About the master of none podcast

“Jack of all trades, master of none” is an expression commonly used to communicate the idea that if you try too many different things, you’ll never excel at anything. While that may be true to a certain extent, humankind began as generalists. Everyone in the tribe would have been able to forage for food, catch fish, hunt game, fashion tools and weapons, build shelter, and so on.

Over the course of thousands of years, we have transformed ourselves from a culture of generalists to a culture of specialists. Today, we often find that our skill sets are so specialized that they are totally useless without the skill sets of other specialists. It’s true that this is how civilization advances, but there’s still value in taking a look back at where we came from.

I’ve always been one of those people who was fascinated by everything; yes, everything. Let’s go explore a marsh in a canoe. Let’s renovate an old log cabin. Let’s go learn about fish at the public aquarium. Let’s make a knife sheath out of leather. Let’s carve something out of wood or make a pot out of clay. Let’s go climb that mountain or bush-whack our way over to that lake we found on a map. Let’s try this new recipe. No matter what it was, I was all-in.

When my wife and I decided to build our own house on our land near Laramie, Wyoming, it should have come as no surprise that I immediately thought “I can do most of that.” We did sub-contract a few things, but I ended up doing most of the construction by myself, one “project” at a time. After about two years, the house was ready to move into, and we’re continuing to work on many smaller projects.

My journey toward releasing the Master of None Podcast began when two different ideas came together in my mind. My previous job involved a lot of travel; frequently, at the end of a long flight, I’d have someone say to me something like “Wow, I wish we could keep talking. All of those things are so fascinating!” I would always think it was a little strange that people were actually so interested in the things I did in my day-to-day life, but they seemed genuinely interested. Then, while building the house, I listened to a lot of podcasts and started thinking “I could do this” although I wasn’t sure what my topic would be. Then it all came together and I realized that I didn’t need to do anything different. I just needed to keep doing all of the things that I enjoyed doing, but instead of sharing them with just a few people in one-on-one conversations, I could record podcast episodes about each project.

I may never become a true master of any trade, but I can live with that as long as I get to keep experiencing so many different aspects of this world we live in. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.