Welcome to Trained, a podcast exploring the cutting edge of Elistic Fitness.

I'm Ryan Flairity, the senior director of Performance at Nike.

On every episode, I call up the world's leading experts and athletes to talk about mindset,

movement, nutrition, recovery, and sleep. All the ways to train your body and mind.

Today, I'm connecting with a renowned sports journalist and author who's been looking at

helping a jack-of-all-trades in sport and life, maybe more likely to make you a master of just one.

Sometimes the thing that gives you an apparent head start can actually undermine your long-term

development. And I think that's a situation we've gotten into whether you look at it

sociologically or from neurological development and you want this broad exposure to different

gross motor skills and fine motor skills when you're young, for durability, for improving your

anticipatory skills, all these things. That's David Epstein, best-selling author of range and

the sports team. Talking about how intense focus and dedication might be our shortest, but not our

best path to mastery. It's a revelation that goes against a lot of received wisdom. For years,

coaches encouraged early intense specialization. Pick your sport before high school, throw yourself

into it, never give up. But the extensive research Epstein has compiled paints a different picture.

It shows that many of our greatest athletes have incredibly eclectic backgrounds. They try

dance, swimming, hockey, curling. They train different muscle groups and energy systems.

They follow their joy and talent to narrow the field. And when they finally settle on a sport,

they know how to improvise and adapt. And Epstein's model doesn't just apply to sports.

Today, he tells us how artists, scientists, and CEOs have benefited from exploration and even a

little chaos. And maybe most importantly, he says that we can all keep on learning well into adulthood.

By throwing ourselves into new situations, taking up new skills, and having new, wide-ranging conversations.

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