Generalists Vs. Specialist

Had a discussion with a coworker last night about approaching your career as a generalist vs. a specialist. We are taught in school/college to be "well rounded". But the truth is you don't need to be "well rounded" to be successful. You need to be able to adapt and react to change, but not "well rounded" in the sense of learning many unrelated subjects.

20 years ago it was about Microsoft, today it's all about Apple, 10 years from now it will be someone else. Or perhaps the world ends next week, and we need to become Survivor Man. That is the change you need to react to; not learning a bunch of liberal arts subjects that have no relation to each other for the sake of being "well rounded". The 50% unemployment rate of college grads under the age of 25 is proof that this strategy is a failure for most people and for society at large.

The truth is most people are not smart enough to do multiple thing well enough to be competitive at anything. Some people are. I'm certainly not one of them. Yet this is how schools educate us; teach us a little bit of everything that our knowledge is a mile wide, but an inch deep. That's why all these people are coming out of college and can't find jobs.

This is especially true in today's "winners'-take-all" world. I realized very early I wouldn't make it in life being educated in this way. My time, talents, and energy are all very limited. I need to spend them where I can be effective, and not spread myself too thin just for the sake of being "well rounded."

"You're so good at this you must be smart!" Umm...no. I'm so good at this because this is all I do. I do something until I am better than nearly everyone before trying to do something else. I don't care if someone's IQ is twice mine. If they're doing 10 things at the same time, and I'm only doing 1, there's a good chance I'm going to beat them at what I do, simply because I'm focused.

In the winner-takes-all world, it means you need to win against YOUR competition at what you do. Then you need to find and align yourself with people that win against THEIR competition. Working together independently, cooperatively, and competitively is how we are going to advance humanity to create a better world.

Perhaps you are one of the few people that can do everything better than everyone. They are certainly out there. But for the rest of us, this is a losing strategy in life.