And why it matters in an ever-changing world 🌏

Let’s delve into a tale that everyone experiences at some point, choosing your career.

Pursuing a career for anyone, creatives included, has changed significantly over the past couple decades. Even within the last 5 years, the shift to working from home, freelancing, social media platforms and the rise of artificial intelligence has upended the traditional route of finding your career. Remaining planted in one field becomes more uncertain by the day; just as a each new block on a Jenga tower becomes increasingly delicate, major events in society have the potential to bring your career to an abrupt halt.

The Traditional Career Pathways

During my years in high school, the cohort I was in was constantly lectured that to have a successful future, you had to obtain a university degree, which would then give you a career, stability and a prosperous life; I’m sure that rings true for many of you perhaps. Whilst that opportunity is absolutely still valid for some career paths, much has changed since (for context, I graduated school in 2019 and decided to enter university the year after…one can imagine how that went). The time and money investment in a university degree for many is too risky in an environment that’s experiencing polarising changes year after year.

What then, are the options for a career in today’s society? Are the specialist and generalist paths still the way forward?

Specialists (or the I Shaped path) are the experts in their field of work. They’ve spent much of their time and dedication learning the craft, but when something major shakeups the industry, their expertise is narrow and proves overwhelming to pivot.

Specialists are still applicable and in fact, needed for society - scientists, engineers and medical specialists hold great value and are vital in driving progress! In regards to creatives however, the idea of becoming a specialist in one area isn’t quite sustainable. So, how about the generalist route?

Of the two, the generalist (the - Shaped Route) is certainly the more attractive one for creatives, important even for overseeing or working on big projects. A film director for example needs to understand all aspects of a film - writing, cinematography, acting, sound design, post-production so they can deliver a film that’s engaging, cohesive and communicates the vision of the film across all departments. They may be a generalist, but that doesn’t undermine the skills and experience they’ve built over their career.

The problem isn’t necessarily knowing a bit of everything. Being inexperienced in your areas and the uncertainty that stems from being a generalist is what gives a generalist its infamous title ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None’. You feel you’ve been stretched in too many directions, every skill is teetering on the edge and the avenues to stabilise yourself become paralysing.

If the specialist and the generalist pathways are no longer the normal pathways forward, what is?

Perhaps it’s time to follow the paths of a polymath or the M-Shaped path.

The Polymath + The M-Shaped Path

The M-Shaped path entails solidifying your foundations across three or more fields or disciplines, usually unrelated to each other. Whereas the I shaped or - shaped paths compromise breadth or depth of knowledge, the M-Shaped path emphasises on both deepening and expanding your core areas. In a sense, it’s “like” (very loosely) an amalgamation of the two, except the M-Shaped pathway iterates and develops overtime.

M-Shaped learning is best demonstrated by polymaths, individuals who have accumulated a vast and deep wealth of knowledge and expertise where they’re able to seamlessly apply their skills across completely different disciplines.

For example, an individual whose studied anatomy will have a better approach to rigging and animating a mythological creature. Or someone whose a linguist could find ways to communicate the principles of programming languages others struggle to do.

Many of humanity’s most gifted individuals were in fact polymaths! Isaac Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Archimedes and Albert Einstein, just to name a few. Their abilities to weave their knowledge across multiple areas allowed them to achieve the feats they accomplished. The M-Shaped Path also fosters creative problem-solving and lets individuals communicate concepts to others through more accessible means.

Okay, the way of the Polymath sounds quite promising! Where do I start?

From Titles to Shaped Learning

Initially you’d focus on establishing your foundations - your core skill sets. Lets say mathematics and costume design. Overtime, you slowly incorporate additional pillars by learning new fields over a short period of time. Anywhere between 6-24 months. Once you become comfortable understanding the field, add it and move on.

These new disciplines will eventually become a new addition to your compendium, where your ability to perceive connections between them expands. The more pillars formed, the greater the field of knowledge.

The biggest pitfall to not fall into is treating this pathway as a race to build up as many pillars as possible. It’s like taking shortcuts when building a bridge - without a strong foundation, the bridge will become increasingly unstable. Newly acquired knowledge shouldn’t put your pillars of expertise to the wayside, but neither should deepening your core skill sets hinder your curiosity. Doing this would corner you back into the I or - Shaped paths. If the M-Shaped path is too much initially, no stress, you can work towards that. Depending on your stages of your career (or skill sets), the T-Shaped path (one core skill set) or the N-Shaped (two core skill sets) are stepping stones for you to launch from and accumulate new skill sets overtime.

But what if I don’t know what area to pursue? To keep it simple, pick something that either has piqued your curiosity or an area you feel can give you a solid stepping stone to build your library of knowledge from.

So in essence,

• Establish your foundational pillar/s, the building blocks of your disciplines. 🔨

• Choose a new skill that sparks intrigue or evokes stability. Learn it over a short period of time (approx 6-24 months depending on complexity) 🧠

• Once learnt, incorporate new skill as your next pillar and form the basis of a new pillar by repeating step 2. 🏛️

• Bonus: Try to form connections and solve problems from learning new skills 🔗

By embracing the M-Shaped path, you’d become far more experienced in the fields you’ve learnt, but your ability to apply them across different fields allows you to remain malleable to change. Regardless if you have creative aspirations or not, turning to this way of learning is probably one of the only guarantees to safeguard the value of your professional and personal disciplines in the future.

For me, I’m about to begin the foundations of forming a new pillar, either in computer science, cyber security pixel art, programming or rigging.

If you were to become a polymath and follow the M-Shaped path, where would you start? 🗺️

If you want to learn more about the polymath and the M-Shaped path, I’ve linked further resources down here.

• How to learn with too many interests

• Shaped Based Learning

• Polymaths

📺 Recent Movie/TV Watch: ‘I’m Tim’, the story behind the Swedish DJ legend Avicii

🌱 Lesson of the Week: Make the most of your opportunities

📖 Learning Experience of the Week: A binnacle is a compartment stand for a compass, that houses two iron balls on the outside to stop any magnetic interference.

🏆 Highlight of the Week: Attending the Synthony Music Festival, celebrating 10 years of NZ electronic dance music in Auckland

Thankyou for reading! Bit of a wall of text this one, but more to come, with extra images too! I hope to see you in the next Tale 🧙🏻

Critters

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