Prominent Figures Like Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci Were Polymaths — Here's How You Can Join Their Ranks The era of specialization is over. Here's the case for being a polymath.
By Aytekin Tank Edited by Kara McIntyre
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I'm what I would call a voracious reader. I credit books for helping me launch my company, Jotform, and keep it afloat through times of growth, crisis and transformation.
I love reading so much because of its power to instill knowledge and wisdom. When I began my business, I knew a lot about coding, but next to nothing about managing others. So the first time I cracked Dale Carnegie's seminal work, How to Win Friends and Influence People, it was like stumbling upon a map I didn't know I needed. I credit Carnegie's lessons for making me into the leader I am, and I've returned to it again and again.
As Albert Einstein once said, "The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library." I completely agree. Books, as well as articles and other publications, have taught me how to prioritize my time, introduced me to emerging technologies, honed my project management skills and so much more.
In other words, reading has set me on the road to becoming a polymath — an expert in multiple fields. While I still have a ways to go before I can say I'm a whiz at most things I study, I think having a wealth of knowledge on more than one subject is crucial for entrepreneurs. Here's why.
Related: 4 Simple Techniques to Remember Everything You Learn
What's a polymath, anyway?
Being a polymath means being an expert across disciplines, but the full definition is a little more complicated — and interesting.
The word "polymath" has its roots in the Greek word "polumathēs," which translates to "having learned much." But more than having deep knowledge of disparate areas, polymaths figure out how that knowledge can be pulled together. As The Observer puts it, a polymath is someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1% skill set.
Many of history's most prominent figures were polymaths, from Leonardo da Vinci, whose expertise spanned painting to engineering, to Steve Jobs, who famously combined his deep understanding of technology with design.
Being a generalist has historically gotten a bad rap ("Equipped with knives all over, yet none is sharp," goes one Chinese saying). But as da Vinci, Jobs and so many others show, knowing several different subject areas is the surest recipe for success.
Mastering diverse skills through bootstrapping
If being a polymath was helpful before, these days, it's downright crucial. Between AI's ability to perform specialized tasks and an economy that increasingly demands adaptability, there's never been a better time to diversify your knowledge.
For entrepreneurs, one of the best ways to develop this knowledge is by bootstrapping. Remember how I said that before I launched my business, I had no idea how to manage people? The same goes for my experience with marketing, tech support, graphic design and so much more. For a long time, I was a business of one, and the only way to stay afloat was to wear all the hats myself.
Again, I would hardly say I'm an expert in all of those areas. But even the process of learning about them was invaluable — being able to think like a marketer, for example, has helped me approach how I conceptualize products. Working through problems with customers illuminated pain points I would never have known about had I taken a less hands-on role.
Being a bootstrapped founder forced me to learn half the skills I have (and regularly use) today. Without those skills, I would be a completely different leader — and likely a less capable one, too.
Related: 3 Essential Skills I Learned By Growing My Business From the Ground Up
How to learn effectively
If you want to learn, some techniques are more effective than others. One practice I like for retaining information is called spaced repetition, which entails repeatedly exposing your brain to information over time, rather than trying to squeeze it in all at once.
Case in point: Gabriel Wyner, author of Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language and Never Forget It, explains that by practicing a language 30 minutes a day over a four-month period, you can expect to learn and retain 3,600 flashcards with 90-95% accuracy. Not only will you learn a new vocabulary and grammar, but doing it over time keeps it from becoming tedious.
Another trick I like for retaining what I learn is to teach it to someone else. I put this into practice in a big way when I took parental leave following the birth of my second child. Rather than trying to juggle my business with spending time with my newborn, I trained my employees to do my job while I was away. Doing this not only ensured I was able to fully disconnect during my time off but also afforded me a refresher course in my responsibilities. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was also a proponent of this system — as he put it, "If you can't explain it in simple terms, then you don't understand it."
Most of us have been raised to think that becoming a specialist in one area is the way to go. We pick a focus and spend our lives working on it. Having diverse knowledge in several fields is a huge plus, especially for entrepreneurs. By learning widely and connecting insights across disciplines, it becomes possible to understand the world in a richer and more unique way.
