Work and the polymath playbook

- Feb 07, 2022

Lucky me. As I was doing some reading and research for this newsletter, I landed by chance (for once reading someone else’s newsletter) on this fantastic essay by polymath Salman Ansari (startup founder, CTO, engineer, teacher, writer, illustrator etc), aka 🦊 Quick Brown Fox.

Reflecting my theme of adaptability, he carefully makes the point of the polymath’s advantage, and the resilience that comes with becoming expert in different or even diverging fields. He thoughtfully brings up the fact that the term itself, polymath, is not one that is easily adopted, and comes to use instead the word ‘generalist’ which also relaxed me a little when I read it (and considered my own identity around my multi-pronged expertise).

He invites us to start with thinking about “that thing you secretly want to do”.

What just came to mind?

That might be a signal.

I smiled and thought: gosh, I must share this article. Let me know if this piece steers you towards a hidden passion, I’d love to know.