#084 - David Epstein - Specialisation Is For Insects
Modern Wisdom
Chris Williamson
4.7 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2019
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Epstein is a New York Times Best Selling Author and Investigative Journalist.
Specialising early and hard is a frequent piece of advice I hear given to people asking for advice on how to become great at things. Mastery and the 10,000 Hour Rule suggests to niche down as early as you can and then capitalise from there.
Today David provides us with an alternative point of view and explains how generalists can triumph in a specialised world. Life advice galore, I loved this episode and I'm really looking forward to sitting down with David again soon.
Extra Stuff:
Buy David's Book Range - https://amzn.to/2ZQ8oFO
Follow David on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DavidEpstein
Naval on Joe Rogan - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/1309-naval-ravikant/id360084272?i=1000440636786
Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Howdy friends, welcome back to the Modern Wisdom Podcast and welcome to another New York Times best-selling author. |
| 0:08.0 | I am very happy to welcome to the show David Epstein talking about his brand new book, |
| 0:13.6 | Range, why generalists triumph in a specialized world. |
| 0:18.0 | Needing down early and hard is a tactic which I've been told to do many times and you may have been as well. |
| 0:24.5 | The 20th century and the proliferation of scientific management methods from Henry Ford and the like, |
| 0:32.5 | push people towards believing that specialization was the key towards mastery and professional development and personal development as well as suppose. |
| 0:40.5 | Today David offers us an alternative point of view which very interestingly aligns with a lot that Naval Ravacant said on the recent Jururogan podcast. |
| 0:50.5 | If you haven't listened to that yet after you've completed me and David, I suggest that you go and listen to it. |
| 0:56.5 | We reference it a lot, it's in the show notes below and it is absolutely fantastic, probably my favourite podcast of 2019. |
| 1:03.5 | Obviously, except for the one that I did with Rory Sutherland. |
| 1:06.5 | But for now, please welcome Mr. David Epstein. |
| 1:10.5 | Oh yeah, PS, I wanted to say thank you very much to everyone who continues to support us by sharing the episodes. |
| 1:17.5 | This project literally is just me and a couple of mates and video guide Dean sat in his room editing shitloads of videos. |
| 1:25.5 | The fact that we are pissing all over big dick UK podcasters with play counts, guests and exposure is a testament to the fact that I send a lot of emails to people and I can slide into DMs pretty well, |
| 1:39.5 | but also a testament to the fact that you continue to share and support the podcast. |
| 1:43.5 | So thanks a lot. The sole goal that I have for this podcast is to continue reaching more and more people and getting cooler and cooler guests as the years progress. |
| 1:53.5 | So anything that you can do to help by sharing or recommending to a friend, given us a rate on iTunes, whatever it might be, is all that I need. |
| 2:02.5 | Makes me very happy. Thank you again. |
| 2:13.5 | I'm joined by David Epstein all the way from the opposite side of the Atlantic and we're talking about range today. How are you David? |
| 2:30.5 | I'm well, thanks for having me. |
| 2:32.5 | You're all over the place at the moment, right? You're a busy guy. |
| 2:36.5 | Yes, I quite ask him getting sick a little bit of my own voice. |
... |
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