I figured out pretty early I didn’t have the patience to develop deep expertise in a particular field, but that I could get up to competence reasonably easily. When I started to accumulate competence in enough areas, I became increasingly able to succeed in more situations. At 22, I was the most qualified person in a particular specialty in a large metro area, not from deep expertise, but because I brought together competence in 3 or 4 fields that added up well for that task.<p>It’s a lot like how 3 random words make a good password.