Daniel Radcliffe has made dozens of films since Harry Potter. Most people can’t name one. He’s a talented actor with range and ambition, and none of that matters. He’s Harry Potter. That’s the hit. That’s the identity. Everything else orbits around it.
The entire cast of Friends has the same story. Jennifer Aniston built a real film career after. The other five had varying degrees of success. But all six of them, decades later, are still the Friends cast first and everything else second.
Most people hear this and think it’s limiting. I think it’s liberating.
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You only need one hit. One project, one role, one company, one idea that lands so well it becomes your identity. The rest of your career can build on it, extend from it, or even contradict it. But that one hit is what opens every door.
Career advice tells you the opposite. Diversify your skills. Build a broad portfolio. Be well-rounded. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This sounds reasonable, and it’s mostly wrong.
Well-rounded people are forgettable. The person who’s known for one specific thing gets the call.
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I’ve been called “the 0 to 1 guy.” I’ve also been called “the scale guy.” Both labels came from the same instinct: find the thing that works, then double and triple down on it until there’s nothing left to squeeze.
That’s how spikes form. You don’t discover your spike by exploring widely. You discover it when someone else names it for you. When you hear “you’re the X guy” enough times, pay attention. That’s the market telling you where your hit lives.
Wes Kao calls this your spiky point of view. A perspective so distinct, so identifiably yours, that it can’t be copied. Most professionals spend their careers building plateaus.
Competent at many things, exceptional at nothing specific enough to be memorable. The spike is the opposite. It’s the one area where you’re so deep, so opinionated that people either love your take or push back hard. Both reactions mean you’ve found it.
Go deep on one thing. Make it yours. Let it become your identity. The breadth comes later, after the hit, when people already know who you are and what you stand for.
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Finding the hit takes time. Mastery in any field takes 7 to 10 years of real work. You can’t shortcut it, and you can’t fake it. But you can be intentional about where you invest those years.
Pick the area where your curiosity runs deepest, and the competition is thinnest. Go deeper than anyone around you is willing to go. And when you hear someone call you “the X guy,” stop diversifying and start squeezing.