Our Inner Polymath

I learned a new word recently – Polymath. Here is the Wikipedia definition: “A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.”

One of the earliest and most prominent polymaths in history is Leonardo Da Vinci. While he is most well known for his paintings, he was also accomplished in a variety of subjects including anatomy, astronomy and botany. In fact, Renaissance is a period when polymaths flourished, hence the use of “Renaissance Man” as a synonym for polymath. The modern man that epitomizes a polymath is Elon Musk – how this man can build successful companies that range from such diverse industries as payments, space exploration, electric vehicles, solar energy, and AI, despite the long odds, has become an amazement and awe for many, myself included.

But these are just the most notable examples. There are many other polymaths, whose biographies just seem ridiculous. Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers, was a leading writer, printer, political philosopher, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As if building a nation and abolishing slavery was not enough of a mission for this man, he had to invent the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, and to write about electricity to fill his spare time.

Even the lesser well-known polymaths have super impressive resumes. I recently came upon the story of Dr. Martine Rothblatt, the founder of United Therapeutics. Trained as an electric engineer, she is responsible for launching several satellite communication companies, including Sirius Satellite Radio. That by itself would be considered a hugely successful career, but that is not even half of her story. When her daughter was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, she refused to accept the doctor’s prognosis “everyone with the disease dies within a few years”. Instead, she started doing research, reading every biology textbook, every scientific article out there and then traced their footnotes to read more articles until she was able to find one molecule that showed potential promise to regulate the pressure between the lungs and the heart, which was the root cause of the disease. Problem was the molecule was owned by big Pharma GSK and they were not going to develop a drug for a disease that would only treat 2,000 patients. Undaunted, Rothblatt founded her own pharmaceutical company, miraculously convinced all 23 of the board members of GSK to license the molecule to her, and went onto develop the therapy that not only saved her daughter’s life but 50,000 other lives that would have been lost if it were not for the drug. And did I mention she is also a lawyer, a transgender activist, invented the electric helicopter, and is now dedicating her company to solving the problem of transplant shortage? The list goes on and on…

By now, you should see why I am so fascinated by polymaths (I’m glad there is a word for it). These are people who are gifted not just in one field like Beethoven or Van Gogh, they are multi talented, across multiple disciplines. Their knowledge, expertise, curiosity and their confidence know no bounds. Just the audacity of taking on drug development as a novice alone is mind blowing -- Drug development is notoriously known for its long lifecycle and high probability of failure. What makes Dr. Rothblatt think that she, someone without any biology training, can find a therapy for a rare disease when all the other scientists failed? What makes Elon Musk think he can beat NASA? What makes it possible for anyone that does not have technical training in a particular field to succeed in that field?

Well, one answer might be the technical “experts” may not necessarily be the “experts” you think. I personally had a taste of that – I joined a financial services company three years ago as it was trying to expand into the healthcare industry. They hired me for my healthcare expertise. But as I was trying to lay out the future growth strategy for the company, it became apparent that my healthcare expertise was not enough. I had to learn the financial services industry, how the industry came about, who the key players are, what innovations impacted the industry, and what forces were driving these innovations. I turned to many of my colleagues who have worked in the industry for decades and was astonished that many of them do not have the answers to my questions. And even those “go-to-folks” in the company who are highly regarded as the experts, once you ask questions that go three layers deeper, they usually resort to “Good question. I never thought about that. I will have to get back to you on that.” I found googling and talking to industry partners much more helpful, but it does require tons of research in peeling back the onions until you get to the core.  I’m not citing the example to disparage my colleagues – in fact, what I find is when you work in an industry for a long time, you just take things for granted. You don’t question the things you learned. You assume they are right. This is true not just for my colleagues, but for almost anyone. And this is where an outsider actually has the advantage of a fresh perspective, no different than when I first came to the US, I noticed that cars actually make way for pedestrians, a rule most Americans would never question, until they go to Asia. It is precisely the acknowledgement that experts don’t always know what they are talking about, particularly when you look at it from a different perspective, that opens up the possibility of innovation. In fact, much of our scientific breakthroughs are achieved by challenging an existing assumption (theory of relativity, evolution, etc.). Medical schools are particularly wise in that respect -- many welcome their new students by saying “50% of what we teach you over the next five years will be wrong, or inaccurate. Sadly, we don’t know which 50%”.

But asking challenging questions is only the beginning. What makes a polymath different from a generalist is the ability to dig in. My son and I recently had a heated debate over whether you can achieve success in anything you put your mind to. While I’m a total subscriber to the philosophy that “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”, I believe certain fields like sports require talent – “I will never become Michael Jordan if I want to” -- whereas my son firmly believes with enough effort, even I can be among the top 1% players in basketball. As much as I balk at the absurdity of that idea, come to think of it, 1% of the world population (7.8 billion) is 78M. So if I practice every day with the intensity of Michael Jordan, it is possible that even a weakling like me may ultimately become a decent enough player that I can be better than 7.12 billion other people out there. For reference, there are only about 70,000 professional basketball players in the world (that’s 0.001% of the world population). And to achieve that 0.001%, you will need talent, my son said, not the 1%. I readily confessed my defeat. I was so proud of my son. Out of all my parental failings, I felt I taught him one thing right -- well I did not teach him, it was the other way around – that whatever bad genes me and my husband passed onto him, he believes he can control his own destiny – with enough effort, that is. That is amazing!

And that is the one key ingredient to being a polymath – the fact that they dig into these subjects with the intensity of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan did that for his career, but the polymaths brought the same level of intensity to their hobbies and interests. One such polymath, Tim Ferriss, a successful entrepreneur, writer, investor, and podcaster, said when he was a teenager he was fascinated by infomercials. He figured those ones that run on TV for a long period of time must be doing well. So he would call into the phone lines just to capture their sales pitch, buy the goods to see their packaging, and then return them to see how the customer service tried to persuade him out of the returns. He would jot down all his notes in a binder, circle the key messages that he believed are particularly effective and observe if there were any patterns. Now this was not the normal behavior of an average curious teenager -- he was in effect studying the marketing and sales strategies and techniques of these infomercials, with the intensity and meticulousness of a social psychologist. The learnings he gained out of that study ultimately allowed him to build a successful company. But the point is when Tim first studied the infomercials, it was not utilitarian – he did not yet know he was going to start a company. It was pure interest, intrinsic curiosity that drove his behavior. And it was consistent throughout his life – he trained himself to be a competitive athlete, a Tango dancer, a jiu-jitsu master – all because he has an insatiable appetite to learn about new things, and has applied a painstakingly scientific methodology to deconstruct the process of learning.

Now many of us will never achieve the glory of these polymaths (the 0.001%), but what we can aspire to is a life dedicated to learning and growth, not for money or material success, but for the fun of it, for the spirituality it brings, for the nutrition our souls crave for. Just imagine, rather than being caught in our very specialized mundane jobs, we all have the capacity to awake our inner polymath, to be the top 1% chef, writer, musician, inventor, yoga instructor, entrepreneur, as long as we put our minds to it. And we could do ALL of these…and enjoy the inner connectivity between these seemingly disparate things… if we put our minds to it. What a colorful and fulfilling life that would be! The only question is which ones are you going to get started with…