Curiosity over credentials
In the 1700s, the greatest minds in the world faced a problem they couldn’t solve: longitude. Navigating the seas without knowing east from west led to catastrophic losses of ships, lives, and trade. It was a problem so dire that governments offered enormous prizes for a solution.
Isaac Newton, Galileo, and other intellectual giants attempted to solve it—but they couldn’t. Then came John Harrison, a carpenter and clockmaker with no formal education.
Harrison wasn’t taught in prestigious institutions, but he was taught by life. A self-taught engineer, he didn’t just dream of solutions; he meticulously built them. His marine chronometer—a clock that could keep precise time at sea—was revolutionary. His untraditional approach solved one of the greatest challenges in maritime history and forever changed navigation.
Harrison’s story resonates with me deeply.
Growing up in a small farm town, the traditional path of education never quite fit. While my peers thrived in structured classrooms, I struggled. But where I struggled in convention, I thrived in curiosity.
As a kid, I was the one tearing apart radios, engines, or whatever I could find—desperate to understand how things worked. While I didn’t follow the well-paved path to a four-year degree, I forged a different one, fueled by an insatiable curiosity about the world.
I’ve studied quantum physics, architecture, human behavior, mechanical engineering, psychology, and more—not in lecture halls, but in libraries, through conversations, and hands-on experiments. Sometimes these studies arose out of necessity, driven by a problem I needed to solve. Other times, they were fueled by a question so thrilling that I couldn’t resist chasing the answer.
What I’ve learned is that education doesn’t always come with degrees. It comes with depth. It comes from the willingness to dive headfirst into the unknown and explore.
This broad knowledge often allows me to connect dots that specialists might miss. Specialists bring precision, and I need them to apply solutions. But my value lies in dreaming up combinations of ideas that haven’t been considered before. It’s the gift of range—the ability to see across disciplines and synthesize something new.
But this gift isn’t without its challenges. The burden of capability is real. When you’re capable of so many things, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. There are moments when I wish I had a single focus or even a traditional path that made sense on paper.
Still, I know this: The world doesn’t need more people who fit neatly into categories. It needs dreamers, thinkers, and builders willing to ask what if? It needs those willing to take a tool and aim it at something unexpected—just like Harrison did with his clocks.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s this: Curiosity is enough. A degree is helpful, but it’s not a requirement for brilliance. Capability doesn’t need a certificate—it needs courage. And the only permission you need to start solving big problems is the permission you give yourself.
What are you curious about? What problem has your name on it? Chase it.
