The case for trying many things before you specialise

David Epstein is a science journalist who earlier wrote The Sports Gene. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, published in 2019, pushes back against the idea that everyone should pick a field early and practise it intensely.

He opens with two sports stars: one who trained in a single sport from early childhood, and one who played many sports before focusing on tennis. Both reached the top. Epstein uses the second path, common among elite athletes and creative people, to argue that early specialisation is not the only route.

The book then looks at learning, careers, science and innovation, with examples of people who changed fields and brought ideas across.

The key distinction is between kind and wicked learning environments, terms borrowed from the psychologist Robin Hogarth. In kind settings, such as chess or golf, the rules are stable and feedback is quick and accurate, so focused early practice works well. In wicked settings, where rules shift and feedback is slow or misleading, broad experience and the ability to borrow ideas from other areas matter more.

Epstein also argues that learning which feels slow and difficult, such as mixing different types of problems, often sticks better. The criticism is that the book picks its examples too, just from the other side of the debate, and many stories involve unusual high achievers. Its best use is as a counterweight: a reason not to panic if you, or your child, have not found a single path yet.

The idea behind this caseLesson: Will AI take my job? →

1. 1Try a short course or project this month in an area unrelated to your job.
2. 2When you are stuck at work, ask how a completely different field would approach the problem.
3. 3When practising a skill, mix different types of problems instead of doing one type many times in a row.