I fell in love with this Arabic saying since I was about 17 years old, and it was especially valuable to me because I was a person who suffered from having a lot of interests.
I was kinda the jack of all trades, I have some marketing experience, sales, writing, and much more skills but I never was a master of any of them.
I started realizing this when I tried applying to jobs, I found that despite knowing a lot about different things that I'm not qualified to land any of the jobs I wanted to apply for.
Then I figured out that it's important to have one field that you can call yours, that you can introduce yourself with, it's the sentence that comes right after your name.
In the past I thought that being exposed to many different fields is my competitive advantage - and it might be if you're a business owner - but still being an expert is something else.
If you were to hire a lawyer for an important case, would you choose someone who is a lawyer, plumber, and a food blogger for example? Or would you choose an experienced lawyer and you wouldn't care about any other fields he's involved in?
It's exactly this, I figured out this myself because it was clear to me growing up that if I have put all my effort into one place - teaching English for instance - I would've been one of the best English teachers worldwide but, because I chose to divide my focus, effort, and energy on too many fields, I'm not.
I know some people would disagree with me on this, but this comes from personal experience that taught me how focus is the most important component and ingredient of success, especially in our modern world which will distract you so bad if you're not where you want to go.
Again, the value of a person is what they excel at.
Would love to get your feedback on this, and whether you do agree or not with this one.