Great careers demand a juggling act

The case against focusing on one thing at a time.

I live by two contradictory rules:

1. Focus is a superpower

2. Juggling makes you better

At a glance, the first dictum seems to runs counter to the second.

I’ve learned over and over that nothing accelerates progress more than specifying an aim and committing to it. This is not a unique view. Whether it’s a new job or skill mastery or signing a new apartment lease, success in any capacity is difficult without focus.

Naturally, my call for a juggling act doesn’t cleanly fit into this thesis. Balancing multiple projects indeed implies the opposite of focus — divided and suboptimal attention.

In my experience, the magic exists in the tension between the two rules.

Forward momentum demands juxtaposing the constant removal of tangential projects with broad and playful experimentation. Keeping too narrow a focus risks losing interdisciplinary opportunities just as juggling too much at once can stall progress.

Beneath the apparent contradiction lies a deeper harmony. Think of focus as the compass setting your direction, and juggling as the wind that fills your sales.

A ship without a compass runs aimlessly adrift, carried by any breeze.

But without allowing for a bit of chaos — a willingness to pursue side projects or entertain curiosity — you miss the serendipity that often defines breakthroughs.

Clarity drives efficiency and breadth creates luck.

When I think of the individuals I know who have had the most impressive careers, none of them have been linear. None of them are working in the same field they trained for in their college majors.

For myself, my primary focus is building my media business Opening Bell Daily. I have specific goals to drive the product, revenue, and growth.

Those exist, however, in concert with my interests in hosting events for Journalists Club, personal writing, drafting my next book, video content and a steady diet of reading.

This juggling act puts my hand in different cookie jars, if you will, so that I can learn and synthesize lessons from each.

Stretching my bandwidth, while limiting in one sense, is ultimately fun.

The challenge here, then, comes in calibrating the tension between each of the two rules. Mastering that dichotomy, paradoxically, becomes its own kind of focus.

In practice, I think the formula looks something like this:

• Set ambitious, clear goals

• Reserve small pockets of time for exploration and risk-taking

• Prioritize ruthlessly but commit to open-mindedness

• Don’t ignore the occasional (potentially transformative) detour

Keeping both rules top of mind, for me, helps me remain energetic for both consistency and novelty.

One provides foundation, the other fuel.

When I think about biographies I’ve read of the definitive thinkers and entrepreneurs in history — Leonardo Da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, Elon Musk, Masayoshi Son — I realize they are each walking contradictions of scattered focus.

Embracing that tension is what made them so singular against their peers.

Have a great day,

Phil Rosen
Co-founder, Editor-in-Chief, Opening Bell Daily