Are you Special or General?

The way to amass great wealth in the present day seems to be Specialization. Think about it: all the top people in their fields - movie stars, surgeons, athletes, politicians, accountants (just kidding, no one cares about accountants) - command the highest salaries or wield the greatest amount of power. If my goal, then, is to be rich or powerful, I think the formula is pretty simple: pick a field, and be the absolute best in that field. This is not to say that the journey toward becoming the best will not require sacrifice and discipline, or that it won't result in failure - I said the formula was simple, not the accomplishment of the formula.

But what if the goal is not wealth accumulation? What if the goal is survival? In that case, I propose that the key is not Specialization, but rather Generalization. If there are likely to be shifts in the environment that could endanger the stability of your Special field of expertise, rendering it obsolete, you may be better off having many fields to choose from. The "Jack of all trades, master of none" might manage to adapt and survive due to his moderate experience in many things when the specialist's niche dries up.

Think about it this way: if it takes ten thousand hours of dedication to achieve elite status, but only one thousand hours (that's about half a year's full-time dedication) to reach the top quartile of proficiency (or even the top half - who knows what's best?), then a "Jack of All Trades" could become moderately proficient in ten times the number of fields of a Specialist.

To take it a step further - and I hope I don't sprain your brain here - what if one were to Specialize in Generalizing? In other words, what if I make becoming moderately proficient in many things my goal? Say, invest one thousand hours in something and then put it on the shelf and start on something new.

I think the amount of time needed to reach top quartile proficiency would gradually decrease - as with any repeated action, the activity of learning and dissecting a brand new concept or vocation would get more efficient. There are probably a whole crap ton of assumptions that go into that thought (that the activities are similar enough to allow for that kind of efficiency gain, for instance), but if the payoff is increased survivability, why not give it a shot?

I have read (I'll be darned if I can find the link though) that some of the greatest innovations come when people change fields - a physicist who begins to study biology, for instance, may be able to draw insights that solve problems or increase understanding in both fields.

At any rate, I have learned a thing or two about myself in my third of a century's experience: I like novelty, and I like competition. Therefore, I think that if I can find a venue that provides consistently novel problems, ideas, facts, or challenges, coupled with an element of competition, I'll be in heaven.