When I was younger, my mum and dad used to ask:

"James, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Being young, my answer would change on a regular basis. I went through stages of obsessions:

First was dogs, I was set on becoming a vet.

I would watch talent shows on the TV and decided that being a dancer was for me.

Then came football, so I wanted to be a footballer.

From a young age, you're subconsciously taught to be one thing.

The blueprint for life is as follows:

• Do well in school

• Choose an area that would pay the most

• Work your way up the and hope to have enough to retire

Specialists Are Trained, So You're Replaceable

Any job you pursue involves a form of training. There is no escaping this.

This increases competition, a human necessity.

So you're always looking over your shoulder to see who's coming in, the higher up you go, the more competitive the game gets.

As a professional footballer, I train everyday. Regular training increases my skill level, which in turn increases my value within my domain. I am also training with 25 other players, who are all in the same position. Being at the elite level, you are always looking over your shoulder. There's players ready to take your shirt and play.

You need to maximise your game time and performances whilst you are at your peak physical capabilities.

I explain what I have learnt on my journey so far in this X thread below.

The odds of reaching the pinnacle of pro sports is so small:

A pro footballer? 0.012%.

A pro american football? 0.03%

A pro basketball player? 0.023%.

Society Rewarded A Narrow Path

The industrial age, with factories that created this model of thousands of people going to work together. Clocking in and out at the same time.

You slowly get pigeon holed into a job which you specialise in certain skills. The work is unfulfilling, there's no autonomy to your work. You're a task completion master. Ticking box after box.

You're just a mere cog in the wheel.

Your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs.

Usually with no creativity to your work and no autonomy.

Lack of curiosity

As a child, you question everything.

• "Where do babies come from?"

• "Where do you go when you die?"

• "Why is the sky blue?"

• "How do clouds float?"

• "How do planes fly?"

You are infinitely curious. You want to learn things. You're ignorant and you don't know better so you ask questions to learn.

As time passes, getting into the adult world, the novelty changes. We go from curiosity creatures full of vibrance.

Chasing our never ending to do list.

The longer we stay in a specialised career. The lack of challenge slowly begins to fade. We lose our creative abilities.

So we turn to Netflix, video games and reality TV instead. To find an element of drama and challenge that has escaped us in our modern lives.

We’ve been designed to take the easy route, the path of least resistance. Life is about taking challenges head on.

Stepping into the unknown and then finding your way from there.

Humans crave novelty

• new ideas to digest

• new concepts to understand

• new projects to apply skills to

This keeps us from being stagnant in life.

It gives you a sense of progression.

Your work is the majority of your life.

Is this it for you?

A digital renaissance is emerging - creators are the frontiers.

Latest figures state that the creator economy is expected to double from $250 billion to $480 Billion in the next five years.

Everyone can be a creator, I do believe it's the future for all work.

Become a generalist in 3 steps

1. Knowledge

The outsized returns of the world go to the educators.

They create their own goals, and acquire the knowledge and skills to actualise their goals.

You need ideas. You must adopt a life long learning habit:

• Listen to podcasts

• Speak to mentors

• Complete courses

• Read books

This will develop your curiosity muscle. Ingest what you like until you develop the habit of learning.

Without good inputs, you can't have good outputs to emit into the world.

2. Skills - Writing.

Everybody should start with writing.

It is the foundation for content and business.

- Sales pitch? Writing

- Networking? Writing

- Creating a landing page? Writing

To get money you need to sell. Sales is persuasion. Persuasion is writing.

Here are some examples:

Joe Rogan - Specialises in Mixed martial arts. Previously being a fighter himself. He added skills, speaking in the form of stand up comedy and podcasting. An accumulation of being an elite athlete, a top public speaker and communicator.

A specialised generalist.

Jordan Peterson specialised in psychology and has coupled this ability with being an eloquent speaker and writer. He now does world tours speaking and has written books.

A specialised generalist.

Andrew Huberman specialises in neuroscience at Stanford University. Perfecting the craft of writing and understanding concepts to translate to an audience. He has worked at being a podcaster to be able to speak in depth about high level concepts which are understandable.

A specialised generalist.

No one is better being you than you are.

That's how you escape competition in the modern world.

Your unique interests coupled with developed writing skills.

If you are interested in becoming a creative athlete. Feel free to book in a performance call with me.

3. Build - Your Personal Project

Knowledge and skills without a project is just information intake.

This can cause overwhelm.

Application is how you learn. Do things.

Personal projects to start:

- Write blogs

- Make Videos

- Record Podcasts

Code and Content

The internet has changed the possibility of careers massively.

Online mediums have the potential to reach anyone. You can record a video and it can go viral and reach millions of people.

You can write a blog post and have it be reposted by big accounts to have millions of views on a piece of work that took you a couple of hours ago.

Do you remember a few years ago people would stand in the street, hustling you to take one of their mixtapes on C.D. to take home and listen to.

Very time intensive.

You'd have to stand there, for hours a day, with a bunch of C.D's stopping people randomly on the street and pitch to everyone individually to get them to take your Mixtape, and then you have to hope they would go back and actually listen to it.

Now, you can directly upload a song to YouTube with the right lighting, sound and visuals and it has the potential to get millions of views with a click of a button.

Thank you for reading - if you got to the end of this without a headache, I appreciate you.

Have a great week!

James