The 2017 Harry’s Masculinity Study, commissioned by the shaving brand and carried out by University College London, found that “the strongest predictor of mental positivity is job satisfaction”. Interestingly, men in London considered family less important than the rest of the UK, which tallies with the stereotype of city types as more career-driven.

Either way, work is clearly still fundamental to most men. Which leads to the first argument for being a Renaissance Man (or expert-generalist polymath). In a tumultuous job market, being able to turn your hand at different things gives you more options. With robots coming for jobs like the Terminator stalking Sarah Connor, by acquiring new skills you can hopefully future-proof yourself against obsolescence. And the World Economic Forum forecasts that one of the crucial skills for those men still left in the workplace by 2020 will be emotional intelligence or ‘EQ’, as The Future Laboratory’s report highlights.

But being a Renaissance Man isn’t just a mechanism for surviving: it’s a way of thriving. Insight and innovation often stem from seeing across different fields. Turtlenecked Apple founder Steve Jobs drew on his knowledge of design and even calligraphy to create products that weren’t even first in their respective categories, but that resonated far beyond those put out by any mere tech company.

More pragmatically, as business cartoonist Scott Dilbert illustrates and frequently discusses in interviews, not many people can stand out by becoming world-class at any one thing. Elite status is by its nature an exclusive club. But by being good at, or having knowledge of, two things that don’t often go together – business and cartoons, say – you can be a top dog in an underserved niche.

According to a recent survey of 1,000 UK men, just over half still feel that they still need to conform to old-school masculine stereotypes

Time To Thrive

The evidence is more than anecdotal: academic studies show a link between ‘multiple-giftedness’, creativity and making it rain Nobel prizes. But professional and commercial imperatives aside, you owe it to yourself to become a Renaissance Man. By expanding your horizons, you’ll increase your memory and ward off cognitive decline. You’ll unseat prejudices and amp up empathy. (A broad mind is by definition not small.) You’ll be a hit at dinner parties. Irrespective and above of all of that, you’ll enjoy it.