we should ALL learn across multiple fields in order to increase our odds of breakthrough success.

the founders of the five largest companies in the world — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos — all polymaths (who also follow the 5-hour rule).

Each new field we learn that is unfamiliar to others in our field gives us the ability to make combinations that they can’t. This is the modern polymath advantage.

“The compositions of the most successful operatic composers tended to represent a mix of genres…composers were able to avoid the inflexibility of too much expertise(overtraining) by cross-training,”

This thirst for knowledge allowed him to get exposed to a variety of subjects he had never necessarily learned about in school.

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.

“Developing the habit of mastering the multiple models which underlie reality is the best thing you can do. “

By looking at lots of diverse cases when we learn anything, we begin to intuit what is essential and even craft our own unique combinations.

1. What does this remind me of?
2. Why does it remind me of it?

At the deepest level, what we can learn from Elon Musk’s story is that we shouldn’t accept the dogma that specialization is the best or only path toward career success and impact.

“We are in an age that assumes that the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable… In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual’s leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others.Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which in turn leads to war.”