Suyin Aerts
March 22, 2019

I am a special generalist …

Sometimes you wonder am I a specialist or a generalist? When I was a dancer it was an easy answer, you did not had to ask me stuff about hockey, football, waterpolo or even tennis. All I knew was about dancing. But I did know everything about it. I guess at that time I was a specialist. no doubt about it. I started thinking about this after listening to a podcast on how to grow your business as a start-up recently. They were talking about hiring people: do you hire specialists in the beginning of your company or rather generalists? A generalist is a person competent in several different fields or activities. Is it better to acquire a broad range of skills and experience across a range of disciplines, or to become an expert in one field? It’s a question that many of us ask ourselves. Not only as students weighing up college options, but also throughout our careers. When you’re good at something, you tend to continue getting better at it. But what am I now?  Can I say that my unique advantage or my unique selling proposition as an entrepreneur and a freelance presenter is the fact that I am a generalist? I do know a lot about many things, and I am eager to fill my bag with a lot more knowledge. And I love sharing knowledge with others as I like to share emotions. Emotions are contagious, and you can impact the emotions of others by sharing how you feel is what some scientists say. But than the word "generalist", sounds a little as if you do not know much about anything...But what's in a word? I will from now on call myself a special generalist :-)
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