Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines

I enjoyed this book because it showed that polymaths are greater than geniuses. Geniuses might be great at one subject, even might be part of the top 1%, but polymaths excel in multiple subjects, without being cream of the crop. It is all about combinations of ideas and your courage to express them. Many subjects link together. The only thing that I didn't like was the fact that the book was too short. Very few authors write volumes anymore.

This book is useful for some kind of people. If somebody is naturally interested or intrigued by multiple diverse subject than this book will tell you that it might be right thing. I found that I'm polymath by nature whole my life. And now I found this term, new for me. I always had issue that being polymath in the society, especially corporate world, is not compatible with most of the current 'normal' world. Sometimes it gave me an advantage but mostly not. So this book gave me understanding if the fact, what doest mean being polymath. I started to think a bit differently about my future career and life plans. That's great. And I would guess that first part of the book and very useful for me. On the other hand I assume that this book is intended to be a kind of cook book how to become polymath. And I tend to say that's what the book is failing with. It's like planning what to learn, what to focus on. Based on idea to create yourself unique, step out of crowd. More like some marketing strategy. I don't thing it doesn't work this way. Being polymath is more passion than plan. There could be some planning part but the passion for discovery of the world is the think. And this book is weak in nurturing the passion. It more like cold calculation that being polymath is the path to success. It isn't. It looks like that from outside. In average normal world polymath represents more threat for people than attraction. I realised that even some of my bosses were afraid of me because I know more than is usual. I was even directly fired because of that. This book completely hide the fact that know more than others or being innovative could make your life more difficult. The issue is to find the way how to handle that or where is the place such people are appreciated. Besides I like the topic and like the author I have to say this book is too shallow, not inspirational. The subject is right and not obvious, however the book itself is just another self-betterment cook book, the average one. I would encourage the author to go, rethink it and create new version 2.0.

Good, informative, quick and easy read. The author helped me to understand and embrace my natural tendencies to always be curious about the things I observe and to constantly seek to improve myself. Some of the takeaways that I have employed is to create a personal curriculum so that I know what needs to be focused on and to have the confidence to continue in my continuous learning despite a world that pushes for specialization. I particularly enjoyed the symbolism of being "pi" or "comb" shaped versus being "T" shaped, it was a good way to understand the various avenues of learning different subjects and how your breadth expands with each additional branch of knowledge. I would only add that an individual purpose is sorely needed in order for the information in this book to truly be of benefit to you. I believe the author lightly touches on this but I feel a chapter at the beginning in regards to having a definite major purpose at the head of the reasons behind why you're learning in the first place is a must, otherwise you take the chance of learning things that will never materialize into anything of noteworthy importance. Perhaps the author intended to allow the numerous topics one learns to naturally guide them towards a purpose or an "aha!" world changing moment, but I feel this is leaving too much to chance and that everyone should have at least some sort of direction in which to aim their curriculum design towards. As an extreme example, if I worked for a Japanese based company who taught origami courses and only had offices in Japan and the U.S., I'm not sure how spending numerous hours on learning German or studying the history of natural disasters (just because those topics pique my interest) would benefit me unless it aligned with a purpose outside of the company and position that I am currently in. I would still recommend this book to anyone who wishes to take on a more systematic approach to polymathy. The book is packed with good strategies that all polymaths could benefit from and should be read with a definite purpose in mind.

We're in society of specialists, which isn't so bad. The problem of that is. When your skills in that field is no longer needs. And there is a void a hole. What we needed a polymath , a person or persons. Who has many other skills. That he or she can do very good. We need more generalists. The society would be better off.

The work needed to specialize your expertise at the highest level in any field is very intense. So what options are there? Work harder than everyone else? In his book, Polymath, Peter Hollins explains another way. A polymath is someone with more than one interest. By combining interests your skills can be more valuable than being a superstar in one area. One of the keys is skill-stacking. Seeing the extreme difficulty in developing expertise (top 1%) in one subject to the highest levels, it can be more achievable to shoot for being in the 5-15% in 2 or more areas. Besides an easier path to achieving this, there is ample evidence that skill-stacking has been a key to the success of many of the greatest inventors and creators including Einstein and da Vinci. One of my favorite parts of this book is the section where Hollins outlines a process for developing your polymath skills. He starts by helping you identify areas you want to learn more about and how to go wide and identify what specific area you want to focus on.

I thought enough of this book to buy the Hard Cover to gift to my grandson as soon as I finished reading it.