“If you skillfully follow the multidisciplinary path, you will never wish to come back.” ~ Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s partner in building Berkshire Hathaway. If you had invested in that company when they bought it, you would have had a 20,000x return since they turned it into the most successful investment vehicle in history. Warren Buffett is, by far, the more famous one of the pair. Still, it is Charlie Munger who fascinates me more, as he is a polymath who brings widely diverse lifelong learnings, allied to core mental models from multiple disciplines. This combination has and continues to add massive value to the decision-making of the pair. For a wonderful insight into the mind of Charlie Munger, read this transcript from his lecture: “Academic Economics: Strengths and Weaknesses, after Considering Interdisciplinary Needs” (ht Farnam Street for sharing this).
My mind now turns to my last catch-up with Peter Antonioni. Peter’s “day job” is as a Lecturer at University College London (UCL), but right away you can see how multidisciplinary his background and interests are from his UCL bio. Sit for any length of time with Peter, though, and the conversation can range from economics to the complexities of death metal guitar, to his beloved Spurs, to Italian politics, to any number of subjects and topic areas where he has great depth of learning and understanding. This polymathic nature makes Peter the “swiss army knife” of our mutually beloved Kilkemomics festival, as no matter what the topic if they need a panellist for it Peter will be a great panel member!
In my own life, I have always loved to range widely. I’m often thought of as someone who “knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff” and this is simply an outcome of voracious curiosity about a wide variety of topics over many years. I truly would never wish to come back from following a multi-disciplinary path.
Some, however, follow a highly focused path, particularly in their work. This can suit them and see them be highly successful. However, often at a certain point, they recognise that they, as Warren Buffett does with Charlie Munger, could benefit from having someone who is more of a polymath alongside them to bring fresh and diverse perspectives informed by strongly established mental models from a variety of fields,
Happily, this is my sweet spot and where I love most to work, to be sought out by thriving leaders seeking to take things to the next level and who would love to work with someone who can approach opportunities from a variety of angles and with a variety of mental maps and models to apply.
In closing, if the idea of being more multi-disciplinary in your curiosity and thinking appeals to you, then make a start. Pick a topic, any topic that you are really interested in, then follow it down the rabbit hole. The deeper you go, the better, and for sure you will find some ideas that you can later apply somewhere else.