“A jack of all trades is a master of none”
During my career, I have been fortunate to have worked within many different types of teams. In this time I had the opportunity to see what I saw as different potential futures for myself. These were just a few of the people I have met along my career each feeding a little nagging thought in my mind.
the Employee with side hustle Collecting a paycheck for the bills and invest my energy elsewhere — but dread Mondays.
The studio owner with awards and a large portfolio but consumed by work.
The salaryman with a happy family contributing to his team, and living in a comfortable house.
The corporate man paid with golden handcuffs.
The specialist who was let go and too specialised to find work in the same city.
My nagging thought?
“Keep learning new things, or different approaches! Don’t just learn what ‘they’ say is right!”
The more you learn the more you realise what you don’t know. As well as bringing about slight insecurity—“Should I really focus?” “What should my specialization be?” “Everyone suggests specialisation.”
“A jack of all trades is a master of none. ”
“A jack of all trades is a master of none. ”
“A jack of all trades is a master of none.”
And so on it went in my head.
A manager in the past unknowingly defended my thinking with another line.
“You can’t manage what you don’t know”. Boom — the justification I needed to kept learning about other roles. This kept me going but then it would come up again.
“A jack of all trades is a master of none.” Damn it. “What should my specialization be?”
And I continued to change industries and types of work. Becoming more and more generalised, and growing insecure.
I almost had to leave a good job a few years ago because they wanted me to specialise — just do ONE thing. I just couldn’t see the point, or how specialising in the way they wanted would move our work forward. So I kept with it learning more technical skills, frameworks, and models.
Within industrial design I learned to weld, cast, sculpt(poorly), craft wood, mould parts etc. Naturally working with software & web applications I started to learn to code. Albeit not so well. First with Arduino, CSS/HMTL, ruby & rails, courses and little things here and there.
The more building skills I learned the more I looked at my day-to-day work differently. Focus helps, and brings benefits, depending on your career intentions. For me — (I think) I want to run a successful business. So broad understanding helps.
This weekend I finally was far enough to put these learnings to work for myself! Coding “new views”, and created functional prototype of a web application.At the same time, I came across the full sentence for the phrase I had circling in my all these years. Oddly ironic and fitting timing.
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Boom! 💥 🤯
I see roles in an organisation like gears in a factories machinery. A well running machine does need focused specialists — that just wasn’t what I want for myself. I would also go so far as to say — perhaps the best machines have interchangeable parts which could work in one location or another. Knowing more — means you could help elsewhere, or better communicate with knowledge of what is needed within other parts of the factory gearbox.
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to keep learning and move through different types of industries, roles, and teams all while while building skills both inside and outside of work. With a connecting redline throughout it all. A redline you can very rarely see, unless you’re looking backwards.
I will stay the course and continue to learn “building skills”.
After all, the future is what WE make it. You need building skills to get there.
It will never hurt to learn the skills, whatever they are, to help BUILD IT.
I hope you do the same.
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**Image from Google search of Fffound. No rights over this. Just like the photo