What Is An Expert Generalist?

Day 99. What is this? I cannot believe it. We are so close to the second last episode from the 100-day experiment. 99, 100 plus, almost 100 days ago we were starting it out. I'm driving in my car. I'm now still sitting in my car. I'm driving my car, sweating out of my armpits, not knowing what I was going to talk about for 10 minutes. Some episodes I still don't know what I'm going to talk about, but Can you believe it, everyone? We're 99 episodes. You know, the triple digits, but 100, it's not the end of the goal. It's the journey has only just begun. I'm having so much fun doing this podcast. Like, I know I've spoken in the past, sometimes it's hard to do, and look, that's just going to be the roller coaster of life, right? And it's just like, sometimes you look forward to doing the things you love to do, but sometimes even the things you love to do, you're like, oh, I don't really want to do that. So like, I get that with gym, I get that with food, I get that with studying. Etc., etc. It's like, I don't know, once you stop— once you start being thankful for what you've got or what you— yeah, exactly, once you start being grateful for what you've got, like I've got an amazing setup right now. I can do a podcast every day, I study what I'm wanting to study. I know I've got a lot of reasons to be happy for. I can't complain. Look, I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I highly recommend setting setting your life up as best you can so that you can do the things that you really enjoy doing. You're doing them out of growth rather than out of fear. Like, I read an article today by James Altucher, um, and it talks about growth decisions versus fear decisions. And I think I've talked about this on the podcast before— on the show before, actually. I'll start calling it a show maybe because I'm doing a YouTube and a podcast, uh, version of it. So What was it? It was growth versus love decisions. And the growth, like, is, are you choosing what you're doing out of growth or fear, right? If you're, if you're staying in a job you don't really want to, is it because of fear you, you might not get another job? Or are you staying in a relationship that's not really working out and you know it's not really working out because of fear you're going to lose that person or fear you'll never get into another relationship before? And trust me, I've been through those type of decisions. A few months ago, I I quit a job that I really, really enjoyed because I was afraid I'd get trapped there. That was it. I wanted to— the fear decision was to stay on. The growth decision for me was to leave it and try out some new things. And look, I'm not a perfect case model to study. Like, I'm the first person to admit maybe I have made some wrong decisions and maybe I've done this and whatever. I think the important thing is to never dwell on past decisions. Like, okay, reflect on them briefly, use them to improve your future decisions, but don't dwell on them. That'll hold you back. And yeah, as I said, I'm not— I'm definitely not someone to look up to in any sense. I myself am still trying to work this out. I'm 23 years old. I'm trying to work out what's the best way to live life. I'm looking at all these people I admire and I'm just sort of studying their life patterns and trying to apply it to mine because Really, like, I was speaking with one of my friends the other day, and I'm reading, reading this book on astrophysics called Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. It's about, it's not very long, it's by Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of my favorite scientists. And I was reading it, and I realized we're really just on a floating rock in space. And so this goes so like massively out of, like, off topic and just massively meta and sort of I don't know, spiritual if you may, or universe talk, getting real deep real quick, you know. But really, that's all we are. We're just a couple of, I don't know, conscious beings on a rock floating through space. Like, what even is the meaning? So, just have fun while you're here. Just, I don't know, just enjoy the things you do. Just keep doing new things, trying out new things. So, I think after the 100 days, I'm gonna start a vlog. I don't know how often, maybe once a week if I can get the time to up— well, I hate that excuse. So when I get the time to upload videos, just because I can't upload from home, I'll work it out. I'll upload from my friend's house. I'll upload from the Apple Store. They have really good Wi-Fi there. And a vlog about— I might do 100 days of coding after this 100 days of podcasts. I'll do one podcast, one YouTube a week, and then 100 days straight of coding. So every day I'll do at least some sort of coding because that's really where I'm interested right now. And so actually, I'll share with you my weekly review I did. So once a week, when I can remember, it's usually maybe once every 10 days or so, I'll write down, I'll write down 3 things, 3 things that went well during the past week and 3 things that I could improve on, right? And it's not too harsh and it's just, I don't know, it's just a way to keep myself in check. I don't have a structured day by day right now. It's sort of, I get up, study until I can't study anymore, work out, come home, eat dinner, and then go to sleep. Do a podcast and go to sleep, because the podcast is usually what I do before I go to bed. Like, this is me just talking. It's 9:30 at night. It's pretty cold. After I do this, I'm going to upload it, go read until I fall asleep. So, that's my game plan after this. But what was my weekly review? 3 things that went well. Started a machine learning course. So, I started on Coursera. I spoke about it yesterday. I actually failed the quiz for it 3 times. You only get 3 attempts every 8 hours. This morning I passed it first go. So, go figure, right? So, I was really happy with that. I'm really enjoying that. It's, it's complementing all the stuff I'm learning in the deep learning course by Udacity. I've actually got an assignment to do from Udacity. I've got a On the assignment, I have to write a neural network. So, just, just imagine like a whole bunch of calculations and analyze a dataset of 50,000 images or where the images have one of 10 items in there. So, it could be a dog's in the photo or a plane's in the photo or a car's in the photo, one of those 10 things. And it'll be between 50% and 70% accuracy to pass the test. So, I'm looking forward to that. A few weeks ago, I would never have dreamed of being— I couldn't even imagine how to do that, but now I have some vague idea. Not by any means a set plan of how I'm going to do it, but I'll work it out. So, started machine learning course. I built a Messenger chatbot, Move More. That's something I really want to keep going with. I'm definitely going to keep going with that through the rest of this year, probably. I want to help a million people work out at least, at least through the rest of this year. Just hold out, see where it goes. Or maybe actually, before I say that, the rest of this year, I'm going to test it over the next few weeks, few months, and just see how the traction goes. See if— I don't even know if it's, if it's the right market fit yet, but I've sort of just built it as something I would like to use myself and see if I can bring value to other people for that. So, but I'm really having fun building that chatbot. Number 3 was I reached out to Gary Vee and I asked the universe for something, right? So as I said, last week I mentioned in the podcast I emailed Gary Vee, who's a really big influence for me. If you haven't seen him, check him out on YouTube. Absolutely awesome dude. And if he ever comes to Australia, I'd love to meet him. But I reached out to him by email. I probably titled my email wrong. I'll probably share that in public at some point, what I emailed him. I probably titled it wrong after listening to a podcast he shared. He's like, I subject it with some sort of, I don't know, luring line, why I think you'll be a better CEO of the New York Jets than the current CEO. And I don't know what I was doing. I was just trying it out. Content of the email I was really happy with, but the subject line, I got to the subject line, I realized, oh crap. I need a subject line that won't get deleted straight away, and I probably wrote one that'll get deleted straight away. So maybe I'll send the email again without that shoddy subject line. But then I tweeted him earlier this evening and asked him to get 10 seconds of audio for the next podcast, 100 episodes. So who knows, maybe the universe will align to get it. Be amazing if it does. Worst case scenario, it doesn't, and I keep going with the show and I keep watching his stuff because it's really good value. That's 3 things that went well. I started a machine learning course. I built a Messenger chatbot, Move More. I reached out to Gary Vee, so I asked the universe something. I think that's something I want to do every week. I want to ask the universe something, like whether I write down an affirmation or just asking for something, you know, just, just trying to ask. 3 things I can improve on. More reading. I've been doing a lot of reading through study, but I'd like to read some other things as well. I've got a stack of books on my desk that I really want to read, so More reading. That's been on the things I could improve on for at least 3 weeks now. Go to gym more consistently. So, I've had these sort of sporadic workouts just because I've been studying so much. I've been going really hard on the study, on the like 6 to 8 hours a day, and by that point it's just like my brain is so fried and I'm so tired. I need to sleep and whatnot. But I want to go to gym more consistently and set less tasks per day but more effective tasks. So, rather than have a task list of like 12 things I want to do in one day, maybe I could have like 2 things, but each of them gets devoted a big block of time. So maybe I'll test that over the next week and see how it goes. And whatever— what else have you been reading? So there was an article, um, so that was my weekly review actually, before I get into something else. So yeah, I've— the last probably 2 months or so, I've done like a weekly review, which will be 3 things I've done well in the last week and then 3 weeks I've— sorry, 3 things I've done well in the last week and then 3 things I can improve on. And that's it. I keep it short. I don't dwell. And that's— do that once a week, do that once every 10 days, once a fortnight, whatever. And that's sort of— I'm keeping myself in check and I can look back and I go think about it. Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done so much of that. Maybe I should do more of this. And so yeah, we'll see how it goes. I'm I'm enjoying it. What else? I might even leave this for tomorrow. Actually, we'll go over it quickly because tomorrow's the 100th episode. I don't know what it's going to be, but it will be fun. It will be fun. It could just be business as usual because it's a journey, right? 100th episode is just a starting point. We've done 100 episodes of podcast. Here's to the next 100. We'll say that after tomorrow, actually. But read an article on Elon Musk, and I'm really loving Elon Musk at the moment because he's just a fascinating person. I don't know if I'd trade lives with him exactly though because of how hectic his schedule would be. And I think there's— we got some different value, like values in terms of where you allocate time. Look, I love my life how it is, but it's always good to look at other people and think what you— what bits and pieces you can take from them and and apply it to your own life. I don't think I would trade shoes with anyone because I love my own life so much. I think that's really important. Rather than— it's great to have a mentor and great to have someone you look up to, but at the same time you gotta love yourself because at the end of the day that's all you'll ever be. You'll only be your own person. Don't do someone else, do you. Take bits and pieces from like the top 100 people you love and respect and value and apply that to your own life and do you. Because yeah, this is— at the moment there's no way to trade shoes with someone else. Maybe in the future when virtual reality and Neuralink and that sort of thing becomes a thing, but for now, love yourself. That's a massive point. That's something I had to— that's a hard lesson I had to go through the last year. Love yourself, massively important. But anyway, yeah, Elon Musk Wrote an article on how he learns so fast, and it's this concept called learning transfer. So, taking what you learn in one context and applying it to another. And I think, yeah, that's, that's really valuable. You know what? When I was, when I was in university, I was actually really scared that I had to choose one thing and study that for like 40 years. That's, that's how I was getting set up for college, for university, right? I'd go there, I wanted to be a doctor, and they're like, okay, you study this, you study to be a doctor, and then you do the same thing for 40 years. And I was like, what? I don't want to do that. I don't want to study the same thing for 40 years. And like, this whole concept of specialization scared me. And if you think of like Elon and people like him, he's, uh, what's it called, expert generalist. So he's an expert in so many different fields like space travel, energy, uh, auto manufacturing, tunnels now, artificial intelligence, so many things. And it's, it's really just taking what you learn in one industry, applying it to another. So break, break knowledge down into fundamental, fundamental principles, and then reconstruct those fundamental principles in other fields. So for me, I'm thinking about this because fitness is probably the longest, the the thing I've done the longest in my life right now, right? I'm 23, I've done fitness like 7, 8 years, so that's a third of my life, whatever. And there's a lot of fundamental principles that I've gained from it that I've just realized, it's clicked, I should just start applying that to other areas of my life. So with this learning how to program, it's just all about sets and reps. That's how I can break it down. So it's like sets of studying, reps of actually writing out different lines of things. Same with so many other different things. Same with nutrition. It's just nutrition is just 4 fundamental macronutrients that make up every food and working out the correct balance of those and if you do, you're in a good place. So, break down the fundamental principles of something and then apply those fundamental principles to something else because I think specialization has its advantages. Don't get me wrong. Look, I'm not, not bludging, like I'm not disregarding specialization in any way, shape or form. It's just not for me, I don't think, because that just scares me doing the same thing over and over again. I like to, I don't know, be— there's a saying, right? Jack of all trades, master of none. But I don't like that saying either. I like— because that just degrades how good you are at certain things. I want to dabble in so many different areas and combine those areas and just bring value to the world in that aspect. So I'm still trying to work out how to do that. And I don't know, I think I might start a vlog after this podcast as well, like once a week or something like that. I don't know, I'll try it out. And, um, yeah, you can just follow the journey on how I, how I try to collate my skills and bring value to the rest of the world. Who knows? But yeah, and then there's a— there was a quote in that article that I read with Elon, how he learns faster than everyone else, from Keith Holyoake. What an awesome name, Holyoke, if I'm saying that right. I'm so, I'm so, so sorry if I'm not, Keith. A UCLA professor of psychology and one of the world's leading thinkers on enological reasoning. I don't know if that's a correct word. Let me try and look this up. Enological, the study of wine. I don't know if that's, that's the correct word, but must have mistyped it on the iPad here. That's alright. So let's just say a world's leading thinker and well-renowned in the world of psychology says— recommends people ask themselves the following two questions in order to hone their skills: What does this remind me of? Why does it remind me of it? So that's like if you're thinking about one industry, you're trying to think about different problems and trying to solve problems in a different industry than you're used to. What, how can you align that problem in one certain industry to something you are familiar with and why does it remind you of it, right? So I think I'm going to use those two questions for when I'm delving into problems in areas that I don't really understand. I love being the dumbest person in the room, like at one thing because then I can learn exponentially quicker off everyone else in the room. Like this weekend I'm going to a hackathon and I've only been learning to program for like 6 to 7 weeks properly and I'm gonna be out of my comfort zone, but that's alright, I'll just learn a whole bunch of stuff. What's the worst that's gonna happen, right? It cost me $10 for this ticket and I'm gonna have an awesome time. So yeah, that's those two questions. What does this remind me of and what Why does it remind me of it? Such a powerful thing. And yeah, I think that's, that's a good, that's a good place to wrap this up and leave the daily challenge is use those two questions. So, think about something. What does this remind me of and why does it remind me of it? And what scenario? So, if you're trying to solve a problem in an area you're not too familiar with, or if you're thinking about doing something like that, if you're in a current specialization, you think about maybe changing it or maybe trying to solve a problem in a different area. When you do that, what does that— what does it remind you of? What do those scenarios remind you of? And why does it remind you of it? So I think that's, that's a good way to sort of apply your knowledge of one certain thing in so many different areas. Because if you're like me and not a fan of specialization, because there's going to be people out there that are like that, of course there's, there's There's people that love specialization, but for me it just wasn't, wasn't how— and look, that may change in the future. I may find something that I just continually do for 40 years, but at this stage it's not for me. So we'll wrap it up there. Tomorrow's day 100. So excited, I can't wait. I'm gonna go upload this one and then do some reading and pass out, go to bed, wake up and do do my Udacity deep learning assignment tomorrow. So, thank you all so much for listening. I hope you're having an awesome day. Call someone and tell them you love them, because I love you all. And we'll see you tomorrow. Day 100! Woohoo! See you later.