I listened to the book Range: How Generalists can thrive in a world run by Specialists, by David Epstein, as an audiobook on Friday and a little bit earlier this morning. Review.
As a generalist, generally speaking, I want to make sure I'm not using this book just to validate my opinions about the world, because this has some very strong points. Whereas in the book Talent in Overrated, also a text I've read, we were told that specialization at an early age and constant repetition with regular feedback is what made an expert, this book claims that it is unfruitful to gain a specialization early on in one's career and it's more important to generally understand the lay of the land before one jumps deep into the pool. It's more important to understand yourself and what you want than to know the details of a field without caring for it, the author claims. And he adds it's never too late to get into a new field, we're preparing ourselves for a new experience, a new role, all our lives, and early experience and specialization is not only insufficient for the modern-day information collation jobs, it can actually be a hindrance by giving one more confidence in the process and patterns than might be warranted otherwise.
The book validated my vision and understanding of the future, and made the importance of integrationist knowledge across various fields more obvious. I have wanted to try my hand at innovation consulting by integrating knowledge and learnings from all the various fields, this book gives me confidence that is a cause worth looking into.
Nine out of ten stars, this will be a reference book for me basically.
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