Range by David Epstein

Lets’s start with a quick observation task: the next time you visit a big hospital, take a close look at the name plates of the doctors offering their services at the hospital. In particular, pay close attention to the areas of medicine they specialize. It’s not surprising at all if you can’t really make sense of some of the specializations - don’t blame yourself. However, you can partly pass on the blame to ‘specialization’. We live in a hyper-specialized world today, whether it’s medicine, engineering, music or sport. We celebrate experts and expertise more than ever today and we often quote them as inspirational model to the younger generation. What makes them special?

One of the crucial factors to achieve expertise is the concept of head start - which is basically starting very early in one chosen area of skill. Perhaps sport and music provide the most commonly encountered examples for this head start. The stories of Tiger Woods and Serena Williams are the best examples of this phenomenon. Another famous rule contributing to expertise that has been doing rounds in the pop culture is the 10,000 hour rule - deliberate practice for atleast 10,000 hours in a given skill to gain mastery. But, does it have to be this way to be successful in life? ‘Range’ attempts to take a different route which at first seems quite contrary - ‘generalism’.

In this day and age of specialization, David Epstein takes an unconventional topic that’s the exact opposite of it. In ‘Range’, David Epstein takes us through the lives and worlds of wildly successful masters who were actually generalists - either in the early part of their life or through out - and presents a very refreshing perspective of success. You will come across achievers such as Roger Federer, Vincent Van Gogh, Kepler who have been generalists more than specialists of a particular area. Besides the people, David Epstein also takes us through history in Italy, crucial decision making scenes in NASA, amazingly innovative labs of 3M company, evolution of Nintendo as a gaming company and much more!

A fundamental concept that ‘Range’ lays is ‘kind world’ vs ‘wicked world’. Now, the terms have got nothing to do with the human behavioral aspects. Rather, they’re the conceptualization of the way world presents itself to us in our daily life. David Epstein makes a very clever distinction between these worlds and he very interestingly differentiates the skillsets that thrive in each of the worlds. True to the theme of the book, he brings home the point of understanding the current world that we are operating and provides essential advice to becoming sucessful in the long run.

Here’re some interesting words from the book:

  • The more a task shifts to an open world of big-picture strategy, the more humans have to add.
  • Everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines.
  • Creativity may be difficult to nurture, but it is easy to thwart.
  • Struggling to generate an answer on your own, even a wrong one, enhances subsequent learning.
  • Learning deeply means learning slowly.
  • Exploration is not just a whimsical luxury of education; it is a central benefit.
  • A mind kept wide open will take something from every new experience.
  • We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.
  • Be careful not to be too careful, or you will unconsciously limit your exploration.
  • Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you.
  • Don’t feel behind.