Why specialization can be a downside in our ever-changing world

Popular wisdom drives home the importance of a head start and specializing early. Not so fast, advises journalist David Epstein.

After Epstein wrote about the famed 10,000-hour rule in his first book, The Sports Gene, he was invited to debate Malcolm Gladwell, whose book Outliers had brought the rule into the mainstream. To prepare for the debate, Epstein gathered studies that looked at the development of elite athletes and saw that the trend was not early specialization. Rather, in almost every sport there was a “sampling period” where athletes learned about their own abilities and interests. The athletes who delayed specialization were often better than their specialized peers, who plateaued at lower levels.

Epstein filed this...

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