Range

How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

De: David Epstein

Narrado por: Will Damron

'A gold mine of surprising insights. Makes you smarter with every page' – James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits

The essential guide to improving your performance, and a powerful argument for how to succeed in any field: develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize.

Instant Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
A Financial Times Essential Read

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. If you only 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 and juggling interests – this is the power of developing range.

Studying the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors and scientists, Epstein demonstrates why, in most fields. generalists, not specialists are primed to excel.

In the years since its initial release, Range has challenged the status quo, reshaped career paths and changed lives. Listen it to view the world differently.

'I loved Range' – Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Outliers and The Tipping Point

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

©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.

Loved it!

Detailed explanations backed up by educational yet entertaining anecdotes and evidence. A must-read for anyone who has any intention on learning things

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.

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.

Awesome insight!

Absolutely loved it! This is an amazing book and most encouraging! The real life examples and stories provide a great insight to what I thought was 'taboo' in the current world.

Amazing book

A great Recommendation for all ...The ideas discussed should be applied in education and government.

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.