Own Your Impact #46: The Swiss Army Knife Trap: When Your Competence Becomes Your Prison
Your competence doesn't have to be your prison. When you're good at everything, you risk becoming valuable in ways that drain you instead of energizing you.
In this episode, I share a deeply personal story about finding myself three hours deep in implementation work when I was being paid for strategy. I was exhausted, not from hard work, but from doing the wrong work. I call this the Swiss Army Knife Trap, and it's where brilliant strategists get stuck executing, gifted facilitators exhaust themselves being the only one who can deliver transformation, and talented creators bury themselves in operations instead of creating.
Through my recent archetype strategy calls, I've been seeing this pattern everywhere. The problem isn't work ethic or capability. The problem is that competence has become a trap, and without clear boundaries around what work is actually yours to do, you'll keep saying yes to everything just because you can. I walk through how this trap shows up differently across the four frequencies of thought leadership archetypes (insight led, experience led, expression led, and embodiment led), and reveal why understanding your complete archetype blend, not just your primary archetype, is essential to breaking free. This episode will help you identify whether you're stuck in Swiss Army knife mode and show you the path to focusing on work that actually energizes you.
IMPACT POINTS FROM THIS EPISODE:
⚡ Your Competence Can Trap You – Just because you can see the whole picture and execute on it doesn't mean you should. When you're capable of doing strategy and implementation, facilitation and delivery, or content creation and operations, you risk becoming the highest paid executor in your business instead of focusing on your actual genius.
⚡ The Trap Shows Up Differently for Each Frequency – Insight led archetypes (strategic advisors, research innovators, category creators) become project managers instead of advisors. Experience led archetypes (facilitators, guides, learning architects) believe their magic can't be replicated. Expression led archetypes (orators, writers, visual architects) get pulled into execution around their content. Embodiment led archetypes (principled practitioners) end up teaching unvalidated principles or abandoning documentation entirely.
⚡ Your Archetype Blend Creates Your Specific Trap – Understanding your primary archetype isn't enough. When you can see your complete archetype profile and how your top archetypes work together, you can identify exactly which work is yours to do and which work you're doing simply out of competence. The work you'd be heartbroken to let go of is probably your actual calling.
PEOPLE & RESOURCES MENTIONED:
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