The traditional path to success has emphasized excelling in a single discipline or field rather than being a generalist. But writer David Epstein is challenging that wisdom, contending that it’s sometimes better to be a jack of all trades.

Author David Epstein: “I think most people have absorbed at least the gist of the Tiger Woods story. His father gave him a putter when he was six months old. He was physically precocious and dragged it around everywhere in his circular baby walker, started imitating a swing at 10 months. By 2 years old, he was on national TV showing off his swing in front of Bob Hope. By 3, his father started to media train him. Fast forward to 21, he’s the best golfer in the world. He’s very focused on golf — large amounts of deliberate practice where it’s like technical training.

Roger Federer, on the other hand, played a dozen different sports from skiing and skateboarding, rugby, badminton, basketball, soccer, all sorts of things. He delayed specializing. His mother was a tennis coach and refused to coach him because he wouldn’t return balls normally. When his coaches tried to kick him up a level, he declined because he just wanted to talk about pro wrestling with his friends.

When he first got good enough to warrant an interview from the local paper and they asked what would he buy with his first check if he ever became a pro, [they thought] he said a Mercedes. His mother was appalled and asked if she could hear the interview recording. She did, and Roger had actually said “mair CDs” in Swiss-German, which just means he wanted more CDs, not a Mercedes, so she was OK with that.

He kept playing badminton, basketball and soccer years after his peers were focusing only on tennis, and obviously he turned out OK. So, which one of these is the norm? If you look at the science instead of just individual stories, which is a norm?

It turns out it is the Roger pattern. All around the world, sports scientists track the development of athletes and found they have a so-called sampling period, where they gain these broad general skills to scaffold later learning. They learn about their interests. They learn about their abilities. They systematically delay specializing until later than their peers, who plateau at lower levels.”

In his new book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein, Sports Illustrated senior writer and New York Times bestselling author, argues that the path to specialist expertise is the exception, not the rule. Drawing from interviews and studies of successful individuals in a variety of fields, Epstein shows time and time again that our greatest strength is the ability to think broadly.

Do you want to be a Generalist or a Specialist? Not since the days of debating the Chicken and Egg have people struggled with what steps to take first in order to develop a successful career.

YouTube comments:

“People may be confused by how he means to specialize. To specialize doesn’t mean going into one thing and ignoring everything else. That actually would be pretty much impossible. Could you imagine if all typography was black and white because no one who knows typography knows good color theory? Your niche is like a tree. People are looking for that great big oak! But you need roots to support that tree. And if those roots are big and strong it can even be a selling point for the tree. Have you ever went “Wow this tree has some cool looking roots. All twisty and woven together.”

“This is really interesting. I am 100% sold on niching, I think it’s inevitable if you want to build a sustainable business. But I’ve never seen the external/internal comparison before. This should totally put to bed the concerns people have about niching down. Stay curious and try new things, but only sell the ONE thing. Use all your learnings on the stuff you do behind the scenes to make the ONE thing even better. Very inspiring!”

“I really wish I heard this advice about 25 years ago when I finished my first degree in engineering. I was too afraid to specialize further and I ended up generalizing more. Asa result, my degree ended up failing to produce meaningful results. I would have also had time to spend on other interests. So I’m middle age now, doesn’t mean I can’t apply this information now. I always thought keeping my options open was a good idea and to some degree it is but there’s a point where you have to put limits on it. I had no limits. There’s a Russian proverb, ‘Chase two rabbits and you’ll go hungry.'”