Skill Stacking: How to Combine Your Talents for Greater Success with David Epstein

The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

Celebrity, Art, Career, Creativity, Money, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Education, Careers, Writing, Interview, Investment, Influencer, Business, Photography

4.8 • 641 Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2023

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chase Jarvis and best-selling author David Epstein discuss human performance, creativity, and the pros and cons of specialization in a career.

David, a former sports journalist and the author of "The Sports Gene" and "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World," says that early specialization can be counterproductive and that having a wide variety of talents is necessary to succeed in a dynamic world that is continuously changing.

By "skill stacking", we can use the power of our own unique background and experiences to advance our careers. He underlines that we should view our profession as an 8-lane highway where we can pick up contacts and talents as we advance. In this way, we can take these skills and unleash them in other places.

Some highlights from the conversation:

Demystifying the '10,000 hours to mastery' myth
How some people excel and others don't, and why
Understanding the differences between generalization and specialization
What approach to take when pursuing a particular craft
Why there's more than one way to succeed
Bridging the generational divide between parents' expectations and our generation's reality

Enjoy!

Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the questions I got from someone was she said, you know, I'm from a culture where, like, parents really want you to specialize very early.
0:10.2	And I have this debate with my parents.
0:12.0	She's like, they just, like, want me to be a doctor.
0:14.4	I'm like, that's funny.
0:15.0	Like, doctors are awesome.
0:15.8	But, and I sort of said, I think, I think you can maintain the values, right?
0:19.3	What I think they're saying is they want you to be
0:21.0	smart. They want you to work hard. They want you to think about your future. They want you to develop as a
0:26.6	person, personally and professionally. And I think what you can tell them is that those values that they want to
0:32.5	impart, you are embracing. Like, you're at this session because you're looking for professional
0:36.9	growth. You've gotten to where you are because you're oriented that way. And the specifics of the career
0:42.7	advice doesn't fit the time anymore. But I think you can connect with your parents about the
0:46.8	underlying values of that, which is hard work, continual growth, you know, thinking about your
0:53.3	long-term prospects and all those sorts of things.
0:55.0	Just brilliant.
0:56.9	I'm telling you this episode is one of my favorites in a very long time, and that is stacked
1:01.5	up against a bunch of really good episodes lately.
1:04.9	Today's guest is David Epstein.
1:06.8	He is the author of the number one New York Times best-selling called Range Why Generalists' Triumph in a Specialized World.
1:15.7	The book came out a gosh, a year and a half ago or maybe even more.
1:20.2	I read it immediately on release and have been wanting David on the show ever since.
1:26.2	And we got him.
	...

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