Jack of all trades and master of none. That is a phrase that I grew up hearing many times. It is always better to focus on one skill and become good at it than to try and master many different things at once. This advice does make a lot of sense, but I have always struggled with the idea of just sticking to one thing. Actually, it isn’t that I struggled with the idea, I have been more so unwilling to follow this advice. Most successful people start off with one business that they run and scale before they move to other ventures. This means that it does make sense to focus on one thing. But what if you struggle to find that one thing you are destined to do. Are you in some way handicapped from achieving success? There are some people out there like Donald Glover, who have mastered many arts and excel in all of them at the same time. He started his career in one of the arts but throughout his career he has been a comedian, actor, singer, dancer, and writer all at the same time.
The lack of success stories of people mastering multiple things at the same time is rare. I have chosen to be a master of entrepreneurship. I guess this counts as one skill. However, I am working on about 5 different business ideas at the same time. So does that mean I am a master of none? Well, I guess if you look at it one way I am. For a very long time, I have been passionate about business and entrepreneurship. I initially caught the bug when I was about 25 years old. The first business I started was selling vegan food at markets during weekends. The first time I got money for rendering a service to people, it felt so good. I couldn’t believe that someone would pay me for something that I had created. Thinking about it, entrepreneurship can boost your self-esteem – sometimes. Most of the time it is a tedious, unrewarding, and difficult thing to do. You are at the mercy of the markets, your customers, your product quality, and much more. If something goes wrong – you take it. There is no big corporate structure that insulates you from the feeling of failure. I guess that is one of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship.
I guess I may never be one of those people that focuses on just one thing on a micro-level. I may have a passion for entrepreneurship but I can’t stick to one business forever. I get too fidgety and my obsession with solving problems will always lead me to the next venture. It doesn’t matter what challenges exist in the world, I truly believe that entrepreneurs can solve most of them. When I say entrepreneurs, I don’t necessarily mean the likes of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. You can also be an intrapreneur and solve problems from within your organization. Whatever it is you decide to do, just make sure you are passionate about it, even if it is 1 or 10 projects.
