The Polymath Advantage

These notes were taken as apart of Salman Ansari’s The Polymath Advantage Workshop

With the industrial revolution came the need for increased productivity and efficiency. This lead to division of labor. Here, a worker specializes on a specific task, and work in that same role for an extended period of time.
What is the cost of specialization?
- Career growth is a train. “Climbing the corporate ladder.”
- Freelancing is disincentivized. Freelancing lacks job security and stability.
- Work is tied to identity.
Taking the polymath path is difficult. Society wants to fit you in a box and you won’t fit that mold.
The irony is that we are being asked to specialize in an environment that’s constantly changing.
In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products — you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again. —Yuval Noah Harari
Polymaths engage in extended learning across disparate fields, and apply their learnings to connect ideas and solve problems in unique ways. By nature, they’re well suited to thrive in a constantly changing environment.

Leonardo Da Vinci is the mascot of polymaths. And while Leo Da Vinci is awesome, he lived in the 1500s
A few of my favorite modern day polymaths:
- Derek Sivers. Worked as a circus performer. Then a musician (even touring with Ryuichi Sakamoto). Founded and sold his company, CDBaby (then donated all the money). Currently, he’s a writer and book publisher.
- Hank and John Greene. Between the two of them they are content creators (they created the Crash Course Channel). Both have written NYT bestsellers including John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars), they founded business and events including VidCon. They also make and produce music.
- John Moffat. Started as a painter. Learned relativity by borrowing books from the library. First person admitted to Cambridge PhD program without an undergrad degree. Currently a professor at UofT.

Am I polymath? Forget the labels. Embrace the principles.

Differentiation. At a certain point, it’s difficult to get really good at something without deliberate practice and hours of effort. But when you start to learn other skills, the intersection of those skills make you more competent holistically.
Inner Purpose and Ikigai
Freedom of Identity. Your identity is diversified, rather than focused on one thing. Diversification of identity leads to resilience. However, the question, “what do you do?” becomes hard to answer.
It’s fun. The polymath path allows you to chase your curiosities.

Build a strong foundation. For Salman, being an engineer gives him a foundational pursuit to fall back on. This serves a role and provides the resources and stability to pursue other interests.
Energy management. Understand what gives you energy and what drains your energy.
Rotate and hibernate. We feel bad when we aren’t able to keep pursuing a project. But it’s perfectly normal to hibernate a project and work on a different one, then return to that project later. This can give us a renewed sense of energy.
Leaving space for serendipity.
Define success on your own terms. This prevents comparisons. I can compare myself with someone whose a better engineer, but maybe that person is specilizaing and has put in way more time.
Find others on the same path. The polymath path can be lonely, find others on the same journey.