The Polymath: Unlocking the Power of Human Versatility

‘a multifaceted person has a greater chance of being a leader and of achieving success in leadership’.

As one studies the lives of some renowned ‘specialists’, it appears that they often have a number of avocational pursuits (prior careers or hobbies) that in some way or another influenced – or in many cases facilitated – their main endeavour. In many cases they themselves admit to this. It is therefore worth questioning whether those we automatical

the human brain has evolved in a way that focuses on surviving rather than thriving. In doing so, it has developed a mechanism through which all things in the world that are not directly related to immediate survival are automatically elbowed out of the thinking process. ‘The brain is a machine assembled not to understand itself, but to survive’, b

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves. – Nagarjuna, Buddhist philosopher (150–250)

(Universal knowledge is no longer within the…

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Whilst encyclopaedists were educators in that they compiled and codified knowledge, teachers and professors were educators in that they (whilst in some cases contributing to knowledge itself) were effective deliverers and transmitters of knowledge to the wider world through academies, universities and other places of learning. As the encyclopaedias

By the turn of the twentieth century, then, the world's three most influential institutions – academia, government and the corporation – had each adopted a stringent division of labour, establishing a new culture of hyper-specialisation in every sphere of life; a trend that would become the norm to the present day.

Educators

Most people form a particular opinion or take certain decisions early on in life, in which for some reason (more often emotional than rational) they develop a strong conviction.