For a while, I was stuck in a contradiction:
- I have many interests, but each one seems to stop at “I know a little”
- When I see others go deep for years, I instinctively doubt whether I’m “too scattered”
- The moment someone suggests “focus,” I get anxious—does that mean cutting off lots of things I like?
Recently I watched a video that offered a more actionable explanation: having many interests doesn’t necessarily mean you lack discipline—it may mean you’re better suited to working in complex environments.
Video link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1WekEBcE1Z/
The video compares two worlds, and it feels very real:
- Chessboard: stable rules, clear paths, step-by-step progress yields predictable returns
- Fireground: frequent change, cross-functional collaboration, problems don’t follow a script
This isn’t saying “experts are useless.” It’s emphasizing that:
on a fireground, people who can switch perspectives quickly and integrate methods tend to be more valuable.
2. Why “Being Broad” Gets Treated as a Flaw
“Jack-of-all-trades” judgments often come from a hidden assumption: everyone should follow the same growth route.
Common errors include:
- judging “multi-track exploration” with a “single-track success model”
- denying “process accumulation” because you only look at “final outputs”
- using “linear climbing” to explain what is actually “combinational growth”
But many real capabilities aren’t trained on a single curve—they become useful when multiple skills stack and suddenly click.
You may not be extreme at one point, but you might have a rare combination:
technical + expressive, product + user psychology, content + growth…
These combinations often solve the cross-domain problems that are “unpopular, but must be handled.”
3. My Take on the “M-Shaped” Profile: The Key Is Connection
The video mentions that M-shaped talent adapts to complexity better than I-shaped. For me, the point isn’t “wider,” but this:
transferable, composable, and able to form a distinctive configuration.
Two quick self-check questions:
- Can what I learned in domain A transfer to domain B?
- When these skills stack, do they become a “playbook others can’t easily copy”?
If breadth is just a “bookmark folder,” it creates anxiety.
If breadth is organized into a “toolbox,” it starts compounding.
4. Three More Grounded Ways to Make Generalism Compound
4.1 Set a Structure First: Mainline + Plugins
The most draining state is treating every interest like a main job.
A more sustainable structure is:
- One mainline: long-term investment that builds identity and outputs (writing / frontend / product, etc.)
- 2–3 plugin domains: chosen around the mainline to provide differentiation (design / psychology / data, etc.)
To decide whether a plugin stays, two questions are enough:
- Does it make my mainline output stronger?
- Does it help me solve a class of “common but thorny” problems?
4.2 Use Projects to Weld Knowledge Together
The risk of being a generalist isn’t learning too much—it’s that what you learn remains disconnected.
The solution isn’t “learn less,” but anchor learning in projects:
- write a publishable article: explain the concept clearly
- build a small tool: automate the workflow
- make a demo: prove the capability and make it reusable
Projects force three things: connection, trade-offs, feedback.
Those three turn “scattered” into “structured breadth.”
4.3 Set a “Minimum Useful Threshold”
Generalist doesn’t mean shallow tasting. The key is to cross a line in each domain:
- produce a minimum result independently (showable / reusable)
- explain core concepts in your own words
- apply it to a real problem, not just keep notes
This avoids two traps at once:
“stop as soon as you know a little,” and “you must master it before you can start.”
5. My Recap: Translating Dispersion into Strategy
After the video, my conclusion was:
don’t rush to prove you’re “focused”—first prove you can keep producing.
For generalists, the watershed often is:
- can you turn interests into periodic output?
- can output help you filter back: what to continue, what to drop?
I’m planning a small 4-week experiment:
- each week, push only one mainline project
- plugins only do parts that directly serve the mainline
- each weekend, ship one shareable deliverable (article / tool / reflection)
If you’re often labeled “jack-of-all-trades,” maybe try a different question:
Am I on a chessboard, or on a fireground? If it’s a fireground, does my breadth have structure?
“Focus” doesn’t mean doing only one thing forever—it means choosing the most effective skill combination for the problem at hand.