The Musings of Scott

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.
-John Adams

This is the first post of this nature, but I read this post today and felt a proper response would be best reserved off of his well-written piece. I didn’t want to be that guy who writes a another post in the comments (this time), but I also did not want to let my argument not be heard.

My Response

You Don’t Want To Be A Jack Of All Trades
by Daniel Scocco

Picking a specialty and mastering it was strong in samurai philosophy (as well as many other caste-based cultures). It brings calm to the mind to find that what Fate intended one’s purpose on this planet to be. Noble and inspiring, this philosophy helped samurai rule over Japan, and fend off foreign invasion for over 1000 years, while always training to be a better warrior. Within 100 years of Japan modernizing it’s economy, the samurai had lost all power and to be a samurai was to be a curator of ceremony. When a new technology was introduced, which was common place everywhere else in the world, these super-specialists went from leadership positions to history books.

We don’t live in a world that will support a caste system, so the worst thing you can do to your career is to limit your potential. I am not arguing that there are going to be things you SHOULD be doing with your time over others. Micheal Jordan was a living legend on the basketball court and a joke on the baseball diamond. Yet Bo Jackson played both baseball and football, and is still remembered 20 years later by someone who was 5 years old at the time.
To go through the maxims from the original post:

Great painters only paint.

Sculptor

Great programmers only code.

Computer Geek

Great entrepreneurs only build businesses.

Steel Baron

Great authors only write.

Author

I could continue to pull examples of people who used a diverse set of talents to succeed all day. The first analogy that came to mind when formulating my argument on why you do not want to limit/specialize your skill set was evolution. Specialists do find success in winning the game of life, and they can often out compete generalists. However, fossil records show that relatively minor changes in conditions can doom those specialists, as they become unable to adapt to changing conditions.

not as cool as a samurai

I may be young and very early in my career, but I do know that I will strive to emulate the achievements of those listed above. In a world with 6,000,000,000+ people do you honestly think you can be the best at anything? People who leave a legacy of greatness behind them weren’t necessarily the best at what they did, but they did things in a such a way that people remembered them for it. These people aren’t “exceptions to the rule,” they’re the paradigm to map your own life against. What seems crucial today could be left irrelevant by tomorrow’s technological innovation. You wouldn’t invest your entire retirement in a single company’s stock, why do the same with your career? Adapt. Diversify. Survive. Succeed.

As a final point I wanted to share this awesome list of the Top 10 Modern Renaissance Men.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Be Sociable, Share!

•