Jack of All Trades — The Myth
It’s not a Starting Point
It was 2011, and I just launched my website — Jock of Trades. Jack of all trades, unfortunately, was not available anymore. The ethos of my site was to be good at everything, to be a master at nothing. Become a walking generality.
The biggest hero of my life — Tim Ferriss is good at everything.
I had diverse interests then. I liked civil engineering, construction safety, project management, entrepreneurship, marketing, writing, and acting. I was all over the place, but it felt just right.
Steve Jobs famously said that it would all make sense in the future. We can never connect the dots forward, but we can do that in retrospect. I needed to have faith.
But where did this get me? Nowhere.
I closed down Jock of Trades after writing an About Page and two articles.
I wasn’t cut out for it.
Pewdiepie or Felix is the biggest YouTuber in the world. If you watch his channel, he does pretty much everything. He does skits, reaction videos, gaming videos, vlogs, etc. Tim Ferriss is all over the place as well — writes books, has a weekly podcast, TV show now and then, releases a youtube video once in a while.
I was trying to mimic them on where they are now.
But what I’m forgetting is that they paid their dues to get there.
They started with one thing before they did everything.
Pewdiepie started making Gaming videos only. Tim Ferriss built a business before blogging about it. Steve Jobs started with selling apple computers only.
I need focus to get clarity.
I was half-assing things during that time. I had this realization that I need to concentrate on just one thing. And this is where I found the books Essentialism and The One Thing.
I needed to quit compartments of my life so that one thing will take precedence. In 2012 I decided to take acting seriously. And this sacrificed my day job.
It paid off. With zero acting background experience, I was able to become a MasterClass actor in three years. I was even asked to teach near the end of my stay in Acting School.
I needed to make sacrifices so I can flourish on one thing.
And boy did my day job declined. I didn’t meet my deadlines. Pet projects were not jump starting. Progress was a slog. But that’s a price I’d have to pay.
That’s life. You go 100% on something, and you half-ass the other thing. You double down on one thing and let others go by the wayside.
That’s the part of life where I’m not comfortable. School spoiled me. I can go 100% on all my subjects no matter how diverse they were. And still, emerge on top of my class. But that’s not how life works.
Multitasking is hard. Even a computer can only process one line of code at a time.
Gary Vaynerchuk said that we should be doubling down on our strengths. If you are still afraid about choosing one thing, then do ten things. There is still merit in doing ten things at once. Eventually, only a few will stick. This is survival of the fittest.
Our ancestors will never grasp the possibilities we have at our fingertips. We can be anything we want. We have so many options. But this vast amount of options paralyzes us. We are all on that FOMO drug.
It’s liberating and paralyzing, all at the same time.
I don’t want to be that guy who still doesn’t know what he wants to do by the time he’s 30. I’ll pity myself when that happens.
I need to commit to one thing and make it work.
Much like choosing a wife — I said yes to that person. And make it work every single day.
