I’m a Polymath, You Can Be One Too

I’ve been asked several times how I retain so much of what I read and try to learn. Additionally, where do I find the time to do all that work including what I share here. I’ve come to terms that there is only a limited amount of time each day and it’s the same amount of time everyday. Knowing that is the one constant I can count on, I set a system up for learning. I regularly practice the art of micromastery. Being such a curious soul and wanting to learn as much as I can, I found it’s the only way.

Breaking your work into smaller chunks or achievable stages you will find an inner encouragement to move onto the next one. That sense of accomplishment your brain receives, dopamine, can work in your favor. I’ve found if you can keep this up, you will achieve the big one which is true mastery of any skill you’ve been wanting to achieve.

Micromastery like any other muscle group requires you to workout the brain. A mental workout. If we don’t flex that brain of ours often, like you muscles after not using them for a period of time, it will atrophy. I plan about 30 minutes of reading time everyday with out fail. And I read in no particular way or topic, just reading. By doing this simple practice I’m building new brain muscle, or neural networks, that allow me when I need to use it, it performs at a much higher rate. I make my brain essentially with this practice ready and eager to learn.

I’m a polymath.

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century; the related term, polyhistor, is an ancient term with similar meaning.

Some polymaths you may know: Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Donald Glover, Jamie Foxx, Dr. Mae Jemison, Mayim Bialik, St. Vincent to name a few men and women.

I believe anyone can be one. Those people mentioned above were not just born that way. A polymathic lifestyle is basically a lifestyle of continuous learning many different skills. Just about everyone’s brains has neurons that are multisensory. Simply, you brain can deal with input from numerous senses at once like being able to walk, chew gum, and have a conversation simultaneously. You have to continually feed it for it keep its elasticity to learn more. The stronger you make you neurons by introducing it to many opportunities to learn, the better and faster it learns.

There has to be some kind of payoff while learning in this fashion because it will encourage you to go farther and learn more. My payoff in this very blog IBtP was the second year of writing where I double and tripled the amount of views I got from year one. The more I kept going and doing it, learning which topics got more views than others, and learning the basics of grammar as it approved over time were very rewarding. It’s about repetition, practice does make perfect. The very writing I was doing was practice through repetition. The repeatability I experienced of getting better and better over time allowed me to see my improvements each time I posted. The by product was increased confidence in what I was doing and more views than the previous week, month, and year.

Learning something new isn’t as easy. Learning something new can easily demotivate you and be overwhelming. I’ve found I can by pass the chances of that happening by learning in smaller chunks quickly working gradually to a new skill over time. Keeping my brain always ready to absorb things by dedicating mental exercises like reading, that keep it ready of any input that could be interesting. Micromastery works. The immediate payoff has made me a resource for others and more accomplished as a leader than I ever was with out the practice.

Anyone can achieve mastery of whatever they want to achieve. What’s been the one thing you’ve mastered you’ve been proud of and how did you get there? Love to hear and learn from some others in the comments field below. Even just a post or two from others that may have been used with this same angle as a step to mastery would be welcome. I’d love to send others to you to learn. Let me know.

Thanks and hope your Sunday is going well! Thanks for viewing.

✌ Shawn