Range

How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

By: David Epstein

Narrated by: Will Damron

Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

'Fascinating . . . If you’re a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you' – Bill Gates

'A goldmine of surprising insights. Makes you smarter with every page' - James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits

The instant Sunday Times Top Ten and New York Times bestseller

Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

A Financial Times Essential Reads

A powerful argument for how to succeed in any field: develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize.

From the ‘10,000 hours rule’ to the power of Tiger parenting, we have been taught that success in any field requires early specialization and many hours of deliberate practice. And, worse, that if you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up with those who got a head start.

This is completely wrong.

In this landmark book, David Epstein shows you that the way to succeed is by sampling widely, gaining a breadth of experiences, taking detours, experimenting relentlessly, juggling many interests – in other words, by developing range.

Studying the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors and scientists, Epstein demonstrates why in most fields – especially those that are complex and unpredictable – generalists, not specialists are primed to excel. No matter what you do, where you are in life, whether you are a teacher, student, business analyst, parent, or job hunter, you will see the world differently after you've read Range. You'll understand better how we solve problems, how we learn and how we succeed. You'll see why failing a test is the best way to learn and why frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers.

As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, Range shows how people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive and why spreading your knowledge across multiple domains is the key to your success, and how to achieve it.

'I loved Range' – Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Outliers and Talking To Strangers

'Urgent and important. . . an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about improving performance.' – Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive

'So much crucial and revelatory information about performance, success, and education.' – Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet

©2019 David Epstein (P)2019 Penguin Random House LLC

Everyone should experience this book

I loved this. I'm relieved because of it. I would share this with everyone I know.

Counter intuitive genius

There are many stories in the overarching theme of the book. The takeaway should not be narrow and simple as the narrative it debunks. 'Start early and specialize or you will be behind' is not supported by evidence. That is one take away. But there is much more. Breath of experience is important even in very specialized fields of knowledge like nobel science candidates. The common narrative in education institutions is go make yourself a specialist, needed and important, acomplish something and then you will feel good about yourself is terribly wrong. The advice should be changed for something like: experiment and test different things, let yourself time to really experience a variety before specializing in one thing. Even then, keep your interests broad and wide between no related disciplines you like. That will keep you from burnout and enrich you in ways no obvious even to you. That broader experience will make your contributions more original and impactful! A must re read. Doesn't exhausts it's content in one pass. Definetely will recommend.

one of my most valuable and enjoyable

excellent. well done David. Thank you for the extra range that you have given my brain.

Fantastic...

just read it... it will expand narrow views on what it takes to be successful!

Life changing and life affirming

This books helped me at a period in life where I left my career comfort zone and decided to Explore a carrier in a new domain. Ive been successful as a Special but at peace with adding Range so late in life, so keep growing and be more diverse and hopefully innovate

Range - seeing myself

Really eye opening.

In parts of the book it really felt like David was describing me.

This book feels like a license to be yourself, leaving me feeling empowered.

I understand myself better, and I want to enlarge myself even more now!

Something you should read

There's a whole industry related to hyper specialisation and a big focus on it.
People like Tiger Woods who were groomed from a very young age to do nothing else but play Golf.

But this book advocates for the majority of people who, like myself, try many things before finding what they are good at.

The main points are that finding the right fit matters more than a head start.
That having skills in multiple areas can be very useful.
That understanding and using lots of different mental models and analogies is powerful for creativity.
The author pulls in work from the book Superforecasting which shows how generalists regularly outperform specialists at forecasting the future but often still need the advice from specialists.
Actually the best option is when generalists and specialists work together.
There's also pokymaths. People who specialise in a particular area but also have a lot of general knowledge in a lot of different fields.

This book resonated with me. I followed a route of lots of experimentation. Got my pilots licence before I could drive. Did everything from choir and dance to Tae Kwon do and army cadets. I did 3D animation and competed in the RoboCup challenge. Thought I'd go into Uni doing robotics but now I am a web developer who creates stock footage and helps run an activist movement around transitioning to a Post Scarcity Society.

Web development is my specialisation but I'm still trying to create startup companies and want to write a SciFi novel.

So yeah I resonate with this book.

Given what I've heard, being someone with range is the standard. So you likely resonate with it too.

Life changing

This is a book that everyone should read. Epstein’s advice, backed up with both data and anecdotes, are words which I wish I had understood when I was younger. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone

excellent read

innovation and discovery happens at the edges of specialization, where the people are able to establish the interface and see through horizontally. priceless.

Necessary for anyone with ambition or self doubt

I loved the variety of case studies and was surprised by the number of people I thought were specialists who I now know we're generalists.