Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become an Extraordinary Autodidact (Learning how to Learn Book 9)

Adaptable and Open

Here, mindset and attitude mean everything. This means being willing to adapt when necessary, to become comfortable and even expert at navigating quickly changing parameters and shifting challenges.

Chapter 1. Jack of All Trades

The truth is that successful polymaths are primarily driven by insatiable curiosity, a love for their fields, a yearning for mastery, creativity and expression—or a blend of all of these.

Being a polymath does require something of a perspective shift: rather than running as far as you can in a single race, you open your field of perception to take in as much as possible, and draw atypical connections to link the knowledge you already have in surprising ways.

Be probing and bold in thought; ask unusual questions and put things together that are ordinarily separate, just to see what happens.

Being a specialist requires you to perform in the top 1 percent (for example) of just one discipline. A polymath will perform in, say, the top 25 percent of three disciplines or more.

This is called the Einstellung effect, and it essentially describes the man with a hammer who sees everything as a nail.

Your goal as a polymath is to become a generalist, i.e. the person who can talk about any topic with anyone, because they are able to bridge gaps, draw connections and learn.