The world has been changing quite rapidly over the 2 decades, we are living in a totally different paradigm and different skill sets will be necessary to succeed and take advantage of the opportunities available. The trend where it’s more beneficial to be a generalist than a specialist, yes, this conversation has spurred many debates through the hallways of meetings and the camp can be a bit divided but the facts are adding up.
Generalists have the edge because they are more antifragile than specialists. Let’s use an analogy from biology. Within any ecosystem, an animal that can survive in multiple environments is always going to succeed over others who can only survive and procreate in niche-specific environments with the right temperature and food to survive.
If you look at the world today, it’s important to have a life that is adaptable to inevitable changes. From a career standpoint, it also serves you even more, when you are adaptable and have many different skill sets you can cross over whenever you are in a rut by doing something more fulfilling and profitable.
If you are just one-dimensional it’s going to be difficult as you are going to have a ceiling on what you can achieve. If tragedy strikes in certain situations, you will be left without protective gear and an arsenal to survive. You do have specialist jobs that are worthwhile but getting to the top is not something that you can just get up and do. Oftentimes you have to develop that skill from an early age or you are born in a certain environment.
For example, being a basketball player can be a highly rewarding job and if you are one of the best you can become wealthy but it’s not something that the everyday man can get into, that’s why the best is paid so much because they are in the 0.001%.
The problem that prevents certain individuals from becoming a generalist is that they are stuck in the old mindset of believing that your degree determines your destiny. They were taught that if you overcome the adversities of college and university and get a paper in the end, you will get a high-paying job, work for 40 years and then retire on the beach.
That reality is far from that today, the everyday experience of the average man is different, given that the value of money has been dropping and you have to work longer and harder to achieve what someone in the 1950s and 1960s would with your salary.
Your job is less secure today and your boss doesn’t give a damn about you. They never did in the beginning anyway you are just numbers on the spreadsheet with a specific ID attached to your name to identify you.
In order to circumvent this issue, you have to take care of yourself first by extending your skills and becoming a generalist. Learn profitable skills on the side, and take that vocational class you have at the back of your mind. If you do that and dedicate a couple of hours a week to that skill, you will be amazed at how far you can progress in a year.
It’s all in a person’s mindset at this point, just a shift in perspective can give you different lenses through how to view the world.
