I've always felt like a lot of engineers I studied with at university (in UK) left engineering afterwards because they felt they did not feel comfortable in any one area specifically - partly due to the broad nature of the degree we were studying.
I am always grateful I found startups to work in, where even specifically as an electronics engineer, you have to wear several hats, be them in programming, mechanical design, supply chain, and physical assembly.
Range is a book I've always bought extra of and gifted to other engineers in the startup space who have told me they're mindful they have not specialised in one area yet.
The foreword here is beautiful, thank you for sharing David!
Greg, this is such a cool note, thank you so much. I was actually recently interviewing a bunch of alums from a giant startup that failed decades ago, and even though that venture didn't succeed, it was really interesting to hear how they subsequently leveraged the lessons of having to wear so many hats and work with so many different kinds of people. ...And I truly appreciate your kind words about the book!
David thank you so much for the great reply (I'm honoured really), I totally agree with those alums - one of the first questions people ask me about working in startups, is if the main driver is being given shares as an early hire - I always say they're nice to have, but the career capital you build over time from wearing the many hats for me has been the biggest gift. And of course! Your book genuinely inspired me to start writing
Dang! I wish I knew this was coming out. Rather than re-read Range I’ve been listening on Audible. It’s still one of my favorite books and my most recommended. I suppose I can always pick up the new edition and gift my old one.
Patrick, that is so kind of you. The new foreword isn't so long — probably about half the length of a typical chapter, so rest assured you're getting the motherlode;) Although, as a big fan of book gifting, I certainly won't try to talk you out of it;) (I've been known to stock copies of books I like, and once ordered a custom print run of 40 so I had plenty of a particular book to give away.)
So you're the one;) Thanks so much Jon, that's an incredibly gratifying compliment, and I hope perhaps it will encourage one or two of those students to vigorous exploration.
Optimizing for the short term can also be generalist. 🤔
One morning in July, I spontaneously bought the trial month offer for our country’s travel pass, allowing me to ride all trains, buses, even some boats and other forms of public transportation.
Since Corona I had been very slow to go outward again. Suddenly I wanted to, and I suspected that doing what I wanted to & was capable of doing *right now* would lead me into new directions. Over the month, I became capable of traveling farther.
When the month ended, I realized I wasn’t done. I ended up getting the yearly pass, knowing that *now* is when I want to go to exploring; I don’t know about later.
Emily, as usual, you bring a unique insight. I hadn't even thought about it that way. But you're obviously right. An aspect of exploration is optimizing for literally right now this very moment, in terms of following your curiosity. Thanks for this thoughtful take. And I love the idea that you "became capable of traveling farther." I'd be curious to hear what you started with, in terms of your first shorter steps, and how far you've gotten.
Short: I’m in Switzerland, so the earlier trips were just outside my canton, less than an hour away. The longer ones 4-5 hours away.
But thinking over your question the past few days, there were other things, like venturing into regions with other languages, or even slightly outside the country. Also a few other levels.
Sometimes for discoveries that have made a huge difference in my life, I trace the steps backwards in my good notebook to see what led me there. And I don’t know yet very well what things will someday be traced back to these travels.
Hey Andrew, thanks for this question! I think there's good evidence that a broad education will often mean that the individual getting it takes a little longer to get going in the work world, but has better results over the long term. Ultimately, I tend to think it depends specifically what the student is getting. In the final paper he wrote, Herbert Simon (trained in poli sci, Nobel laureate in econ, one of the pioneers of both cognitive psychology and AI), argued for a kind of liberal education that created a "new Renaissance person" for a world of fast moving technology. It's in the "What is to be done?" section of this paper below. The publication requires a login, but it's free to read five articles per month: https://kenyonreview.org/piece/april-2001-creativity-in-the-arts-and-the-sciences/
I have a liberal arts degree (BA in History) from a small NE college and have had a career in teaching, tech, and land planning. And within tech, I worked on sports, medical, travel, networking, etc. I was never the expert coming in, but always rose pretty quickly by being able to learn quickly and synthesize info. Even some of our best coders or engineers came to that sideways after degrees in something else and maybe even work experience unrelated to tech. I am definitely a fan of hiring the smartest generalist you can.
I love it, and I hope you share your path widely. I think we need visible role models all over the place, showing that zig-zagging is now a normal path, not an oddity that dooms your prospects. ...And I hope you've found it interesting!
Haha, Adam, that's a great way to put it. And I really appreciate the kind words from someone who is actually doing the work where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
I have always known that I’m multi-passionate/talented with no one clear strength but since reading your book a few years ago, I have felt confident and unapologetic about it. And with every zig and zag, I get closer to figuring out how to use this to its full potential
Side note: you picked the perfect color for the book cover. You know, it’s not easy as a non-fiction book lover who likes to sort her books by color and loves the color green. The green section of my book shelf is basically just your book. Maybe I should just put 10 copies of Range next to each other for the green vibes
I suspect that this data showing that generalists are in demand is geographically "lumpy". I have seen no evidence in in my country that organisations want anything other than specialists.
I'd be shocked if it weren't, frankly. I also think it's just easier for HR folks to target specialists. Some of the work comparing broad and narrow education/training across countries has found that the long-term advantage of breadth is greater in countries with faster growing economies. Not to say that's a final word by any means, but just to note that, as you suggest, geographic variation is important.
Once again Range delivers, very encouraging read this morning. I’m on my third career (after 15 years in coaching), and the challenge of choosing to explore is often daunting, but can be hugely rewarding. It has been for me, both in my past career and now as I explore a different path. Looking forward to hot streak though, that’s exciting.
Congrats Brendon! And I think your "often daunting" is either diplomatic, or you're just stoic, as I've found it daunting every time! But also invigorating. ...To use an old analogy, whether I'm switching careers, jobs, or merely big projects, it always makes me feel like an old school dj who is doing a crossfade and in the moment caught between the two turntables...not quite sure where I am yet. I'm head for this in a few months when I finish a book draft, so you're a little ahead of me. Would love to hear what kind of coaching you were doing, and best wishes for generative and only moderately daunting exploration.
Thanks David, probably more diplomatic of me, necessity can be a strong driver. This post struck a cord and while I was reflecting on it I was reminded of Steve Magness’s book ‘Do hard things’, doing something that’s challenging does really drive the learning process and I had been remiss of coasting a little. So I’ve jumped off the deep end again and bought some specialist books on software architecture to level up my knowledge gap and get the thinking processes going again.
I coached sprint kayaking for the British team from junior to Olympic level and found yours, Steve’s and Malcolm Gladwell’s books all very insightful in helping me to think through developing athletes given how varied they are.
Wowww, those printing press pictures are amazing. I had never thought about why the papers are grouped in certain stacks of pages before being glued, but the number of printing plates available makes total sense.
Right?! I found it meditative to watch. It wasn't until my last book that I realized everything (including endnotes, index, front matter, etc) would have to fit on a multiple of a 16 pieces of paper because of the printing press, and given how long the publisher wanted to the book to be, it pretty much meant that the book would have 176 pages (352 counting each side). I got up to all sorts of shenanigans to make it fit, like deleting the subtitles of journals in my endnotes if it would save a line. I think we also sacrificed a page in the front matter so where most books have one blank side of a page, mine has something on it, the title or library of congress registration info or something.
That is wild that you had to do so much finagling. Was it not an option to go to the next 16 up, say, 192? Doesn't seem like that would be that much longer…and might have saved a footnote or two!
Haha...in the end I think it actually helped me, because I turned in both my books (both the same exact number of pages) too long, and it made sense to cut a bunch of things I found super interesting, but that were probably too far down some rabbit hole for readers coming to the topic fresh. It was hard (they don't call it "drowning your kittens" for no reason), but I think good for me. I think we also shrunk the font just a bit on the endnotes, but I was able to get them all in there ultimately. (I figured, with the internet, nobody would ever need the subtitle of a journal to find the source as long as they had the article title and volume info.) I never asked about going up another 16, but I'm going to ask my editor if that would've been an option and get back to you;)
I can sympathize! I remember when I was writing my Masters thesis and struggled to get the whole thing under 10,000 words. I had to challenge myself on every line to ask, "does the reader REALLY need to know this?" Looking up synonyms and even playing with margins was not out of the question! It was painful but healthy experience, because it taught me to better discern what is essential to an argument vs. optional embellishment.
I’m thinking of re-entering the job market next spring— not that I haven’t been working, I just haven’t had a traditional job in a few years, and my experience and work history is a bit seemingly all over the place! But this is a good reminder that I can spin all that in a positive way and a good argument to make in job interviews— and an actual compelling source to reference! So thanks for the reminder.
Good luck to you Bridgitte! And, not to give directions by any means, but just to share my experience when I was on a selection committee for a few years that was going through lots of resumes: people who had breaks, or left turns, often started out a disadvantage in the committee's eyes. If, however, they explained their path as a narrative journey, highlighting what they learned at each stop, and why they pivoted or took time away or whatever, and what they learned that had them going in this new direction, it often turned what could have been a liability into an asset. The zig-zaggers ended up on both the high and low end of the score distribution, it just depended how they presented it, really. I worry that too much of this sort of thing will be automated, and then it will just be catering to the algorithm, but that was my experience on a human selection committee.
Hi Andrea, and thanks for your interest. You can certainly purchase Range wherever books are sold, but I'm not sure that the version with the new foreword would ship to the US. You can check at the links here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/david-epstein/range/9781035053049
Thanks. I want the green fluorescent one with the spot UV. I know what that is! I'm guessing the keys are shiny and the rest of the cover is matte. I'm a fan, artist, former graphic designer (hence, the knowledge of spot UV), and a small-time book collector. I will check out the link you provided. Keep up the good work!
That's so cool! I haven't yet seen one in person, but I think they're in the mail on the way to me. And I'm like you, not in the sense that I was a graphic artist, but I consider books my interior design. I have a small collection of different covers of Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle, for example. Some of them are very simple, others surrealist, and a few downright garish. (And one comes with 3D glasses.) My favorite is a copy of Ulysses with the original blue wrap from Shakespeare and Co. It isn't a first printing (not even close...), but does have the original cover that Joyce wanted to be reminiscent of the Greek flag, but that didn't quite turn out that color. Anyway, I love book covers. Have you ever seen Peter Mendelsund's book "Cover"?
I ordered one from Blackwell's. Very reasonable... even shipping to the US. I'm looking up all of the books you mentioned. I know Mendelsund's book but don't own it. I see one for under $7 on eBay. I cleaned out my book collection two years ago and my shelves are full again. I really want a first edition copy of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen - ordered and paid for one, then Mr. Sendak died, and the seller cancelled my order (and of course, the price went up big time).
I've always felt like a lot of engineers I studied with at university (in UK) left engineering afterwards because they felt they did not feel comfortable in any one area specifically - partly due to the broad nature of the degree we were studying.
I am always grateful I found startups to work in, where even specifically as an electronics engineer, you have to wear several hats, be them in programming, mechanical design, supply chain, and physical assembly.
Range is a book I've always bought extra of and gifted to other engineers in the startup space who have told me they're mindful they have not specialised in one area yet.
The foreword here is beautiful, thank you for sharing David!
Greg, this is such a cool note, thank you so much. I was actually recently interviewing a bunch of alums from a giant startup that failed decades ago, and even though that venture didn't succeed, it was really interesting to hear how they subsequently leveraged the lessons of having to wear so many hats and work with so many different kinds of people. ...And I truly appreciate your kind words about the book!
David thank you so much for the great reply (I'm honoured really), I totally agree with those alums - one of the first questions people ask me about working in startups, is if the main driver is being given shares as an early hire - I always say they're nice to have, but the career capital you build over time from wearing the many hats for me has been the biggest gift. And of course! Your book genuinely inspired me to start writing
"Your book genuinely inspired me to start writing" ...can't top this compliment!
Haha I truthfully mean every word of that and am definitely not the first or last to be!
Dang! I wish I knew this was coming out. Rather than re-read Range I’ve been listening on Audible. It’s still one of my favorite books and my most recommended. I suppose I can always pick up the new edition and gift my old one.
Love your work David.
Patrick, that is so kind of you. The new foreword isn't so long — probably about half the length of a typical chapter, so rest assured you're getting the motherlode;) Although, as a big fan of book gifting, I certainly won't try to talk you out of it;) (I've been known to stock copies of books I like, and once ordered a custom print run of 40 so I had plenty of a particular book to give away.)
I’ve bought a lot of copies of this for graduating students over the years…
So you're the one;) Thanks so much Jon, that's an incredibly gratifying compliment, and I hope perhaps it will encourage one or two of those students to vigorous exploration.
I suspect I’m not alone. 😉 But it’s good to remind them the benefits of breadth and exposure and heterogeneity of opinion.
We are clearly like minds!
Optimizing for the short term can also be generalist. 🤔
One morning in July, I spontaneously bought the trial month offer for our country’s travel pass, allowing me to ride all trains, buses, even some boats and other forms of public transportation.
Since Corona I had been very slow to go outward again. Suddenly I wanted to, and I suspected that doing what I wanted to & was capable of doing *right now* would lead me into new directions. Over the month, I became capable of traveling farther.
When the month ended, I realized I wasn’t done. I ended up getting the yearly pass, knowing that *now* is when I want to go to exploring; I don’t know about later.
Emily, as usual, you bring a unique insight. I hadn't even thought about it that way. But you're obviously right. An aspect of exploration is optimizing for literally right now this very moment, in terms of following your curiosity. Thanks for this thoughtful take. And I love the idea that you "became capable of traveling farther." I'd be curious to hear what you started with, in terms of your first shorter steps, and how far you've gotten.
David, the long answer or the short answer?
Short: I’m in Switzerland, so the earlier trips were just outside my canton, less than an hour away. The longer ones 4-5 hours away.
But thinking over your question the past few days, there were other things, like venturing into regions with other languages, or even slightly outside the country. Also a few other levels.
Sometimes for discoveries that have made a huge difference in my life, I trace the steps backwards in my good notebook to see what led me there. And I don’t know yet very well what things will someday be traced back to these travels.
Is this an argument for re-prioritizing a liberal arts degree? Seems like that's the best way to generate generalists, no?
Hey Andrew, thanks for this question! I think there's good evidence that a broad education will often mean that the individual getting it takes a little longer to get going in the work world, but has better results over the long term. Ultimately, I tend to think it depends specifically what the student is getting. In the final paper he wrote, Herbert Simon (trained in poli sci, Nobel laureate in econ, one of the pioneers of both cognitive psychology and AI), argued for a kind of liberal education that created a "new Renaissance person" for a world of fast moving technology. It's in the "What is to be done?" section of this paper below. The publication requires a login, but it's free to read five articles per month: https://kenyonreview.org/piece/april-2001-creativity-in-the-arts-and-the-sciences/
I have a liberal arts degree (BA in History) from a small NE college and have had a career in teaching, tech, and land planning. And within tech, I worked on sports, medical, travel, networking, etc. I was never the expert coming in, but always rose pretty quickly by being able to learn quickly and synthesize info. Even some of our best coders or engineers came to that sideways after degrees in something else and maybe even work experience unrelated to tech. I am definitely a fan of hiring the smartest generalist you can.
I love it, and I hope you share your path widely. I think we need visible role models all over the place, showing that zig-zagging is now a normal path, not an oddity that dooms your prospects. ...And I hope you've found it interesting!
Whenever I tell folks about "Range," I say the book comes just *short* of endorsing the liberal arts degree.
As a K12 teacher, I believe it should be required reading here. Academic standards have absolutely boxed thinking into dead ends.
Haha, Adam, that's a great way to put it. And I really appreciate the kind words from someone who is actually doing the work where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
I may have read Range at least half a dozen times or more. 😅
Woaa! You may know it better than I do at this point;) ...Seriously though, the more I've read in general, the bigger fan I've become of re-reading.
I have always known that I’m multi-passionate/talented with no one clear strength but since reading your book a few years ago, I have felt confident and unapologetic about it. And with every zig and zag, I get closer to figuring out how to use this to its full potential
Side note: you picked the perfect color for the book cover. You know, it’s not easy as a non-fiction book lover who likes to sort her books by color and loves the color green. The green section of my book shelf is basically just your book. Maybe I should just put 10 copies of Range next to each other for the green vibes
I suspect that this data showing that generalists are in demand is geographically "lumpy". I have seen no evidence in in my country that organisations want anything other than specialists.
I'd be shocked if it weren't, frankly. I also think it's just easier for HR folks to target specialists. Some of the work comparing broad and narrow education/training across countries has found that the long-term advantage of breadth is greater in countries with faster growing economies. Not to say that's a final word by any means, but just to note that, as you suggest, geographic variation is important.
Love it. I see me buying the book in the next days.
Appreciate it, Christian! ...A fellow "beginner's mind" devotee;)
Once again Range delivers, very encouraging read this morning. I’m on my third career (after 15 years in coaching), and the challenge of choosing to explore is often daunting, but can be hugely rewarding. It has been for me, both in my past career and now as I explore a different path. Looking forward to hot streak though, that’s exciting.
Congrats Brendon! And I think your "often daunting" is either diplomatic, or you're just stoic, as I've found it daunting every time! But also invigorating. ...To use an old analogy, whether I'm switching careers, jobs, or merely big projects, it always makes me feel like an old school dj who is doing a crossfade and in the moment caught between the two turntables...not quite sure where I am yet. I'm head for this in a few months when I finish a book draft, so you're a little ahead of me. Would love to hear what kind of coaching you were doing, and best wishes for generative and only moderately daunting exploration.
Thanks David, probably more diplomatic of me, necessity can be a strong driver. This post struck a cord and while I was reflecting on it I was reminded of Steve Magness’s book ‘Do hard things’, doing something that’s challenging does really drive the learning process and I had been remiss of coasting a little. So I’ve jumped off the deep end again and bought some specialist books on software architecture to level up my knowledge gap and get the thinking processes going again.
I coached sprint kayaking for the British team from junior to Olympic level and found yours, Steve’s and Malcolm Gladwell’s books all very insightful in helping me to think through developing athletes given how varied they are.
Wowww, those printing press pictures are amazing. I had never thought about why the papers are grouped in certain stacks of pages before being glued, but the number of printing plates available makes total sense.
Right?! I found it meditative to watch. It wasn't until my last book that I realized everything (including endnotes, index, front matter, etc) would have to fit on a multiple of a 16 pieces of paper because of the printing press, and given how long the publisher wanted to the book to be, it pretty much meant that the book would have 176 pages (352 counting each side). I got up to all sorts of shenanigans to make it fit, like deleting the subtitles of journals in my endnotes if it would save a line. I think we also sacrificed a page in the front matter so where most books have one blank side of a page, mine has something on it, the title or library of congress registration info or something.
That is wild that you had to do so much finagling. Was it not an option to go to the next 16 up, say, 192? Doesn't seem like that would be that much longer…and might have saved a footnote or two!
Haha...in the end I think it actually helped me, because I turned in both my books (both the same exact number of pages) too long, and it made sense to cut a bunch of things I found super interesting, but that were probably too far down some rabbit hole for readers coming to the topic fresh. It was hard (they don't call it "drowning your kittens" for no reason), but I think good for me. I think we also shrunk the font just a bit on the endnotes, but I was able to get them all in there ultimately. (I figured, with the internet, nobody would ever need the subtitle of a journal to find the source as long as they had the article title and volume info.) I never asked about going up another 16, but I'm going to ask my editor if that would've been an option and get back to you;)
I can sympathize! I remember when I was writing my Masters thesis and struggled to get the whole thing under 10,000 words. I had to challenge myself on every line to ask, "does the reader REALLY need to know this?" Looking up synonyms and even playing with margins was not out of the question! It was painful but healthy experience, because it taught me to better discern what is essential to an argument vs. optional embellishment.
I’m thinking of re-entering the job market next spring— not that I haven’t been working, I just haven’t had a traditional job in a few years, and my experience and work history is a bit seemingly all over the place! But this is a good reminder that I can spin all that in a positive way and a good argument to make in job interviews— and an actual compelling source to reference! So thanks for the reminder.
Good luck to you Bridgitte! And, not to give directions by any means, but just to share my experience when I was on a selection committee for a few years that was going through lots of resumes: people who had breaks, or left turns, often started out a disadvantage in the committee's eyes. If, however, they explained their path as a narrative journey, highlighting what they learned at each stop, and why they pivoted or took time away or whatever, and what they learned that had them going in this new direction, it often turned what could have been a liability into an asset. The zig-zaggers ended up on both the high and low end of the score distribution, it just depended how they presented it, really. I worry that too much of this sort of thing will be automated, and then it will just be catering to the algorithm, but that was my experience on a human selection committee.
I'm from the US - can I purchase the book yet? I'm reading this at work so I may have skipped that information. Sorry.
Hi Andrea, and thanks for your interest. You can certainly purchase Range wherever books are sold, but I'm not sure that the version with the new foreword would ship to the US. You can check at the links here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/david-epstein/range/9781035053049
Thanks. I want the green fluorescent one with the spot UV. I know what that is! I'm guessing the keys are shiny and the rest of the cover is matte. I'm a fan, artist, former graphic designer (hence, the knowledge of spot UV), and a small-time book collector. I will check out the link you provided. Keep up the good work!
That's so cool! I haven't yet seen one in person, but I think they're in the mail on the way to me. And I'm like you, not in the sense that I was a graphic artist, but I consider books my interior design. I have a small collection of different covers of Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle, for example. Some of them are very simple, others surrealist, and a few downright garish. (And one comes with 3D glasses.) My favorite is a copy of Ulysses with the original blue wrap from Shakespeare and Co. It isn't a first printing (not even close...), but does have the original cover that Joyce wanted to be reminiscent of the Greek flag, but that didn't quite turn out that color. Anyway, I love book covers. Have you ever seen Peter Mendelsund's book "Cover"?
I ordered one from Blackwell's. Very reasonable... even shipping to the US. I'm looking up all of the books you mentioned. I know Mendelsund's book but don't own it. I see one for under $7 on eBay. I cleaned out my book collection two years ago and my shelves are full again. I really want a first edition copy of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen - ordered and paid for one, then Mr. Sendak died, and the seller cancelled my order (and of course, the price went up big time).
UGH! (Re: the Sendak story.) ...Are there any books of which you have multiples just for aesthetics?
I do not have multiples unless it’s a book I love and want to share. I just got your fluorescent book!