Master of none, but a professional all-rounder and expert generalist? Why it’s good to be ‘ok’ at everything
Growing up, I had the privilege of exploring a number of hobbies that my parents encouraged me to participate in. From the age of five onwards I was a ballet dancer, an artist, a singer, a gymnast, a swimmer. I threw myself into these activities with the obedience and high expectations my parents had instilled within me, determined to make my mark on the world in whatever thing I was going to excel in. I was destined for greatness, I told myself in the mirror each morning as I pulled on my leotard, my wetsuit, my theatre costume.
As many ten year olds to tweens experience, the thrill and excitement of a new hobby does not last long; I became overwhelmed with the amount of activities on offer, the need to excel at them all, to keep up with my friends who were becoming budding stars of tennis, dancing, skiing. When I realised that I couldn’t be absolutely amazing at all of them, my interest would slide significantly. I would feel defeated if I had been killing myself training for a swim team selection but only made the second team, if my artwork didn’t win best in the year, or if my essay in English class wasn’t revelled at by my teacher and peers. It would be easier just to give up in this race for excellence, the desperation to be a game-changer or wunderkind at the age of twelve. My teachers and coaches would tell me that I was an all-rounder, somebody who touched each activity, sport or subject with ease but didn’t excel majorly at a particular one at a given time. It frustrated and confused me. What was my niche? I didn’t even know what ‘niche’ means at that age, let alone what I really was destined to thrive in. I was desperate to find my calling, to be known as a child who was good at one thing, that made them stand out from the rest of their friends, just like so many of my peers at this young age.
Unsurprisingly, this feeling carried on for a while throughout high school and the start of university. While I was in this instance excelling in English, French or history, I hated geography, but still felt that drive to be amazing at it, although I knew I could only achieve so much with a subject I didn’t enjoy at all. University applications required you to be an ‘exceptional’ all-rounder, excelling in sports, academia and also a strong set of social skills. The surmounting pressure in the past of finding your one thing to be fantastic at was now being replaced with the need to be good absolutely amazing at EVERYTHING. You want to be a doctor? You need the highest grades in your school year, the highest grades in your middle-school exams, an internship, but not only the academic stuff - oh no! - you need to be funny, sociable, easy-going, but also hard working, and good at sport too - did you volunteer at an orphanage in Africa during your gap year? Put that in too.
The way I see it now is that unless you are some kind of 21st century Jack of All Trades, you physically cannot be amazing at everything. I realise now that everything I do try, I am alright at, some far better than others, some laughably novice. And one should be ok with that. I’ve coined this phenomenon a ‘Professional All-Rounder’, or P.A.R. There is some comfort in being a Professional All-Rounder - something I regularly quote in my many job applications over the years - because I know that anything I try, I’ll try my damn hardest, and if I suck at it? Then at least I tried. A neurosurgeon can remove parts of your brain and put them back together in a matter of hours, but they could be terrible at waitressing or being a barista. The same goes for a champion footballer being terrible at playing tennis. You cannot be good at everything, no matter how amazing you are at one thing. Not everything in one specific domain has transferrable skills; a brain surgeon can carry out a flawless endoscopic endonasal surgery, but made you the worst flat white you’ve ever had.
The P.A.R excels by trying to learn about many topics to a point that they’re not an expert in it, but they know enough to make them capable of educating somebody who knows nothing about it, and to ultimately educate themselves. It gives them a drive to learn more about things they may not have previously considered or deemed important; it keeps an open mind, leading you to meet new people from all walks of life. Seeing myself as a P.A.R encourages me to read more about topics far out of my professional or educational realm, to question the things I already know. I look for the dots, trying to find interconnectedness in everything, questioning why it’s there or why it’s not. It’s like a hummingbird going from flower to flower, taking drinks from each stigma instead of hovering too long over one and eventually becoming too tired, missing out on the other flowers to suckle from.
There’s a quote I heard recently from David Cole, the VP of design at Quora, which spoke to me and inspired me to write this article; “just because you’re a not a Jack of All Trades, doesn’t mean you are a master of none”. This obviously takes from the original quote of “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”, but inspired my emphasis of being an ‘ok master of all’. He emphasises that learning and knowledge is not a zero-sum activity, that being more of a generalist makes your life more interesting - by looking through only one lens, you miss the links between others, the multi-disciplinary perspectives that are so important in today’s learning environment. Art Markman emphasises the important of ‘expert generalists’ in creativity, noting that the process of creativity requires interconnectedness, drawing analogies between a number of topics . Although many of us feel it, we can’t all be game-changers at one thing or at everything. However way you want to learn something or aim for a certain goal, being an open-minded P.A.R, Ok-Master-of-All or an expert generalist can be the most effective way of joining the dots, getting creative and deepening your knowledge of the world around you.