Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains. These essays explore common topics from different perspectives and disciplines to uncover unique insights and solutions.
Today’s topic builds on a new concept that resonated with me: the idea of a PolyPath as opposed to a Polymath. It’s the same thing from a different framing that I’ll exemplify as we explore the multiple paths my career has taken. It’s been both an asset and a liability, but understanding what it means can also help take the fear away from others who would like to try something new.
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The other day, I came across Apoorvaa Deshpande on Substack Notes, and she introduced me to a new view on our Polymathic Apsirations. She calls it Polypaths, and in, Yes, you can really be a master of many trades! she breaks down three types:
Meta Masters have one underground source — call it a philosophy, a way of seeing, a foundational obsession — and it erupts across domains the way a single spring feeds multiple rivers. Science and art, to them, are not two things. It’s different manifestations of the same spark.
Multi Masters hold genuinely separate excellences that run in parallel, distinct as two rivers that never merge but share the same mountain. Football and mathematics. Chemistry and symphonies. No explicit connection. But one person, containing all of it.
Merge Masters do something rarer still: they take two domains and deliberately collide them, producing something neither could generate alone. The merger is the method.
Naturally, I resonate with this framing as it lines up with my own experience. I’m nowhere near where I’d imagined I’d be right now at any point in my career. Currently, I’m the Chief Engineer for Space Force programs within my business unit and an Adjunct Professor teaching in a Master’s of Engineering Management program at the University of Arkansas. Neither of which I could have predicted five years ago.
So, how did I end up here? Let’s just say looking back is interesting…
Three years ago, I was on a sabbatical (fancy word for unemployed but busy) and was trying to kick off my strategic advising with Polymathic Disciplines and preparing to publish my first novel, Paradox. Which, by the way, is a great read about AI and what it means to be human, and the novelization of the concepts we explore here in Mixed Mental Arts. This was when I found the power of embracing multiple paths.
But four years ago, I was a Software Engineering Senior Manager at a Blockchain startup doing advanced analytics on cryptocurrency. It ended up being a company that didn’t want to grow up, and my efforts to mature products, processes, and people went nowhere. I saw the writing on the wall and took a sizeable early severance.
And just five years ago, I was a recently published author of a peer-reviewed paper on Systems Engineering of Autonomy while working across Lockheed Martin’s corporate technology portfolio. I was also cranking out new Trust Frameworks for Autonomous Systems and AI. The new leadership kept asking a fish (me) to climb a tree, and I struggled to understand the way I processed work compared to them.
And six years ago, I was doing analysis with Westinghouse on their small modular reactor while helping finish a manned-unmanned teaming project for Lockheed. It was here I learned the valuable lessons of how to Acknowledge and Ignore while avoiding the siren call of Confidently Answering the Wrong Questions. I was doing well, worked across multiple domains and disciplines, and loved what I did.
None of that was planned. When I joined Lockheed, I couldn’t spell AI and was expecting to help them with offensive and defensive cyber technologies.
Because at the end of 2018, I finished a fantastic year as a Systems Engineering Manager at Raytheon with a second hat as a Cyber Technologies Program Manager. I was at the top of my game before their merger with United Technologies, which collapsed my entire portfolio and, in mid-2019, redirected my career to Lockheed as Raytheon went through a painful transition.
But I’d been able to finish my Master's in Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins, a dream I never had because I didn’t imagine anyone with an undergrad in Business could even apply. I was the only one without an engineering degree, yet I graduated with Honors. It was right about here that I read “The Polymath” by Waqas Ahmed, and learned what I aspired to be.
And that grad school opportunity happened because a fantastic manager, Will Haas, a man who knew how to Provide Top Cover, saved me from a horrible boss and showed that my background in Six Sigma was actually very similar to Operations Research, which I now claim as one of my main professional disciplines alongside Program Management and Organizational Optimization. (Fun fact, they’re all the same core) That systems engineering position, plus a good interview and some powerful letters of recommendation, got me into Ratheon’s Johns Hopkins cohort.
I got noticed by that manager because I was really good at Lean Six Sigma at Raytheon, where I was sent to optimize every nook and cranny across the business, from Engineering to Finance, to Supply Chain, to Business Development, and beyond. I worked with very senior leaders (who would write those letters of recommendation) and was able to cultivate multiple mentorships where I learned a ton about business strategy and customer focus.
I got that job at Raytheon because I learned the ropes at Honeywell Aerospace, where I was an Engineering Program Manager helping transition new technologies into production. That’s because Honeywell hired me after I left active duty to help run a production floor, trained me in Lean Six Sigma, and the Engineering Department saw that skill set, my success, plus my leadership, and brought me upstairs. (From 2011 to 2019, I was job-coded as an engineer before I had my engineering degree)
That leadership foundation matured because, before Honeywell, I was an Army Field Artillery Officer focused on Fire Support activities, yet deployed to run a Police Transition Team in Iraq with the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, where I started to really learn counterintuitive insights. Sure, I was Airborne and Ranger qualified with a background in the heavy mechanized 2nd Infantry Division, which meant I was a light fighter in a heavy role, but… (cue the first major professional skills alignment discrepancy) I adapted, I rolled with the different paths, and always found myself somewhere better than I expected, though nowhere near where I expected.
How many paths is that so far? Because if we go further back, the pattern continues. I’ve waited tables, mowed lawns, worked at a lumber yard, as a handyman, cleaned hotel rooms, done photojournalism, washed dishes, worked at two ski hills, done lawn care, and at this point, I’m starting to lose track.
My career has been a catastrophe if I were to measure against the common advice of ‘find your niche and master it.’ Yet, because it’s been a catastrophe of that advice, it’s opened up opportunities and insights that few can even fathom. It took me a while to understand that it was those polypaths that make polymaths.
This isn’t to brag. I wouldn’t wish the chaos on many people! It’s also as much of a liability as it is an asset. I’ve been in dozens of interviews where I can watch their faces and see that they wanted a monopathic individual. Worse, they couldn’t even see how the polypath could help the very problems they’re hoping the new hire would solve because they can’t Embrace the Divergents. They ended up hiring monopaths who changed nothing.
The challenge is very real. On my sabbatical, I applied to 984 jobs. I had over 100 interviews, was ghosted by 75, declined by 24, and got two jobs: one teaching, and one in Space Force Engineering, a domain I had almost no experience in. Clearly, the polypath, while I can see the value, isn’t aligned well with corporate America. But those two jobs I did get are the two most rewarding of my career. Looking again at what Apoorvaa suggests, “That’s not a problem to fix. That’s a life worth living.”
However, for me, the misalignments, forced adaptability, and my own personal agility to transition allowed me to slip into adjacent spaces, find fusions and confluences, and quickly gain traction and make improvements while mastering what many would consider a totally separate domain or discipline.
The hardest part about this is that it’s really hard to advise others on how this happens or if it would even work for them. I certainly can’t recommend how to pass a classic interview with these polypaths, let alone get past the recruiters. (Well, I can, but it requires artful resume management and playing the game)
However, unlike my background, most people are stuck on one path and wouldn’t mind trying something new, so the best two things I can recommend are: First, be willing to Jump Into the Unknown, and, second, understand that PolyPaths don’t have to be quite as chaotic as my own to add value. Apoorva’s description of Multi, Meta, and Merge Masters helps structure a target set to work toward. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as understanding how your Art influences STEM or how the 7 Liberal Arts are the foundation for everything. The point is to start fusing across those domains and disciplines and see where it takes you.
I do still cringe when I think of how I’d respond to that classic interview question: “Where do you see yourself in three to five years?”
Hell if I know. But I’m sure it’ll be somewhere awesome.
Welcome to the life of a PolyPath! What’s your story?
Which Polypath do you think I am? Meta Master, Multi Master, or Merge Master? I’d love to know how you see my fusion of domains and disciplines.
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Further Reading from Authors I Appreciate
I highly recommend the following Substacks for their great content and complementary explorations of topics that Polymathic Being shares.
Goatfury Writes All-around great daily essays
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Cyborgs Writing Highly useful insights into using AI for writing
Educating AI Integrating AI into education
Mostly Harmless Ideas Computer Science for Everyone
PolyPaths The fusion of polymathy and adaptability
Michael, this is probably one of my favorite pieces. Much like you, I’ve had many different careers and often have a fun, curious time trying to explain my MBA in Operations, my MS in Behavioral Science, a few teaching experiences, and a full paralegal degree. That was just my 30s—the 20s and now my 40s are a whole other animal! Somehow everything merged, makes sense, and works, but I’m the only one among my family and friends who has taken on careers like world traveling. Lol. Great piece!
Wow Michael, I am so touched and impressed by your exposition. Impressed to learn your amazing journey and accomplishments over the years! and what a pleasant surprise to learn our overlap in terms of Cyber security and the blockchain space as well - wow!
And of course, I am so touched that you decided to write this piece, and use the PolyPath categorization as a lens to talk about your own journey. It’s indeed the way I envision it as well. A PolyPath is on their way to becoming a polymath.
I thoroughly agree with what you mentioned on the limitation of general corporate environment towards actually understanding the superpowers that PolyPaths bring. That is why also I feel most PolyPaths have great agency or entrepreneurship skills. In a way they have to create what they don't see.