Learning across multiple fields provides several unappreciated and significant advantages:<ul><li>Creating an atypical combination of two or more skills that you’re merely competent can lead to a world-class skill set.</li><li>Gives you an information advantage(and therefore an innovation advantage) because most people focus on just one field.</li><li>It future-proofs Your career.</li><li>It helps you stand out and compete in the global economy.</li></ul>

Jack of all trades. Master of none

Now, we can begin to understand how Musk has become a world-class modern polymath:<ul><li>He spent many years reading 60 times as much as an avid reader.</li><li>He read widely across different disciplines.</li><li>He constantly applied what he learned by deconstructing ideas into their fundamental principles and reconstructing them in new ways.</li></ul>

It’s not magic. It’s just the right learning process

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.&nbsp;

Modern polymaths:<ul><li>Follow the 5-hour rule and put at least 5 hours per week into learning.</li><li>Study widely in many different fields.</li><li>Understand deeper principles and mental models that connect those fields.</li><li>Apply those mental models to their core specialty.</li></ul>

Modern polymaths:

Starting from his early teenage years, Musk would read through two books per day in various disciplines according to his brother. If you read one book a month, Musk would read 60 times as many books as you.Musk is also good at a very specific type of learning that most others aren’t even aware of — learning transfer. This means taking what we learn in one context and applying it to another. It can be taking a kernel of what we learn in school or in a book and applying it to the “real world.” It can also be taking what we learn in one industry and applying it to another.

Musk’s “learning transfer” superpower

How is it even possible that Elon Musk could build four multibillion companies by his mid-40s — in four separate fields (software, energy, transportation, and aerospace)? To explain Musk’s success…

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