if you want to succeed you have to be a specialist that's a common belief isn't it
after all if you're calling someone to fix your toilet
you'd want a professional plumber you don't want a plumber slash novelist you want to make sure this
guy knows what he's doing and not simply using your bathroom to research his next urban fantasy
certain roles demand specialization like surgeons pilots and plumbers however most people
can benefit from having a breath of knowledge acquiring more skills gaining more experiences
embracing detours and experimenting with their craft we used to believe that in order to succeed
you must get ahead and stay ahead commit and never waver but i have three reasons why you should
avoid the traditional trap and expand your range so that you can be a high functioning generalist
before i get started my name is elliot i make videos about writing and the creative process
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skill stacking eighty percent is already really good if you were an ambitious kid like i was at
some point in your life someone would have pressured you to be the best number one
the gold medalist a plus student the undisputed champion the likelihood of me or anyone reaching
that pinnacle is very slim there are over 7 billion people in the world so it's going to
be hard to reach the top and have a perfect 100 however we don't need to be the best we
only need to be proficient we can be 80 percent and still be better than the majority of people
being 80 means that you're capable of accomplishing your task and you are completing it
way above average to rise beyond 80 percent other factors need to come into play such as
genetics that's why even under the best conditions specialization can only get you so far
i love the concept of skill stacking which is the idea of combining all your skills together so that
even if you're not a 100 performer in any of them collectively they still give you an advantage over
a majority of the world let's say you're eighty percent good at writing eighty percent good at
marketing and eighty percent good at photography you become so much more effective in starting your
business a process that requires many skills then someone who is a hundred percent good at writing
and zero percent good at the other skills if you're interested in learning more about
skill stacking i recommend the book how to be better at almost everything by pat flynn
breath of knowledge you can solve bigger problems when we're focused on our own work in our own team
in our own department we learn to solve one problem and one problem well it's when that
problem changes that traditional methods and tools become ineffective failing to be agile results
in wasted efforts these siloed operations are flaws in the system preventing innovations from
taking place if you only consume information from a narrow field you shrink your world when
you're exposed to fewer experiences and ideas you're less likely to make new connections
these connections are potential solutions to new problems and creative ways to use old tools
it's true that learning a breath of knowledge can be inefficient
this is often the case in trades and science where specialization is expected however by
gaining a range of skills and broad knowledge you can solve bigger problems and be nimble
in the modern world ascend disruption can make your specialized skill obsolete and
leave you completely lost it's good to go deep into a subject but be sure to go wide as well
just in case if you're interested in learning more about how being a generalist can solve
new problems check out the book range by david epstein your unique style
creativity is all about making connections and connections come from experiences
the more people environments genres and art forms you expose yourself to the more connections you'll
make there's too much out there these days and replicating a classic will only get you so far
however it's a good place to start in order to stand out you need to bring something new to the
table the best way to do that is to understand what has worked in the past and mix it up in
a novel way as you replicate these established styles you'll discover your own i love the idea
of swimming upstream and discovering a family tree of influences try this exercise find one thinker
a creator writer artist role model you admire and whose works you want to emulate study that person
become a specialist and go deep then find three people that that thinker admires and follow them
as well learn everything you can go deeper still once you're done with that tree begin again with
another thinker and go through the same process of swimming upstream see how each thinker is a
combination of many others see how one influences another i love the saying if you steal from one
artist you're plagiarizing but if you steal from many you're developing your own style
to learn more about how to steal like an artist check out the book by austin cleon with that title
steal like an artist more than ever being a generalist can be a key to your success
organizations are depending on team members that can communicate between departments
generalists are counted on to call out discrepancies and make connections that
might not be visible for specialists who are too deep into their field to notice so forget about
the old misconceptions traditions and pressures of picking a lane and staying rigidly within it it's
time to learn it's time to explore and it's time to do more thank you for watching if you enjoyed
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