Lately, I\u2019ve been thinking of my next 30-40 years\u2014those last few decades that will close out this lifetime before pursuing the next. The recent passing of a mentor and professor of mine had me thinking about a specific avenue, developing and leading online classes for a university that has a Transpersonal Psychology program. After all, I have a master\u2019s degree in it, I\u2019m particularly fond of the various topics that feed into Transpersonal Psychology, and I was specifically influenced by my mentor and teacher through this program. As I looked into it, though, I would either need to become an expert of one particular topic, being a leader in that field, or I would need to get a PhD to even be considered, which in and of itself requires a certain level of mastery of a particular topic in order to write and defend a dissertation. I\u2019m not sure I have that in me right now.<\/p>\n
You see, I\u2019m easily a \u201cJack of All Trades, Master of None\u201d kind of gal, and it occurs to me that I might not want<\/u> to be a master or an expert of one particular topic or task or skill.<\/p>\n
As an Office Manager for a small business, I do it all: customer service, sales, technical support, human resources, accounting, dispatcher, supplies and materials buyer, webmaster, etc. When I published a niche magazine years ago, I was the publisher, editor, proofreader, ad designer, page compositor, distributor, accountant, customer service, human resources, problem solver, mailroom person, webmaster, and so on.<\/p>\n
Am I a master of any one of these tasks? No. But I know enough to keep the office\/business running smoothly and successfully\u2014at least to my own standards\u2014and I know enough to realize and ask for help when I need it from those who have mastered their trade. Maybe I am a master at being a \u201cJack of All Trades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many years ago, I had the privilege of helping a woman start up a company. I was referred to her by a mutual friend, we met, and she hired me. I accompanied her to the lease signing for our first office space. While she continued to work full time at a pharmaceutical company, I put together the office\u2014literally and physically! Office furniture, equipment, logos, stationery, filing, phone system, procedures, accounting, and more. It was challenging and fun. I remember helping her fill out a five-year cash flow chart for a bank loan she was seeking. We really didn\u2019t know what a cash flow chart was, but we figured out the template provided by the bank. The interesting part was I asked her how much she wanted to have in the bank at the end of five years, and she tossed out a random number of $5 million. I might be remembering this wrong, but I wrote that number on the cash flow statement, and she got her loan. Five years later, she achieved that and more.<\/p>\n
Anyway, back to being Jack. As her company started to grow, I knew my \u201cJack of All Trades\u201d position needed to be parsed out to others who were more specialized: an accountant for the accounting work, a secretary for the secretarial work, and so on. She needed this to happen for the company to move to the next level, and she had me in mind for a particular role\u2014a specific, challenging, career-making position. What I<\/u> needed was to step out of the way so others could be hired to assume more specific positions. I knew, without consciously knowing, that a \u201cspecialized\u201d place was not for me. Not because I couldn\u2019t do it, but because I think being a Jack of All Trades suits me better. I like knowing enough but not needing to know it all.<\/p>\n
I recently learned that those who consider themselves a \u201cJack of All Trades\u201d are \u201cGeneralists\u201d\u2014a formal categorization in the business world for those who are not specialists, I presume. Who knew? Obviously not me, but apparently Generalists can be just as valuable\u2014if not more so\u2014in work environments. Those who are \u201cJacks\u201d might have a broader perspective from which to mine ideas or solutions. Specialists are equally needed, bringing their expertise to the table and having greater clarity on future directions for their given field. I\u2019m oversimplifying, but you get the gist.<\/p>\n
Obtaining a PhD is probably not in my future. Money is the biggest factor, with a tinge of fear not far behind. The programs that interest me are cost prohibitive, as we are soon to be on a fixed income because we are retiring early to travel full time in our Airstream for a few years. The fear, which I can eventually get past, is from the high expectations I would place on myself for success in the program of study. Would I have it in me to achieve them?<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, I\u2019m realizing that I\u2019m a master at being a Jack of All Trades. I\u2019m skilled enough to get things going. I know enough to keep things moving. And I\u2019m smart enough to know when to get out of the way so I don\u2019t get run over when the train reaches speed.<\/p>\n
I sometimes envy those who are a master in their given field\u2014their passion, their drive, their expertise, their success. But, honestly, they probably have someone like me in the background taking care of everything else. Ultimately, I\u2019m okay with that.<\/p>\n
So, now that I no longer run a magazine, will soon no longer be the Office Manager of a small business, and I have my Master\u2019s degree, what will be my next \u201cJack of All Trades\u201d gig? Will it be self-made, home grown? Will I be sought out, or will I do the seeking? Will I be wise enough to accept that which will bring me joy and a certain level of challenge? That chapter is yet to be written, but I am imagining walking into an interview, extending my hand to introduce myself, and saying \u201cJust all me Jack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe I have a storied past with this whole \u201cJack of All Trades\u201d theme, and why I have never been satisfied in finding a career, and why I can\u2019t figure out what my next big thing is. I mean, in college I changed my major five times officially: from French to International Business to Mathematics to Education, finally landing on Psychology. French was a continuation of the language I began learning in high school, and I enjoyed it. But \u201ceveryone\u201d majored in business, and it seemed to have better career potential. An accounting course, and not buying all the recommended books for it, quickly derailed that plan. But I was pretty good with math and, at the time, I had a good handle on calculus. A bad professor during an accelerated summer session of an advanced calculus class did me in. Luckily for me, I loved my job in a special section of the campus library that was mainly used by education majors. Maybe majoring in education was my thing? Apparently not. I didn\u2019t see myself as a school teacher. All the while, I filled my credit hours with courses in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. When I finally decided it was time to focus on graduating, I was just a couple of courses away from a Psychology degree. It was a very well-rounded liberal arts degree and has served me well these past years.<\/p>\n
Even my book collection tends toward the varied and eclectic. I discovered this as I was sorting through, loosely categorizing, and culling my collection. I have close to 400 books: Jesus and Mary Magdalene, favorite authors (Buscaglia, Shapiro, Braden, Ehrman), metaphysical greats (Chopra, Williamson, Ruiz, Villoldo, Dyer), Hinduism, Buddhism, quantum physics, spiritual exploration and awareness, religious texts (Torah, Kabbalah, Holy Bible), Edgar Cayce and other channels, ancient wisdom, consciousness evolution, and alternative healing, just to name the major themes of most of my collection. I get excited just looking at them and thinking about each topic, looking forward to diving deeper into each one of them. I wish I could take them all with me as we travel the country, but we have space for only one small container of 20-30 books.<\/p>\n
Being an expert of one thing is just not my style, it seems. I\u2019ve even chosen a life partner with similar tendencies. I might not be a master of one particular topic or career or hobby, but it appears that I have become a master at being a \u201cJack of All Trades.\u201d Let me get caught up in the minutia of the \u201ctrade\u201d du jour. I\u2019m good at it, and it gives me contentment. It makes me happy \u2026 generally \u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Karen W. Newton. Karen has a Masters of Transpersonal Psychology from Atlantic University, Virginia Beach, VA.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lately, I\u2019ve been thinking of my next 30-40 years\u2014those last few decades that will close out this lifetime before pursuing the next. The recent passing of a mentor and professor of mine had me thinking about a specific avenue, developing and leading online classes for a university that has a Transpersonal Psychology program. After all, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allarticles","category-exploringtranspersonal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/jackofhearts.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.rivetingjourney.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}