I have never met Chris Guillebeau, so his ability to read my mind is uncanny. I was going to write about the trained and the scrappy anyway, and he provided a wonderful launch pad. His idea (though you should read his post for yourself) is that he has built himself a wonderful career about which he is passionate—with virtually no qualifications.

My original thought, was that I seem to encounter three kinds of people: the trained, the scrappy, and the golden few who encompass both traits.

The trained are people who went to school to do exactly what they’re doing. They have read the books, taken the classes, and followed the career path. These folks are often very good at what they do because they have the vast background of their training from which to draw. However, that same training can limit them: they look only to the world of their field for inspiration, answers, and guidance. Often, they also look only to their fellow trained types for expertise. 

The scrappy (who, incidentally make up a lot of qualitative researchers and insights managers—and Chris Guillebeau) are people who consider their job to be piecing together expertise from everything they know. That is, they don’t necessarily come in with knowledge from a classroom, but they believe in their imagination and work ethic, and they get excited about stepping outside the idea of training to make new stuff. The problem for the scrappy folks is that sometimes, they spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel, not knowing that in Chapter 14 of The Standard Textbook On The Topic, the thing they just spent hours, days, or weeks figuring out is already fully described, and they could have spent more time on the truly new. 

Those who are both trained and scrappy have the depth of knowledge and an eagerness to step outside of it and make new stuff. Their scrappiness is the urge to fly, and the training is the net that can prevent them from crashing too badly, too often, or too soon.

If you see yourself as trained, take a risk, argue with your professional forebears, and reexamine your assumptions. If you see yourself as scrappy, spend one day a month at the library learning about the work you’ve fallen into. If you truly are both, then I hope you are using that gift to the fullest.