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Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Two very different books that I’m working my way through brought up an interesting concept that ties in to a lot of what we talk about here. I wanted to share it with you.

From the book Peak the new science of athletic performance that is revolutionizing sports, Dr. Marc Bubbs introduces the idea of the expert-generalist.

“In the wake of overspecialization, let’s consider the expert-generalist, a term coined by Orit Gadiesh, chairman of Bain & Company, to describe ‘someone who has the ability and curiosity to master and collect expertise in many different disciplines, industries, skills, capabilities, and topics”

Gadiesh highlights that the expert-generalist can draw on a pallete of diverse knowledge to recognize patterns and connect the dots across multiple areas. Rather than diving deeply into one subject, the expert-generalist casts a wide net across multiple disciplines, expanding the breadth of their knowledge rather than simply plumbing the depths.

The context for Dr Bubbs, is that it is difficult for the athlete to be a true expert in their individual sport or discipline, and also be an expert in nutrition, hydration, sleep/recovery, training/programing, etc…  But, an expert-generalist, can have a breadth of knowledge across those many disciplines to maximize athletic performance.

The second book is The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman. A geopolitical forecaster, Friedman’s latest book examines the history of the US through the lense of institutional and socioeconomic cycles.

Below is Friedman’s theory on the issues plaguing the current institutional cycle that will need correction as it reaches the end of its useful life.

“The second problem is that the expertise that won World War II and built the postwar world is now encountering its own problem of inefficiency—diffusion. Diffusion is the distribution of authority among several departments or agencies. At a lower level, it is the diffusion and fragmentation of knowledge among individual experts. Knowledge of what is happening is diffused rather than integrated. Diffusion ties in with the problem of expertise. Expertise is needed. But experts are experts in different things, and when entities are constructed with specific expertise, barriers are built between entities that are sometimes dealing with the same issue.”

“Instead of creating a single perspective on a problem, experts have perspectives on different parts of a problem, and the entity they represent has parallel responsibilities for fragments of an issue. This creates diffusion with the federal government and frequently contradictory directions for entities. What had begun in World War II as an effort that was highly focused on war and tightly controlled turned into a highly diffused undertaking frequently lacking a center from which it can be understood. This is not unique to the federal government. It happens in all, particularly large, organizations. Expertise has this inherent defect. But in the federal government, the problem is the size of the defect.”

Being an expert in just one area can lead to a myopic view. This leads to errors when the project or problem spans across multiple domains.

Triathlon immediately comes to mind.  It is impossible to be a true expert in any one of the three disciplines, without developing shortcomings in the others. Throw in, hydration, nutrition, recovery, strength work, and being an expert generalist is the only reasonable path forward.

Mixed martial arts is very much the same.  There is too much to learn, to many holes to plug, that it is impossible to be a true expert in all of them.  Even Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on its own, has so many different unique positions, that you are starting to see experts in very specific “games”, rather than well-rounded expert-generalists.

Hell, even just being a parent nowadays requires being an expert-generalist. There is no instruction manual. Trying to keep up on what is healthy, what will nurture and promote proper development, what will keep them safe, is a full time job.  Too narrowly focusing on any one aspect will inevitably lead to overlooked and mismanaged areas.

We rely on experts for advice, and that is important. But taking too narrow of a focus can lead to missing the forest for the trees.  It is sometimes better to know a little about a lot, rather than a lot about a little.

There are two built in benefits to embracing being an expert-generalist that jump out to me right away.

Before you can learn a little about a lot, you have to have a natural curiosity.  Being an expert-generalist inherently promotes continuous lifelong learning.

It will also lead you to a lot of situations where you don’t know the answer.  Getting comfortable with not knowing is a difficult but worthwhile pursuit.  It pushes you to learn.  To be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. To go out and find the answers. (Coming full circle to curiosity and lifelong learning)

If Friedman and Bubbs are right, embracing an expert-generalist mentality should help us be better athletes, better parents, and better people. I’m sure there is some serenity in there along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I came across an interesting anecdote while reading Guns Germs and Steel, that I wanted to share.

Author Jared Diamond lays out a very thoughtful and easy to follow theory for why humans have developed the way the have throughout history.  Why was it Europeans colonizing the Americas and not the other way around? Guns Germs and Steel, provides some very compelling arguments.

While discussing the evolution of technology, Diamond discusses how societal vested interests sometimes get in the way of what would otherwise be advantageous adaptations of new technology.

The example he gives is that of the modern QWERTY keyboard.  His anecdote is just a single paragraph, but I found it fascinating.  Researching further, I found a paper written in 1985 by Paul A. David, a professor of economics at Stanford titled, CLIO and the Economics of QWERTY.

“The story of QWERTY is a rather intriguing one for economists.  Despite the presence of the sort of externalities that standard static analysis tells us would interfere with the achievement of the socially optimal degree of system compatibility, competition in the absence of perfect futures markets drove the industry prematurely into the wrong system– where decentralized decision making subsequently has sufficed to keep it there.”

David goes on to share the history of the QWERTY keyboard in greater depth, along with the economic analysis that is so interesting. The story goes something like this.

A Milwaukee printer and tinkerer, Christopher Sholes, with some help from his friends, filed a patent for his “Type Writer” in october 1867. David lists him as  “the 52nd person to invent the type writer”, which I found particularly amusing.

Sholes’ model was a mechanical up-stroke device where by the type bar struck underneath the paper cartridge making it invisible to the user. This non-visibility was a major issue because, when keys were struck in rapid succession, there was a tendency to clash and jam, and repeat the same letters. This could only be seen when the typist raised the cartridge.

Sholes’ continued to modify his device to combat this problem.  His solution was changing his previously alphabetic keyboard into one that was deliberately less user friendly.  Making it harder to type would slow down users, and thus prevent the jamming that plagued the machine.

The most commonly used letters were placed apart from each other and shifted to the left side of the keyboard where they would be harder to strike in rapid succession for right handed users.

The type writer with the updated keyboard was sold to Remington where it went into production in March 1873, with the final change of adding “R” to the top row.  This allowed salesman to type out the product name “type writer” with all keys from the top row.

Around the same time (1870-1880’s) more advanced type writers (without the visibility and jamming issues) and better keyboards were designed and manufactured, and yet the QWERTY remains to this day the standard. The question David asks, is why did we stick with the inferior model?

David goes on to explain that a series of decisions and events coincided to make the inefficient QWERTY model entrenched.

Future typists were learning how to type on QWERTY keyboards. Increased manufacturing ability made it easier for other companies to change their design to match the typists rather than retrain them on a new keyboard. As more typists learned on QWERTY keyboards more jobs became available that required that skill and that equipment, further perpetuating the cycle.

David lists technical interrelatedness, economies of scale, and quasi irreversibility as the factors that led to the path dependent sequence of economic events that led us to an inferior typing system. Small historical factors can have disproportionate influence on potential outcomes.

This blog is being written on my phone on a QWERTY keyboard. Doing things a certain way because “that’s the way it’s always been done”, or “I can’t learn another way” is a common occurrence. After learning the history of the keyboard the natural question arises, how many other things are we doing suboptimal because of a path dependent history.

David again, “I believe there are many more QWERTY worlds lying out there in the past, on the very edges of the modern analyst’s tidy universe; worlds we do not yet fully perceive or understand, but whose influence, like that of dark stars, extends nonetheless to shape the orbits of our contemporary economic affairs”

When my father was learning how to homebrew beer, he shared with me a story from one of his mentors. The brewing equipment was built in a way that required the use of a step ladder to reach the top of the pot on the kitchen countertop. When my father asked why he built his equipment this way, there was no logical answer, it was just the way it was designed. My father’s equipment was later built in a way that did not require the step ladder.

He could have followed the blueprint and been trapped in path dependence, climbing the ladder every time he had to add an ingredient or stir the brew. Instead he approached the subject as a beginner and asked questions which went against the entrenched views. He broke out of the dark star’s orbit.

There is a frustrating beauty in questioning entrenched methodology. It is so easy to be blinded by momentum and habit, that we become habituated to the inefficiencies that repeatedly smack us in the face. This comes to a head as a father, when inquisitive young minds are asking why the world is the way it is. Answers, are not always forthcoming.

Ask questions. Break free from the dark star’s orbit. Change your path to be independent. You will probably find serenity along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to revisit a topic that is near and dear to my heart. A topic that remains nebulous. One that I hope to have sorted out at some point before my boys stop listening to me.

I came across this article on the instincts of masculinity on Psychology Today. These types of articles always pique my interest. Maybe that is because the concept is so hard to pin down. Hard to define. Words are important. I am a sucker for definition after all.

The articles begins with a story about a family hike along a glacier. The father figure (the author and psychiatrist) describes his experience with his young son and dog in the frigid temperature and high elevation. He has a natural protective instinct, that spurs him to action. It isn’t something he is told to do. He just does it.

His own instinctual behavior up on the glacier, triggers a curiosity about male instincts and archetypal male behaviors which he then turns to AI chat GPT-3 to inquire about.

I thought Dr. Dubransky did a great job of making his case. He argues for the existence of three universal male behaviors. These behaviors emerge in almost every culture around the world, when examining archeological evidence, literature, folklore, and myths.

“A myth is neither completely true nor completely false. A good myth is one that artfully represents human experience…”

“Mythology may factor into recent studies that appear to posit the existence of “masculine instincts.” Universal behaviors (instincts) give rise to myths, not the other way around.”

Dr. Dubransky lists the three universal male instincts as: Fighting and Winning (Ares instinct), Providing and Protecting (Zeus instinct), and Mastery and Control of one’s emotion (Hades instinct).

One of the reasons that I find this article, and this line of thinking, so compelling, is that it provides a positive definition of masculinity. I don’t mean positive in the sense of a “good” connotation, but rather the existence of qualities that are defined as masculine. As opposed to the merely the absence of qualities that are unmasculine.

By identifying and describing these behaviors in myths and folklore across numerous cultures, it lends credibility to the idea that these behaviors are in fact universal.

Importantly, the quantity or absence of these behaviors does not determine masculinity. Nor is there a scale of masculinity that is discussed. But having behaviors that show up throughout our shared history is evidence of common attributes shared by men.

As much as I hate the term toxic masculinity, by this framework it would be an overabundance of Ares instinct, with a lack of Hades instinct. I think this is a much more effective way of assessing and defining problems with masculinity in a way that avoids disparaging the the entire gender.

I can see these behaviors in Speedy and El Duderino. These aren’t things that I have taught them. They come naturally.

They want to compete and win. Whether it is a race to the mailbox or finishing their dinner first. On occasion they will even compete to see who can clean up more toys (my favorite one)

They care for each other and are fiercely protective of what they value. Even at a young age that instinct is there.

We are working on mastering control of emotion. That is one I particularly struggle with, and I’m sure they are genetically predisposed down the same hard road. Still even El Duderino (who struggles as I did at his age) will bring his calm down kit to his brother’s aid.

Being a man is tricky. Being a person is tricky. Trying to fit an entire gender into a box is tricky. An understanding of universal instincts and behaviors can go a long way in paving the path to serenity.

thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.