“Jack of all trades, master of none” is a fairly well-known quote. It’s intended to caution people against trying to learn a lot of different skills and instead focus on becoming great at one thing. However, while I think it has some value, I also think it can be more limiting than it should be, at least the way it’s normally discussed.
For one thing, most people I’ve seen mention the quote omit its second half. The full quote is “Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one”. There are cases, of course, in which being exceptional at a particular skill is crucial: surgery, architecture, piloting, etc. Outside of situations requiring a high degree of specialization in one skill (or a set of skills in some cases), however, it’s beneficial to be good at a variety of things instead of being great at just one thing. It’s probably best to learn at a steady pace instead of trying to learn everything at one time, though.
Scott Adams talks about this in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He combines skills that work well together into what he calls a “talent stack”, which he believes helped him attain a great deal of success despite not being exceptionally talented at any one skill. After I read that book, I realized that I’d had a similar mentality for much of my life in certain areas (such as performing: combining humor, juggling, public speaking, and a few other related skills) and began to see value in adding more skills to my own talent stack. So far, I’ve benefited from being good at a variety of skills and I’m excited to see where it takes me in the future.