For at McCay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

Now we often think to become a success in today's modern world you have to specialize

in specialized early.

My guest today makes the case that actually the most creative, innovative and successful

people don't specialize, they're generalists.

His name is David Epstein and he's the author of the book Range, Why Generalist Triumph

and a specialized world.

You begin on conversation discussing two different paths to success as embodied by Tiger

Woods and Roger Federer and why we're naturally drawn to the former specialized approach,

even though the latter's generalized approach is in fact the most common way to success.

David then explains why our increasingly complex and abstract world requires not only having

a depth but a breadth of knowledge and how our education system hinders us from gaining

such.

David and I discuss why you shouldn't expect to know exactly what you're going to do

for your career when you're young, why you should dabble in lots of different activities

when you first starting out in life, why you should keep doing that even when you're

older and why there's a correlation between having hobbies and winning the Nobel Prize.

We also dig into why intrinsic motivation is often mistaken for grit, why you shouldn't

be afraid to sometimes quit things and the importance of finding pursuits that fit you

if you want to achieve success.

We enter conversation with David's argument that our increasing specialization is not

only stifling individual flourishing but also getting the way of scientific advances that

...