My 7 Takeaways from Range by David Epstein

9 min readOct 4, 2023

The Case for Generalists and the Power of Diverse Skills

We sometimes come across a random book that leaves a strong impression. A book you were not planning to buy or to read. A book that you find at the right time. A book that becomes an essential part of your worldview. This is what David Epstein’s Range became for me. An excellent exploration of the topic of mastery. This book has made me a better. Better at being a learner, a parent, and a manager. At helping others get better.

What is the best path? Is it best to concentrate all efforts on one area for years on end? Practice for 10,000 hours? Here is a different question — is the “10,000-Hour Rule” popularized by Malcolm Gladwell applicable in all fields, or are there situations where a different approach is more effective? Is it best to let knowledge and skill build up more organically by working on different areas and letting serendipity do its work? Should we specialize early in our careers or pursue a diverse set of experiences before honing in on one particular skill or field?

These are not trivial questions. The decisions we make about what to spend our precious time on have a significant impact on our lives and define who we are going to become. Should we concentrate our efforts on one field and ignore everything else? Think of a physically imposing person whose intellect, how do I put it kindly, is not a match. Or an intellectual who cannot do one push-up or run up a couple of staircases to save a life.

Could invest in multiple interests rather than just one? David Epstein’s Range encourages us to do just that — to embrace a more holistic approach to life, learning, and career development. To dabble. To pursue our curiosities. Epstein argues that a balance between specialization and a wide range of experiences can lead to better adaptability, creativity, and a flexible approach to problem-solving. While specialization is important in some fields, the value of generalists shows best in complex and uncertain environments.

Intrigued? I would strongly recommend reading this book. Here are my 7 takeaways from Range by David Epstein:

Sampling Period. Mozart, Polgar sisters, Tiger Woods — these stories, often pushed by the media, give the false impression that the path to progress is linear. But the reality is different. Epstein challenges the common notion that early specialization is the key to success. He gives multiple examples of how world-class athletes and performers have followed non-linear paths and explored different interests before finding their calling. Research shows that they undergo what is called a “sampling period” during which they try different activities, gain a range of proficiencies, learn about their abilities and proclivities, and only later focus on something specific. Early overspecialization can be counter-productive, even dangerous. What we need, what every industry, every company, and every organization needs is people with range. For success by overspecialization, you need to be sure that you will be able to sustain the motivation needed in the long run, that your abilities won’t become obsolete with time, and that the skills you are investing in will continue to be valuable in the future. Remember, for every Tiger Woods, a success story of someone who specialized and gained the mastery, there are many, many examples of people who did just that and have very little to show for it. The Tiger Woods story sells because it gives us an illusion of certainty. But in the real world, superstars sample first and specialize later. One of the greatest pianists in the twentieth century — Sviatoslav Richter started formal lessons at 22 years old. Yo-Yo Ma started with piano, then violin, and only then took up cello. Michael Jordan played baseball before starting his career in basketball. Roger Federer tried his hand at skiing, basketball, handball, wrestling, soccer, tennis, table tennis, and skateboarding before settling on tennis as a career.
Wicked and kind learning environments. This is a very interesting concept. Kind environments are those where pattern recognition works powerfully. Golf, chess, mastering a classical music instrument — these are all domains with fixed rules and defined boundaries, where feedback on your performance and learning can be rapid and accurate. So you can design a learning path and follow it without worrying too much about exploring new methods. In contrast, wicked environments are those where the rules are often unclear or incomplete, and where patterns may or may not exist, or may not be clear. Feedback is inaccurate and/or delayed. And these environments are all around us. Politics, the economy, and our everyday lives are wicked environments. Here learning by curriculum is not going to be productive. Adaptability and experimenting are necessary. The concept of wicked and kind learning environments can explain why training methods effective in kind environments do not translate well to wicked environments. It can also help us understand why sometimes specialization works and why sometimes it does not. People with range are better at adapting, thus better suited for wicked environments, whereas specialists fit best in kind environments. This is precisely why you don’t see political or economic experts succeed much in predicting what is going to happen. Their mastery is an illusion — at best, helpful to explain why things HAPPENED a certain way, but quite useless at predicting what is GOING TO HAPPEN.
Cross-Disciplinary Learning. So how can we adjust our learning to succeed in wicked environments? Epstein describes the research on the skillsets of premodern citizens. They dealt with a lot more concrete things in their daily lives. Today, we are mostly urban dwellers and for many of the activities we engage in, we need to be able to operate with abstract ideas, making connections across distant domains and ideas. We no longer live in a world where tomorrow is likely to be exactly as yesterday. The world changes too rapidly. This is the main reason why relying on specialized knowledge becomes problematic. Epstein points out the importance of learning from various fields, as interdisciplinary knowledge can lead to innovative solutions and unique insights that specialists may overlook due to their narrow focus. Generalists use a broader set of mental models and are good at recognizing patterns that specialists miss because they operate with a more diverse database of experiences.
Slow Learning: Epstein introduces the concept of “slow learning” where we accumulate lasting knowledge. Epstein explains that “desirable difficulties” where one has to figure things out, where learning is challenging, even frustrating — this is better in the long term. Excessive hint-giving does the opposite. It bolsters immediate performance but undermines progress in the long run. Even in kind environments, like chess for example, hint-based pattern recognition can help make good progress quickly at the beginning stages of one’s development as a player, but without deep analysis (which is hard work), one never reaches a pro level. Struggle is more important than repetition. Learning is most efficient in the long run when it is inefficient in the short run. Frustration does not mean you are not learning. If things are coming easy, however, you should be concerned — you may only be acquiring superficial knowledge. Do you want depth? Stronger foundations? You need to invest in slow learning. One example of such learning is “interleaving”, which is shown to improve inductive reasoning. Say you need to learn to identify the author of paintings you will be shown at a test. Rather than first studying the cards with works of Picasso for example, then Cezanne, Renoir, and others, it is much better to mix the cards and practice with a mixed deck. While this means tougher training, this will make you better at discerning each artist’s style. As Epstein puts it: “Interleaving improves the ability to match the right strategy to a problem.”
Embracing Failure and Developing Grit: Epstein highlights how generalists often encounter failures in different areas, but these setbacks contribute to resilience and adaptability. Failures can lead to success in unexpected domains. The process of becoming a generalist often involves persevering through challenges and setbacks, fostering a sense of grit and determination. So grit is not just persevering through one thing. It takes time to develop it, you can’t just bare-knuckle it. Learning information or skills is less important than learning about oneself. The central element of education becomes exploration. It should not be considered a luxury, Epstein argues, it is a necessity. He refers to the often-repeated phrase — winners never quit and quitters never win — calling it poor advice. The ability to quit in time is a rare and valuable skill. Yes, from the outside it can be seen as a failure, but it may be the smartest choice in some situations. The important thing, as Seth Godin says, is “staying attuned to whether switching is simply a failure of perseverance or astute recognition that better matches are available”. One related piece of advice I often give is, if you have done a particular job for a few years, you may choose to stay if you love what you do. But if you are struggling to move up, you need to switch to a different function or a different organization. Just adding extra years doing the same thing will not get you anywhere. Expanding your range, however, may do the trick.
Serendipity and Innovation: Generalists’ wide-ranging experiences can foster unexpected connections and insights, nurturing creativity and imaginative approaches to problem-solving. Enter serendipity. The broader the range of your experience, the more the likelihood of serendipity striking. Check out my article about this concept here. It might feel that we do random things, but life sometimes weirdly prepares us for what’s ahead throughout our diverse experiences. People who seem to be long-term visionaries are often simply short-term planners, but do it multiple times, over and over. In another one of my articles, I explore how you can integrate serendipity into your life, you can find it here.
Balancing Expertise and Breadth: Epstein does not completely reject specialization. In fact, he encourages individuals to combine expertise with a broader skill set, suggesting that a balance between specialization and diverse experiences leads to more well-rounded and adaptable success. Expertise alone can be misleading as seen in Philip Tetlock’s work, whose research shows, among other things, how bad experts are at forecasting. So explore, and read outside your field, search for concepts and ideas that can add unexpected benefits to your work in the area of your expertise. Maintain a growth mindset, in which you view abilities and skills as learnable. As opposed to the fixed mindset where people feel traits are inherently unchangeable over time. Another relevant concept Epstein describes is that of the T-shaped individual, who has deep expertise in one area (the vertical line of the T) but also possesses a broad range of skills and knowledge (the horizontal line of the T). Another, perhaps obvious way to acquire breadth is collaborating with individuals from diverse backgrounds, giving you access to a wide array of knowledge and perspectives. Building such networks can be highly beneficial in acquiring range.

Epstein advises us to approach our journey and projects “like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise.” I repeat — Epstein does not say specialization is always bad. To one degree or another, at some point or another, we all specialize. Again, when you operate in kind environments, hyperspecialized practice from day one may be beneficial. It just doesn’t translate into most other domains.

Also, it may seem like Epstein’s book is anti-grit, but that is not the case. In fact, he refers to Angela Duckworth’s book on grit, where she encourages early sampling before specialization, the same as Epstein. We should not confuse the healthy development of a work ethic in general, across different domains with the premature commitment to a singular passion.

This should dictate how we should also treat the advice from professionals. As Ian Yates, a British sports scientist puts it: “Parents want their kids doing what the Olympians are doing right now, not what the Olympians were doing when they were twelve or thirteen, which included a wider variety of activities before focusing narrowly on something.” This is why taking advice from successful people can be problematic. Experts may be giving advice from the position where they are now. What amateurs need, for example, is what got experts to the point of expertise, not how they practice their craft at the professional level.

As Heraclitus said, the only constant in life is change. So aim to develop range to be able to respond to the inevitable changes. By doing, trying new things, and new approaches, continuously learning, adapting, building new networks, and finding new role models we learn who we are.

Good luck!

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My 7 Takeaways from Range by David Epstein

Written by Rational Badger