Psychologist Christopher Connolly founded an agency in 1979 to help top performers maximize their potential. Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World Read More Six reasons to broaden your horizons 1. why specialism is a barrier to innovation,.why most Nobel laureates have hobbies outside of science,.why it is not worth committing to a profession too early,.

If you want to read the volume without spoilers, you should stop here. I summarise below the main messages of the book Range. In his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein reverses the popular assumption that the world is made for specialists. After his Arctic adventure, he made a sharp switch to a journalist job at Sports Illustrated magazine, but also considered a possible career in sports.Įpstein's career path was seemingly full of unnecessary detours, but each stop was necessary to write with scientific rigor on a subject that also affected sport: specialization. The author of the book, David Epstein, before he started writing non-fiction books, studied in the Arctic how changes in plant life affect the realm of permafrost. But nowadays, when there are eight sub-disciplines of every field, it is legitimate to ask: Not everyone wants to be a top athlete, world-class musician, or scientist. Federer has also benefited from the basics of ball skills, coordination, and endurance, which he has acquired in many sports. When Roger Federer finally decided to play tennis at the age of 12, the time he spent playing football and other ball games did not seem like wasted time. He tried several sports and seemed destined to become a football player.

For a long time, Federer did not commit himself to tennis. Roger Federer has conquered a different sport than Tiger Woods, but the paths to the top of the game for the two greats could not be more different. In fact, in many cases, specialization is downright harmful. Yet in many cases, it's not worth specializing. He was just 16 when he made his adult debut at the highest level, at the Los Angeles Open. By the age of two, he was touring national TV.

Tiger Woods first picked up a golf club when he was six months old. The stories of elite athletes are testimony to the effectiveness of early specialization. From many directions, the suggestion comes: commit yourself, specialize, deepen your knowledge in a narrow field as soon as possible or you'll be at a disadvantage.

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