Becoming a Generalist

Colin Wright
Colin Wright
Author, speaker, analytic journalist, podcast host. Substack: http://colin.substack.com

Refind helps you get a little bit smarter every day. The most relevant links for you, every morning in your inbox. Start with this hand-curated series of 10 time-tested articles from around the web, and we’ll take it from there.

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Becoming a Generalist
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polymaths
multipotentialites
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lifelong learners
knowledge
generalists
Intro
What’s inside?
Who is it for?

Though generalism is sometimes derided as being the pursuit of broad, superficial knowledge, it's often a means of cultivating multiple passions, building flexible competencies, and exposing oneself to endless realms of inquiry rather than relegating oneself to a single path. Generalism—as an approach to learning and to life—can help us think more malleably, imagine more bravely, and construct a more expansive and adaptable sense of ourselves, the world, and reality.


Colin Wright has published a few dozen books, regularly speaks to crowds of fifteen and communities of five-thousand on a variety of topics, hosts the Let's Know Things and Brain Lenses podcasts, and writes the One Sentence News and Aspiring Generalist newsletters.


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  • Fluid & Crystallized Intelligence and 9 other articles
  • Average reading time: 5 minutes
  • Topics covered: productivity, psychology, mindset, better living, business
  • Includes summaries
  • Read or listen to articles
  • From sites like Ness Labs, The New Republic, Catapult, and more
  • You want to learn something new and are looking for a good, compact introduction.
  • You want to sharpen your skills on something you got into recently.
  • You want to catch up on a topic that has been in the news lately.
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Level up!
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🧠✨
Glad to see you made it all the way through this Deep Dive. We hope you found it useful and can put some of the insights to good use in your own daily life.

How does it work?

Day 1
...
Day 10
Level up!

Deep Dives are carefully hand-curated series of time-tested articles and videos from around the web.

We’ll guide you through, one link per day, every morning in your inbox.

Deep Dives come in bites that are short enough to fit in your day...

...but add up to a satisfying learning experience.

I've always respected older folks who've managed to maintain their curiosity and interest and excitement and awe even late into life; recalibrating our expectations might play a role in such longevity.

Colin Wright

I love learning that there's a term for something I've noticed but haven't previously been able to concisely express to others.

Colin Wright

A useful piece on societal expectations and how they can lead us to adopt metrics of success that aren't our own.

Colin Wright

A self-aware piece by a record-setting Jeopardy winner about what it means to be "smart" and how to become so.

Colin Wright

I find the concept of seasonality—in one's life, one's behaviors, etc—to be useful, as it implies we can be different things at different times, and that's okay.

Colin Wright

The story of a child prodigy who went on to release a new album of music at age 97.

Colin Wright

Like work, hobbies, and relationships, our routines and rituals shape who we are; and despite our understandable desire for the "perfect" routine, there's likely no ideal approach to organizing our days.

Colin Wright

Work- and meaning-related wisdom from Bill Watterson (the cartoonist behind Calvin and Hobbes) illustrated in his style.

Colin Wright

I love data that helps illuminate how we create and innovate and collaborate, and this piece on "adjacent wisdom" checks all those boxes.

Colin Wright

Whether you're a lifelong multipotentialite, a budding omni-specialist, or just a really curious person who likes learning all sorts of things about all sorts of things, I hope you've found some value in these articles.


If you're keen to learn more, consider subscribing to my newsletter and/or Aspiring Generalist: two places I regularly write and curate content related to this jumble of topics.


Please also feel free to reach out and ask a question/say hello at colin@exilelifestyle.com: I'd love to hear from you :)

Colin Wright