I just do what I enjoy, and it happens that I found something I enjoy so much (racing small sailing boats) that I was able to become an expert in it. The “adva

I just do what I enjoy, and it happens that I found something I enjoy so much (racing small sailing boats) that I was able to become an expert in it. The “advantage” over something like woodworking or playing the piano is that you can’t just do it all the time. You need the wind to be right, you need to get yourself to the sea, it takes time rig up your boat and get out on the water, ideally you need to arrange other good people to train with and it’s self limiting because it’s very physical. All these factors mean that although I’ve thrown myself headfirst into it and it’s something I plan my major life choices around, there’s still space to go wide and do other hobbies and activities. The other things I’ve reached expert level in are complementary to sailing. If it’s too windy to train then I go windsurfing (so no trip down to the sea is wasted), if it’s not windy enough then I’m cycling to keep my aerobic fitness up. I guess the takeaway from my experience is that if you find things that are complementary but cannot generally overlap then you have the chance to get good at all of them.