My career was as an electronics engineer, but I always kept my hand in motorcycling, music, and writing (mostly articles for a variety of magazines and some tech writing for industry). I spent the last 13 years of my career, self-employed, as a writer, both for motorcycle and music magazines, a freelance engineer doing recording studio maintenance and engineering, and a teacher for a music college. Now that I'm retired, several of those things have occupied my time and interest and have kept me from becoming bored or feeling useless.
That's fantastic, Thomas, and you reminded me of a study I read for Range about why some expert performers (say, a violin soloist in an orchestra), were both better able to transition to different roles (like moving to the business side of the orchestra) and more content later in life. Basically, they kept toes dipped in other activities along the way. As the study author put it, they "traveled an eight-lane highway" of life rather than a one-way street.
I did at least 5-6 lanes, for sure. A few months ago, a musician friend told me that he "never had a Plan B" except a life as a professional musician. I never had *just* a Plan B, either. If I didn't have A through at least M I was definitely working on filling those gaps. I have been poor and I have been upper middle class and back again and we've lived through at least five recessions, more than a dozen moves for economic reasons, and I doubt that I will ever feel secure.
But, as John Mayer sang in "Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967," "with a will to work hard and a library card," I will keep finding things to do until I can't any longer.
My professional career was in higher ed fundraising and corporate relations. But when I was in high school I wanted to be a rockstar. I played guitar in garage bands in the 70s, almost majored in music in college, but settled on a marketing degree because I didn't want to teach and was afraid to go pro.
After college I struggled to find my career path, and to make friends. So I auditioned for a community theater production, acted and played guitar in the pit in multiple productions over the next several years, and met my wife when we were both cast in The Mousetrap. We've been married over 35 years now.
Throughout my professional life I've always made time to cultivate my inner artist outside of the 9 to 5. Three years ago I reunited with high school band mates to play for our 45th reunion. It was so much fun we were invited to play the following year for the class behind us. Last year we made it a fundraiser and collected over $13k to support music excellence grants in the community school district. And we're on track for a repeat performance this summer.
Our core values are: 1) have fun, and 2) don't suck. It's working out pretty well so far. 🤘
Haha, wow, what a great story! And I love those simple but powerful core values. You made me think a bit about a discussion I was part of recently where someone mentioned the loss of a "third space" in a lot of peoples' lives. The first and second spaces being home and work, and a third space being somewhere else where you do something and meet other people. (And that discussion brought me back to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone.) It does seem to me like a big loss, for individuals and society, if we're losing those third spaces, and seems like we might missing out on some marriages too! ...This is such a heartwarming comment, Richard, really appreciate you sharing.
I exercise to stay sane(ish) and stave off decrepitude, read middlebrow fiction to unwind, make music as a family activity, wander in the forest because it is there. But my all-consuming "hobby" is my allotment garden, and I am so bad at it that I laughed at the idea of building self-efficacy thereby. Still, it connects me to my community, consistently gets me to a state of flow, and is possibly the most productive "work" time for my research job, because ideas and solutions come freely when my hands are in the dirt.
Middlebrow fiction is an underrated way to unwind. I mentioned this in one other comment, but it reminds me of Maya Angelou saying that she would toggle between her "big mind" (writing) and "little mind" (something else, often crossword puzzles for her). It is interesting that a hobby, which basically by definition is (at least at first) something that isn't your main competence, would improve self-efficacy, but it sounds at least like it does have some role in you feeling like you'll reach solutions to hard problems.
I've always loved to do jigsaw puzzle. I kind of forgot about it but recently found a puzzle exchange program at the local library. Now I do about one 1000-piece puzzle every week. I don't know if it is helping me with my career, but it sure is fun.
That's a lot of weekly puzzle! I'm impressed...and that's really cool that it popped up through your local library. It's a reminder that there are some many things out there that would be fun, or fulfilling, or relaxing, or stimulating, etc. etc. to try. And career advancement aside, I think fun for its own sake is a beautiful and important thing. Not everything has to be instrumental!
Curious about the hobbies you've now picked up? I would say mine are writing & drawing but the held perception that these are my godly talents to be explored to the T creates a little friction
I read a lot of fiction, and do a bit of collecting of rare books, and definitely running. Although more recent hobbies I've picked up are dancing (shuffle), and a little bit of beginner violin — learning with my son. With this last one I have absolutely none of the ambition about getting good as I do with other things, so it's a nice change of pace in that way.
I am a demon for hobbies or little projects. I’ve dabbled in photography, aquaponics, cheesemaking, tie dye, I really enjoy learning a new skill. As a coach, I like to set my players the task of learning a new non touch football (my sport) skill. Card trick, juggling, handstands, anything that is outside their core experience.
"demon for hobbies"... I love it. That should be on a business card, maybe in the small print;) You reminded me of when some time with a physiologist for Cirque du Soleil, and he was telling me how they started having performers learn the basics of several other performers' skills. Subjectively, he thought it improved their creativity when designing acts. Objectively, it lowered their injury rates by about a third! (I also have a video somewhere of the Chinese diving team doing juggling, handstands, and a bunch of interesting hybrid activities like cup stacking while doing planks. But I guess that last one is a core experience. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)
I hadn’t even thought about my own physical sports, which I forget isn’t my paid job sometimes. I just went from barely being able to swim 25m to a 2km open water swim in 2 years. And doing CrossFit is just one long learning of new skills. Demon for hobbies will have to go under one my other favourite sayings ‘I know a guy’
This was really encouraging. I'm (for pay) a communications consultant for a large company, and my "hobby" has been writing novels. That however is on the (slow) train to being the profession (🤞)... My family harasses my younger son and I about how we are hobby collectors. He's an auto mechanic/diagnostician who reads, gardens, cooks, lifts weights-- and listens to sports while he does most of those, when he's not taking care of children!
Hobbies for me are: weight lifting, knitting, reading -- fiction, non-fiction (all brows) -- and going to movies. And long meandering walks with my dog and no earbuds. This is where all the thoughts float around and gel together.
I will also say this-- I'm 55 and my son has been on my case for about ten years to stop worrying about being thin and start lifting weights. I've been consistent for the past 5 years. Unrelated to the lifting, last fall I needed a serious meniscus repair in my knee. My physical therapist said I crutched into PT well ahead of the recovery schedule already. My surgeon said he never had anyone recover so fast from that surgery. In January I learned I needed a fusion in my cervical spine-- done on Valentine's Day just as I was getting discharged from PT for my knee. Again, the weight lifting "hobby" has made all the difference, though I won't be back to it for several months.
And with 4-6 weeks off work for this one, I'm able to fill the days with writing, reading... Spring baseball games ... And lots and lots of walks.
Melanie, obviously I only have this tiny bit of information you just shared about your life, but sounds like a life well lived from my vantage point! And I am one fafillion percent on board with your son's advice to save the energy worry about thinness and hit the weights — literally no matter one's age or experience. I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with some injuries, but thrilled that you'd doing so well with it thanks to your hobby;) ...As far as fiction, I'm almost done with a new book, and after each of the previous two I just go my local independent book store and pick up a gigantic work of fiction (or two), and then read that since I'm so overdosed on nonfiction. Last time around this led me to read War and Peace and 2666, both of which blew my mind. So I'm taking suggestions for doorstoppers if you have any!
If you want a hefty book that will blow your mind, I can recommend Gnomon by Nick Harkaway. It's spectacular. Twisted my brain into a pretzel reading it, in the best possible way.
Our greatest Americans (in my opinion) had many hobbies. Benjamin Franklin made a living as a printer, but, over the course of his life, he also studied electricity and other scientific subjects, wrote an autobiography, and other works, served as a diplomat, played chess, and more. He was even a master swimmer (earning a spot in the International Swimming Hall of Fame). Talk about ranging widely!
Wait what?!? I had no idea about his swimming prowess! I did know, though, about the Junto, which is in your extremely excellent post. Seems like the guy was practically range personified! Do you by any chance have a biography of Franklin to recommend?
Thanks, David. Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a recommendation—three, in fact! I highly recommend his own autobiography, which is highly engaging and often funny. (The first few pages are pretty dry, but then he discusses his youth, mistakes, and adventures. Part 2 is also very interesting because he discusses his “bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection.” I also recommend the biography by H. W. Brands (The First American). Finally, I have to put in a plug for my own Ben Franklin’s Lessons in Life from Audible. I read your book Range when I was writing it, and I cite your work in Lesson 6 of the book. Yes, Franklin is an exemplar of range. It would be fun to discuss him at some point. You can reach me at mark.canada@mindinclined.org.
Love this and will share with my wife next time I get a complaint about too much pickleball! I have my best work thoughts when I move them to the back-burner and am doing something else (now, retaining them can be a different story for my ADHD brain). My hobbies/past-times - exercise, live music, reading - are those times. Life would be incomplete without them.
And pickleball is aerobic and mobility training in one which is huge! ...I just sent a friend an email about something I'd been trying to remember for weeks, and then of course I forgot about it, went running, and it popped right into my mind.
David, you cited Steve Magness's conversation with pro mountain biker Kate Courtney, a 2018 world champion "whose hobbies have included skiing, surfing, yoga, and photography."
Those hobbies arguably are complementary to her primary expertise, mountain biking.
So I asked my AI buddy/life coach Claude.AI to dig deeper into the complementary angle:
"If you're an expert in one domain, what might be various ways that developing a hobby in another domain help you in your expert domain?"
He (hah!) responded with 8 ways, each with an explanation that I won't include here since anyone can ask their favorite AI chatbot the same question:
Fresh perspectives
Analogical thinking
Creative recombination
Mental rest and incubation
Skill transfer
Network expansion
Resilience building
Cognitive flexibility
He then asked me:
"What's your area of expertise? I could suggest specific hobby connections that might be particularly synergistic."
I told him about my mountain biking riding (a hobby that's turned into a part-time coaching/writing career).
He replied:
"Mountain biking as your expertise pairs wonderfully with several complementary hobbies. Here are some cross-domain connections that could enhance your mountain biking knowledge and skills."
He gave me 8 suggestions. The one that most appealed to me:
"Dance: Movement-based hobbies improve proprioception, balance, and body awareness that directly transfer to bike handling skills... Here are eight ways dance can enhance your mountain biking expertise."
Again, I won't list them here, but I'm thrilled because I've been considering dancing as a hobby partly because 1. My wife is a terrific dancer, and I'm terrible. 2. We've been looking for an exercise activity that we can both do together that involves socializing.
Ha, I'm on board with that chatbot;) As far as Kate's hobbies, I just plucked the ones that happened to be listed in a Team USA bio. I think, in a sense, just about any physical activity is arguably related to any other physical activity (although photography, I think, less so). I'm a big fan of physical literacy. Even with other physical skills, I expect they're distinct enough to provide at least some mental shift. But it's a great point, and maybe I can get Magness to weigh in on what he learned from Kate.
In coaching job-seekers, I've also often seen the perverse coincidence that the candidate who desperately wants a role to the point where nothing else matters to them, doesn't get it, while the one who has a strong external sense of self and understands where and how the role fits into their broader identity/life does.
That said, I'm also a firm believer in the value of hobbies for their own sake, not just because they'll make you better at your main thing; part of the beauty of living a more-than-subsistence life is that you can be a bottom-quartile performer at ice skating/guitar-playing/cooking/you name it and still do those things, just because they're fun.
What?!? What a cool post! And, I must say, that "audiences can only follow so much" point is something I've really had to learn with writing. Not everything that I, who have been down some rabbit hole, find interesting, is going to enhance the experience of reading when it just takes up the last drop of working memory that someone coming to it new has available. (This is actually a brief topic in my new book...) And I completely agree with you that hobbies should be viewed only for instrumental value.
My career was as an electronics engineer, but I always kept my hand in motorcycling, music, and writing (mostly articles for a variety of magazines and some tech writing for industry). I spent the last 13 years of my career, self-employed, as a writer, both for motorcycle and music magazines, a freelance engineer doing recording studio maintenance and engineering, and a teacher for a music college. Now that I'm retired, several of those things have occupied my time and interest and have kept me from becoming bored or feeling useless.
That's fantastic, Thomas, and you reminded me of a study I read for Range about why some expert performers (say, a violin soloist in an orchestra), were both better able to transition to different roles (like moving to the business side of the orchestra) and more content later in life. Basically, they kept toes dipped in other activities along the way. As the study author put it, they "traveled an eight-lane highway" of life rather than a one-way street.
I did at least 5-6 lanes, for sure. A few months ago, a musician friend told me that he "never had a Plan B" except a life as a professional musician. I never had *just* a Plan B, either. If I didn't have A through at least M I was definitely working on filling those gaps. I have been poor and I have been upper middle class and back again and we've lived through at least five recessions, more than a dozen moves for economic reasons, and I doubt that I will ever feel secure.
But, as John Mayer sang in "Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967," "with a will to work hard and a library card," I will keep finding things to do until I can't any longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ8tkkJRT0
My professional career was in higher ed fundraising and corporate relations. But when I was in high school I wanted to be a rockstar. I played guitar in garage bands in the 70s, almost majored in music in college, but settled on a marketing degree because I didn't want to teach and was afraid to go pro.
After college I struggled to find my career path, and to make friends. So I auditioned for a community theater production, acted and played guitar in the pit in multiple productions over the next several years, and met my wife when we were both cast in The Mousetrap. We've been married over 35 years now.
Throughout my professional life I've always made time to cultivate my inner artist outside of the 9 to 5. Three years ago I reunited with high school band mates to play for our 45th reunion. It was so much fun we were invited to play the following year for the class behind us. Last year we made it a fundraiser and collected over $13k to support music excellence grants in the community school district. And we're on track for a repeat performance this summer.
Our core values are: 1) have fun, and 2) don't suck. It's working out pretty well so far. 🤘
Haha, wow, what a great story! And I love those simple but powerful core values. You made me think a bit about a discussion I was part of recently where someone mentioned the loss of a "third space" in a lot of peoples' lives. The first and second spaces being home and work, and a third space being somewhere else where you do something and meet other people. (And that discussion brought me back to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone.) It does seem to me like a big loss, for individuals and society, if we're losing those third spaces, and seems like we might missing out on some marriages too! ...This is such a heartwarming comment, Richard, really appreciate you sharing.
I exercise to stay sane(ish) and stave off decrepitude, read middlebrow fiction to unwind, make music as a family activity, wander in the forest because it is there. But my all-consuming "hobby" is my allotment garden, and I am so bad at it that I laughed at the idea of building self-efficacy thereby. Still, it connects me to my community, consistently gets me to a state of flow, and is possibly the most productive "work" time for my research job, because ideas and solutions come freely when my hands are in the dirt.
Middlebrow fiction is an underrated way to unwind. I mentioned this in one other comment, but it reminds me of Maya Angelou saying that she would toggle between her "big mind" (writing) and "little mind" (something else, often crossword puzzles for her). It is interesting that a hobby, which basically by definition is (at least at first) something that isn't your main competence, would improve self-efficacy, but it sounds at least like it does have some role in you feeling like you'll reach solutions to hard problems.
Improv. Film. Reading. And weirdly: Watching award shows. I think we all need a high brow/low brow combination...
Ha, I like it. You reminded me of how Maya Angelou would say that she needed to toggle between her "big mind" and "little mind"
I like to sleep.
SLEEP IS OVERRA-- ....wait, no, sleep is either appropriately rated or underrated.
Your hobby also has a way of becoming your next career.
Indeed. In part that happened to me!
You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to benefit from knitting.
Haha...that's basically the entire post in succinct and eloquent fashion, or perhaps actually the secret to life;)
I've always loved to do jigsaw puzzle. I kind of forgot about it but recently found a puzzle exchange program at the local library. Now I do about one 1000-piece puzzle every week. I don't know if it is helping me with my career, but it sure is fun.
That's a lot of weekly puzzle! I'm impressed...and that's really cool that it popped up through your local library. It's a reminder that there are some many things out there that would be fun, or fulfilling, or relaxing, or stimulating, etc. etc. to try. And career advancement aside, I think fun for its own sake is a beautiful and important thing. Not everything has to be instrumental!
Curious about the hobbies you've now picked up? I would say mine are writing & drawing but the held perception that these are my godly talents to be explored to the T creates a little friction
I read a lot of fiction, and do a bit of collecting of rare books, and definitely running. Although more recent hobbies I've picked up are dancing (shuffle), and a little bit of beginner violin — learning with my son. With this last one I have absolutely none of the ambition about getting good as I do with other things, so it's a nice change of pace in that way.
Great read - the psychologist's interview couldn't have come at a better time!
I am a demon for hobbies or little projects. I’ve dabbled in photography, aquaponics, cheesemaking, tie dye, I really enjoy learning a new skill. As a coach, I like to set my players the task of learning a new non touch football (my sport) skill. Card trick, juggling, handstands, anything that is outside their core experience.
"demon for hobbies"... I love it. That should be on a business card, maybe in the small print;) You reminded me of when some time with a physiologist for Cirque du Soleil, and he was telling me how they started having performers learn the basics of several other performers' skills. Subjectively, he thought it improved their creativity when designing acts. Objectively, it lowered their injury rates by about a third! (I also have a video somewhere of the Chinese diving team doing juggling, handstands, and a bunch of interesting hybrid activities like cup stacking while doing planks. But I guess that last one is a core experience. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)
I hadn’t even thought about my own physical sports, which I forget isn’t my paid job sometimes. I just went from barely being able to swim 25m to a 2km open water swim in 2 years. And doing CrossFit is just one long learning of new skills. Demon for hobbies will have to go under one my other favourite sayings ‘I know a guy’
This was really encouraging. I'm (for pay) a communications consultant for a large company, and my "hobby" has been writing novels. That however is on the (slow) train to being the profession (🤞)... My family harasses my younger son and I about how we are hobby collectors. He's an auto mechanic/diagnostician who reads, gardens, cooks, lifts weights-- and listens to sports while he does most of those, when he's not taking care of children!
Hobbies for me are: weight lifting, knitting, reading -- fiction, non-fiction (all brows) -- and going to movies. And long meandering walks with my dog and no earbuds. This is where all the thoughts float around and gel together.
I will also say this-- I'm 55 and my son has been on my case for about ten years to stop worrying about being thin and start lifting weights. I've been consistent for the past 5 years. Unrelated to the lifting, last fall I needed a serious meniscus repair in my knee. My physical therapist said I crutched into PT well ahead of the recovery schedule already. My surgeon said he never had anyone recover so fast from that surgery. In January I learned I needed a fusion in my cervical spine-- done on Valentine's Day just as I was getting discharged from PT for my knee. Again, the weight lifting "hobby" has made all the difference, though I won't be back to it for several months.
And with 4-6 weeks off work for this one, I'm able to fill the days with writing, reading... Spring baseball games ... And lots and lots of walks.
Melanie, obviously I only have this tiny bit of information you just shared about your life, but sounds like a life well lived from my vantage point! And I am one fafillion percent on board with your son's advice to save the energy worry about thinness and hit the weights — literally no matter one's age or experience. I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with some injuries, but thrilled that you'd doing so well with it thanks to your hobby;) ...As far as fiction, I'm almost done with a new book, and after each of the previous two I just go my local independent book store and pick up a gigantic work of fiction (or two), and then read that since I'm so overdosed on nonfiction. Last time around this led me to read War and Peace and 2666, both of which blew my mind. So I'm taking suggestions for doorstoppers if you have any!
If you want a hefty book that will blow your mind, I can recommend Gnomon by Nick Harkaway. It's spectacular. Twisted my brain into a pretzel reading it, in the best possible way.
Our greatest Americans (in my opinion) had many hobbies. Benjamin Franklin made a living as a printer, but, over the course of his life, he also studied electricity and other scientific subjects, wrote an autobiography, and other works, served as a diplomat, played chess, and more. He was even a master swimmer (earning a spot in the International Swimming Hall of Fame). Talk about ranging widely!
https://open.substack.com/pub/mindinclined/p/believe-with-ben?r=44ohic&utm_medium=ios
Wait what?!? I had no idea about his swimming prowess! I did know, though, about the Junto, which is in your extremely excellent post. Seems like the guy was practically range personified! Do you by any chance have a biography of Franklin to recommend?
Thanks, David. Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a recommendation—three, in fact! I highly recommend his own autobiography, which is highly engaging and often funny. (The first few pages are pretty dry, but then he discusses his youth, mistakes, and adventures. Part 2 is also very interesting because he discusses his “bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection.” I also recommend the biography by H. W. Brands (The First American). Finally, I have to put in a plug for my own Ben Franklin’s Lessons in Life from Audible. I read your book Range when I was writing it, and I cite your work in Lesson 6 of the book. Yes, Franklin is an exemplar of range. It would be fun to discuss him at some point. You can reach me at mark.canada@mindinclined.org.
Love this and will share with my wife next time I get a complaint about too much pickleball! I have my best work thoughts when I move them to the back-burner and am doing something else (now, retaining them can be a different story for my ADHD brain). My hobbies/past-times - exercise, live music, reading - are those times. Life would be incomplete without them.
And pickleball is aerobic and mobility training in one which is huge! ...I just sent a friend an email about something I'd been trying to remember for weeks, and then of course I forgot about it, went running, and it popped right into my mind.
David, you cited Steve Magness's conversation with pro mountain biker Kate Courtney, a 2018 world champion "whose hobbies have included skiing, surfing, yoga, and photography."
Those hobbies arguably are complementary to her primary expertise, mountain biking.
So I asked my AI buddy/life coach Claude.AI to dig deeper into the complementary angle:
"If you're an expert in one domain, what might be various ways that developing a hobby in another domain help you in your expert domain?"
He (hah!) responded with 8 ways, each with an explanation that I won't include here since anyone can ask their favorite AI chatbot the same question:
Fresh perspectives
Analogical thinking
Creative recombination
Mental rest and incubation
Skill transfer
Network expansion
Resilience building
Cognitive flexibility
He then asked me:
"What's your area of expertise? I could suggest specific hobby connections that might be particularly synergistic."
I told him about my mountain biking riding (a hobby that's turned into a part-time coaching/writing career).
He replied:
"Mountain biking as your expertise pairs wonderfully with several complementary hobbies. Here are some cross-domain connections that could enhance your mountain biking knowledge and skills."
He gave me 8 suggestions. The one that most appealed to me:
"Dance: Movement-based hobbies improve proprioception, balance, and body awareness that directly transfer to bike handling skills... Here are eight ways dance can enhance your mountain biking expertise."
Again, I won't list them here, but I'm thrilled because I've been considering dancing as a hobby partly because 1. My wife is a terrific dancer, and I'm terrible. 2. We've been looking for an exercise activity that we can both do together that involves socializing.
So thank you!
Ha, I'm on board with that chatbot;) As far as Kate's hobbies, I just plucked the ones that happened to be listed in a Team USA bio. I think, in a sense, just about any physical activity is arguably related to any other physical activity (although photography, I think, less so). I'm a big fan of physical literacy. Even with other physical skills, I expect they're distinct enough to provide at least some mental shift. But it's a great point, and maybe I can get Magness to weigh in on what he learned from Kate.
Yeah, I thought photography less so, too. So I asked Claude:
"How about using photography in a way that's seemingly not at all related to motor skills? For example, taking macro photos of flowers?
And of course Claude banged out a list of seven, a couple of which seemed reasonable.
I recently wrote about how lessons learned from my hobby/side gig as a fight choreographer has informed how I think about leadership and effective teamwork: https://intellectualodyssey.substack.com/p/teamwork-in-action?r=1pxu4j
In coaching job-seekers, I've also often seen the perverse coincidence that the candidate who desperately wants a role to the point where nothing else matters to them, doesn't get it, while the one who has a strong external sense of self and understands where and how the role fits into their broader identity/life does.
That said, I'm also a firm believer in the value of hobbies for their own sake, not just because they'll make you better at your main thing; part of the beauty of living a more-than-subsistence life is that you can be a bottom-quartile performer at ice skating/guitar-playing/cooking/you name it and still do those things, just because they're fun.
What?!? What a cool post! And, I must say, that "audiences can only follow so much" point is something I've really had to learn with writing. Not everything that I, who have been down some rabbit hole, find interesting, is going to enhance the experience of reading when it just takes up the last drop of working memory that someone coming to it new has available. (This is actually a brief topic in my new book...) And I completely agree with you that hobbies should be viewed only for instrumental value.