A head start doesn’t always … well, help you get ahead.
With examples from sports, technology and economics, journalist David Epstein shares how specializing in a particular skill too early in life may undermine your long-term development — and explains the benefits of a “sampling period” where you try new things and focus on building a range of skills. Learn how this broader, counterintuitive mindset (and more forgiving timeline) could lead to a more fulfilling life, personally and professionally: even in our world of venture and business.
Some notable quotables from David:
1. On desirable difficulties as a way to get ahead:
“Desirable difficulties are things that people do not like to do because they don’t feel good, but turn out to be really, really good for them. And this, this kind of dovetails with the specialization issue, right?
Once people get really good at doing a certain thing, they do more of that only that thing. And this is akin to cognitively, akin to like if you were going to the gym and lifting the same weights the same number of times every day, you’re not gonna get worse, but you’re also not going to get better. And the way human development tends to work is people do a certain thing over and over and they get better just by doing it some experience, and then they cease to get better because they settle.”
2. ON DOMAIN EXPERTISE VS. GENERALIST INVESTING:
“I think having [deep] knowledge is good.
There’s no question about that. But there is clearly a point at which; and there’s this tremendous body of research on cognitive biases that show that when people become too narrow. That they start falling prey to all sorts of cognitive biases in decision making.”
3. ON THE POWER OF THE CIRCUITOUS JOURNEY BY WOMEN:
“There’s research that shows that women have a greater interest in doing interdisciplinary work earlier in their careers, but are more discouraged from doing it because they’re made to feel that they won’t be taken seriously if they’re interdisciplinary. It leads to the biggest impact work and we know that women are more likely to want to do it: so we need to stop dissuading them from it”
Tune in for more on The Power of Range!
ABOUT david epstein
David Epstein is the author of the #1 New York Times best seller Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and of the New York Times best seller The Sports Gene, both of which have been translated in more than 30 languages. (To his surprise, the latter was purchased not only by his sister but also by President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.)
He was previously the host of Slate‘s popular “How To!” podcast, and a science and investigative reporter at ProPublica. Prior to that, he was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where he co-authored the story that revealed Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had used steroids. His writing has been honored by an array of organizations, from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, to the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and has been included in the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. His story “Following the Trail of Broken Hearts,” on sudden cardiac death in athletes, was chosen as one of the top 100 stories of the last 100 years by Columbia Journalism alumni.
David has given talks about performance science and the uses (and misuses) of data on five continents; his TED Talks (here and here) have been viewed more than 12 million times. Three of his stories have been optioned for films: a Sports Illustrated story on the only living Olympian to have survived a concentration camp; an Atlantic/ProPublica piece detailing the DEA’s fraught pursuit of Chapo Guzman’s rivals; and a 2016 “This American Life” episode he wrote and narrated about a woman with two rare diseases who shares a mutant gene with an Olympic medalist.
David has master’s degrees in environmental science and journalism, and is reasonably sure he’s the only person to have co-authored a paper in the journal of Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research while a writer at Sports Illustrated. (Like many of the characters in Range, he has benefitted from a winding career.) He has worked as an ecology researcher in the Arctic, studied geology and astronomy while residing in the Sonoran Desert, and blithely signed up to work on the D-deck of a seismic research vessel shortly after it had been attacked by pirates.
David has enjoyed volunteering with the Pat Tillman Foundation and Classroom Champions, and he is currently on the board of directors of Jubilee JumpStart, an early childhood education center focused on families with the least access. An avid runner, he was a Columbia University record holder and twice NCAA All-East as an 800-meter runner.
DAVID’S BOOK RANGE | DAVID’S WEBSITE
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Disclaimer: This podcast is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of the host Sarah Chen-Spellings (SCS) as an investor personally, her firm Beyond The Billion (BTB) or any company discussed. These discussions are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or venture funds; and does not constitute any investment, legal, tax advice. SCS or BTB may hold currently, or in the future, direct or indirect interests in the featured companies or funds. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions are attempted.