Jack of All Trades

I’m a person that does a lot of things. If you’ve been reading my work, you already know this. Mosaics, painting, sculpture, music, drawing, photography, coding, collage, metalworking, cooking, martial arts. The list keeps growing, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. I go to whatever I’m attracted to, whatever I’m feeling and vibing with at the time and I let the seasons and the years determine which interest gets my attention next. It’s never been a straight line. It’s always been a web.

I know that goes against what a lot of people believe. The conventional wisdom is to pick one thing, master it and pour everything into that singular pursuit. Focus your attention, don’t spread yourself thin, depth over breadth. I’ve heard it all, and I understand why people think that way. There’s real value in deep focus.

Somebody told me once that I was a jack of all trades but a master of none. They said it like it was supposed to be an insult, like dabbling in many things meant I wasn’t serious about any of them. What most people don’t know is that the full phrase doesn’t end there. The complete version goes: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” Once I did my own research and found that out, it changed the way I thought about my own path. I took it on for my life.

Here’s what I’ve found from living this way. When you have a lot of hobbies, you’re never bored. You’re always interested in something. You’re always pushing your brain in a direction it hasn’t gone before, which keeps everything fresh and alive in a way that singular focus sometimes doesn’t. I don’t do all of my interests at the same time, but as the seasons change and the years go on, I’ll revisit photography three or four times over a couple of years, pick up the guitar again after months away, go back to drawing after a stretch of working with mosaics. The interests rotate, and each time I come back to one, something fascinating happens.

The information compounds. The brain continues to work and filter through everything, even when you’re not actively thinking about it. When you study something for a period of time and then step away from it, that knowledge doesn’t disappear. It settles into your mind and when you revisit it, you often come back sharper than when you left. I’ve seen it in myself and I’ve watched it happen with my kids. They’ll be learning piano or dance or basketball, and then they might not do it for a month during the summer. When we revisit those activities, they haven’t missed a step. The movements are better, the retention is stronger, the understanding is deeper. The break didn’t hurt them. It helped.

I also believe that learning across disciplines makes you better at each individual one. Learning piano helps you with basketball because it develops coordination, timing, and discipline in a completely different context. Painting helps you become a better electrician because it trains your eye for detail and your patience for process. Photography helps you become a better lawyer because it teaches you to frame a story and pay attention to what most people overlook. Playing basketball makes you a better teacher because it teaches you about teamwork, communication, and how to perform under pressure. These connections aren’t always obvious, but they’re real. The skills transfer in ways you don’t expect until you’re in the middle of something and realize your brain already knows how to handle it because you trained it somewhere else.

I want to encourage you to embrace having a lot of interests. There’s nothing wrong with it. Don’t feel like you’re wasting time or not utilizing your talents because you’re spread across multiple pursuits. Don’t let anyone make you feel like curiosity is a weakness. If you want to focus on one thing, that’s great, do it with everything you’ve got. If you find yourself drawn to many things, that’s great too, because that breadth of experience is building something inside of you that a single focus can’t replicate.

Have a lot of interests. Explore them on your own terms. Let the seasons determine what gets your attention. Trust that the information compounds even when you step away.