David Epstein Wants You To Have Range

David Epstein’s Range in 3 Sentences

1. The world is made up of wicked vs kind environments, controlled spaces like golf and chess are kind, and variable events like work and football are wicked.
2. Having more generalized experience makes you flexible and more adaptable to wicked environments.
3. We benefit ourselves in the future, even with increased AI, to be more adaptable in our skills, to keep learning, and have wider areas we pull inspiration and analogies to solve problems.

Impressions

I wasn’t a massive fan of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and this felt like the antidote to that book. Bill Gates recommended this book, and I knew I needed to check this out. This book helped me see you are never too old for anything, it’s really a situation of deliberate practice. With the proliferation of AI, being adaptable and gaining new skills quickly is going to be incredibly valuable to get ahead. This one felt like a validation of my ultralearning pursuits and self-taught/studying. I really love that in a wicked world, being less rigid is a life hack.

Who Should Read It?

If you are a career switcher, someone with multiple interests, interested in learning a new skill later in life, or someone who isn’t sure about the 10,000 hour idea.

Top Quote

Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you. Everyone progresses at a different rate, so don’t let anyone else make you feel behind. You probably don’t even know where exactly you’re going, so feeling behind doesn’t help. Instead, as Herminia Ibarra suggested for the proactive pursuit of match quality, start planning experiments. Your personal version of Friday night or Saturday morning experiments, perhaps.