Despite this short video being only 2 minutes, Michael Lewis share a bunch of great nuggets of wisdom, and I wanted to talk about how that relates to polymathy.

"We live in a society in which the elites have maybe more power than they have ever had—a greater share of the wealth than they’ve had in a very long time. But it’s not clear they feel much in the way of obligation to society."

Towers are not built over night, they are built upon the people who make them, and the time it takes to construct them. Your polymathic life is that of many expertise, and those "expertise towers" don't come over night. It takes 8,000-12,000 hours to attain them.

Check out the related video to this post:

https://youtu.be/cI-LVct8kuw

Don't let Ego cause your downfall

While he comes from the business and finance point of view, there was something about this quote that stuck out to me.

"I find it outrageous that people who run big companies think it’s OK to pay themselves tens of millions of dollars. They should be thinking instead, I have an obligation to set an example for the company."

Real leaders encompass the philosophy that Michael conveys, but these CEO's are that of "me, me, me" instead. I think that Polymaths are supposed to be the true leader types. Even if you don't want to be a leader, you know the qualities of good leadership, and embody them in your life.

The Ego of Polymaths is something that sometimes comes up in conversation, and we have characters like Lex Luthor to thank for that stereotype.

Don't forget how you got to the level of Polymath

Most people don't learn anything on their own, and if you count books and the teachers of the past. Then literally NO ONE learns by themselves.

"There’s a natural tendency for people to tell the story of their lives, of their success, forgetting all the accident that was involved—all the help they got—all the gratitude they should feel."

We as a species learn from observation of others from the moment we are born, we learn from reading the texts of those that come before us, and we learn from the teachers in our lives.