This is your chance to reflect on what you will take away from Chapter 14: Are You a Serial Specialist? and to learn from or contribute to other book club members’ take-aways. You can also pose questions here about the chapter or what you are discovering about yourself.
The exercises we completed in Chapter 14: Are You a Serial Specialist? included
- Try the Serial Specialist Tools
- Picture a Serial Specialist Life Design and Umbrella Career
Do you think you are a Serial Specialist Type? If so, tell us in your comment. Please subscribe to future comments on this page or check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.
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Harry’s message: “You don’t spend your life making money you don’t need, and you don’t waste time doing things you already know how to do.” That’s the message right there. Crazy people are worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, and they keep doing it because it’s all they want to do. Or they feel one day the well will run dry. I’ve never had these thoughts. Ever since I was 16 bussing tables and washing dishes this was my mindset: work to live; not live to work.
I’ve definitely been a serial scanner in the past. I’ve done many jobs for 1-3 years and almost never look back. Just looking at my resume, I’ve already done nearly all of the examples Barb has listed: writer, teacher, historian, troubleshooter (current work- “good enough” job), journalist (my substack), researcher (history/psychology student), consultant. Now I’m moving into business owner and documentary film producer (learning FinalCutPro in 2025). So it’ll be interesting to see what my umbrella career looks like a year from now.
I was Serial in my career. My natural state may be less committed at this point. Unless my current passions of learning how to move my body and organize possessions fade and get replaced by something I have yet to imagine.
Same.
I’m not a serial specialist, although I could possibly look like one on paper, as I’ve tried out several different careers. The reason I don’t believe I’m a serial specialist is that I wasn’t moving on because I felt like I’d accomplished something and it was then time to move on, but more because I was trying to hit a target and feeling like I missed every time. I think I’m a Sybil who has been trying to be a non-scanner and trying to find that ‘one career’. As an outcome, I’ve learned about lots of different areas of life and that’s been very interesting and I’ve also developed a fairly good set of skills, but it has also been immensely frustrating. As I mentioned in another comment, I now have a job/career that satisfies my curiosity and uses some of my favourite skills, but I’m still not doing enough of the things that truly satisfy me.
Nevertheless, I’m glad I’ve learned about serial specialists, as I can now (hopefully) recognise one and understand where they’re coming from.