#27 – Specialisation is for insects
- Alan Stein
- Apr 20, 2022
- 2 min read
I thought I was falling behind.
Looking around Law school, everyone had their eyes on the prize. They studied Law, they joined the Law Society, they shadowed and emulated lawyers until they became them.
Meanwhile I volunteered in the Ambulance Corps, taught kids to swim, became Director of Education at a youth movement, played park cricket and had a job as a software technician.
When I eventually jumped on the legal internships, I felt like I had fallen behind and I castigated myself for the time I had lost. These people were years ahead of me.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s really important to spend university years developing networks and professional skills. But here’s what consoled me.
If you do the same thing everyday, you’ll get really good at it as long as you a) want to keep doing it; and b) that thing doesn’t change much from day-to-day.
You’ll be a grandmaster at Tetris as long as the rules to Tetris never change. Or a better example, in Range by David Epstein, he talks about two famous sportspeople:
The first specialised in golf early. At the age of 2, he won an under 10s golf tournament. At the age of 4 he was already practicing golf for 8-hour days on the course and beating grown ups.
The second dabbled in a smorgasbord of sports including skiing, wrestling, swimming, tennis and soccer. He showed promise in tennis but didn’t want to advance too quickly because he wanted to stay with his mates.
The first was Tiger Woods. The second was Roger Federer.
They both topped their sports.
The consolation is that I was never falling behind, I was developing my ‘range’ too. I took dealing with parents at the swim school into dealing with clients. I took document review into investigations and spreadsheets. I took informal education into interpersonal skills.
Bringing a bizarre stew of experiences and points-of-view is a great asset because with breadth comes creativity and problem-solving. But it’s also a testament to what we’re capable of as people.
Sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein once said the following:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
“Specialisation is for insects.”
Next week: (Mostly) Happy New Year!
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