we do all this big stuff? Actually, just think about it like we're going to just try a fun project with a couple of friends and see where it goes.
00:16:00
Patrick
And maybe even set a time range of like, we're going to try this for 60 days and see what we've got at the end. It takes some of the pressure off. It lets you also get to know if you like working with a peer or a mentor and you're like, oh my goodness, this would be horrible working in this industry or this person has got an issue. Maybe I really like this other person better. There's lots of ways to build your optionality across the who you might go do work with just by doing fun projects. So
Choosing Depth vs. Breadth
00:16:27
Patrick
those are five, hopefully that was helpful. Five different examples of how you can build your optionality, not just by going deep, but by building range and breadth of skill sets. So Ken, you want bring us home with a closing thought?
00:16:41
Ken Freire
Yeah, you know, as you're thinking about life right now, you may be like, don't know what to do. Should I choose going deep? Should I choose going wide? I mean, one of the best things you could do, obviously, is pray.
00:16:53
Ken Freire
Pray to the Holy Spirit that he gives you guidance. And if you're not sure, it's always better to go deep than wide at the beginning. And what we mean by deep, and I know we didn't address this earlier, is that you're not trying to become next Mozart the next Bill Gates. What you're trying to do say, am I competent enough in this skill set?
00:17:11
Ken Freire
And then move on. Give something a shot before you pivot too quickly.
00:17:17
Patrick
Yep, that's right. And if you want to do that in community, you probably also did clarify your calling in the assessment we've got. But we have two things just want to call out on our community online.
00:17:26
Patrick
We have Rise Into Your Calling sessions each month. We practice this with each other in community. So if you want a little bit of help and a little amount of accountability in that, jump onto one of those.
00:17:36
Patrick
And the second one is the Portfolio Building Workshop. Also happens each month. And we can, again, take an example of a skill set you want to develop in and get your breath wider.
00:17:41
Ken Freire
Thank
00:17:46
Patrick
And you will find it so much fun to find similar people that are trying to expand their skill set for the kingdom of God. So thanks for building your optionality with these two-part series. We will catch you next time on Buried Talent.