The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
― Unknown

People have been made to believe the saying ‘Jack of all trades; master of none’ to be true. So when someone decides to do many things he is confused and not focused. We are told not to dissipate our energies but rather channel them to a single pursuit. To specialize and not seek to be generalists. However being a jack-of-all-trades does not mean one cannot master at least one or more of the trades. We can achieve anything we set our minds to. We are only being duped into believing we can only excel at one thing.

There are those who seem to defer this logic that one cant be good at too many things; these people are known as Polymaths, Da Vinci, Tim Ferris, Richard Branson and Jamie Foxx are perfect examples. The idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), in the statement that “a man can do all things if he will.


These polymaths just seem to be good at almost everything they do. I remember a friend in secondary school, he was like a legend. He excelled at almost everything. He was a jack of all trades and master of most; very fast on his feet, very good academically, very athletic, cocky, and also a greet leader.

Here are reasons why you should aspire to be a jack of all trade kind of person

1. Life is fun, and being good at several things enriches the experience. I believe people should strive for so much out of life; given that they may not be master in everything. But the more you learn about other stuffs, the more fun you get out of life and the more you want to learn. For young people it’s also important to throw a lot of mud on the wall and see what sticks.


As an individual, I want to live life to the fullest I don’t want to experience only one thing. Am a financial analyst and a personal development blogger. Am also a pencil artist (the image above is one of my pencil works) and i do it for fun, i also read a lot; fiction and non-fiction. I had also unsuccessfully tried to be a musician in the past. I don’t live for one thing alone; I live for all that life gives

2. Openness to new experiences leads to Limitless possibilities; Focusing on a single area of life will cut off opportunities for growth and also innovation. Creativity requires threading on paths that no one had trodden before or doing something that has not been done before. If you are not willing to do something new, then it’s hard to be creative. Patterns criss-cross in life as most things are related in ways you would never imagine. Take for instance the Post-it note which is a small piece of paper with a strip of low-tack adhesive on the back that allows it to be temporarily attached to documents, refrigerators, walls and just about anything else. The idea for the Post-it note was conceived in 1974 by Arthur Fry while working for 3M as a way of holding bookmarks in his hymnal while singing in the church choir. Creativity often requires drawing analogies between one body of knowledge and another.

3. You can survive anywhere. People who are specialists serve a specific purpose within their organisation, economy, ecosystem and are very adept at them. However, should those conditions change— as they always do, specialist often struggle to cope. Unlike the Jack-of-all-trades who are well-rounded. A well-known example of a specialist animal is the koala, which lives almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves, warm climates and on trees. Deny it any of the three and struggles to survive. The raccoon is a generalist because as an omnivorous it feeds on berries, insects, eggs and small animals. This gives it the ability to survive almost anywhere.
Are you a Koala or Raccoon?

4. You become a Star in your organisation. In a world bursting with knowledge, Generalists keep things interesting – they’re often whom colleagues and clients relate with best, most times than not, they are the glue that holds teams together. Breadth of perspective trumps depth of knowledge today.

5. You become a better predictor of the future. Professor Phillip Tetlock conducted a 20+ year study of 284 professional forecasters. He asked them to predict the probability of various occurrences both within and outside of their areas of expertise. Analysis of the 80,000+ forecasts found that experts are less accurate predictors than non-experts in their area of expertise.

http://lightednation.com/2015/04/why-being-a-jack-of-all-trades-isnt-as-bad-as-you-think/

Nice one, OP.
You know what, mere seeing the topic, I had it in mine to type ""afterall some people are polymaths" only to see it used in the "body" of the write-up.

Anyways, we should always strive to be the best we can be. No knowledge is lost.

It is not a straight line stuff, though, because there are some areas that being a specialist is required. One may not achieve that by trying to be a 'jack of all trade" it might lead to "master of none" and messing things up. But trying to learn at least a little in every area doesn't hurt.

Babe2sure:
Nice one, OP.
You know what, mere seeing the topic, I had it in mine to type ""afterall some people are polymath" only to see it used in the "body" of the write-up.

Anyways, we should always strive to be the best we can be. No knowledge is lost.

It is not a straight line stuff, though, because there are some areas that being a specialist is required. One may not achieve that by trying to be a 'jack of all trade" it might lead to "master of none" and messing things up. But trying to learn at least a little in every area doesn't hurt.

Spot on!