Maybe you are impressed by the 10,000 hour school; which preaches that to attain mastery at anything you have to practice it for 10,000 hours. So it naturally follows, that the earlier you start and the sooner you specialize, the better are your chances of succeeding.
BUT WHAT IF
I were to tell you that around us, there is another rule in place as well. A rule which tells us that early specialization is NOT the main driver of success; rather it’s the opposite: ‘key to attain mastery is to try a variety of things before settling for one’.
Some of you might be aware of the Tiger Woods phenomenon. His father made a golf club for him when he was seven months old. At age of two he was making television appearances for his golf skills, and the same year he won the ten-and-under division. At age eight, the son beat the father the first time. At the age of just twenty one years old, Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win Masters title.
But do you know the story of the boy whose mum was a coach but never coached him. As a young boy, he played squash with his father. He tried wrestling, swimming, skiing, skateboarding, etc. He played handball, basketball, tennis, table tennis, badminton over his neighbor’s fence. He played soccer at school. His parents had no particular athletic ambitions for him. His own mother was a tennis coach but never coached him, because, in her own words ‘he would have just upset me’. ‘ He tried out every strange stroke and certainly never returned a ball normally’. When he played tennis matches, his mother often wandered away to chat with friends.
The boy was competitive. But did not want to be moved up to play with group of older tennis players, just to stay with his friends. The boy went on to win the highest number of grand slam tournaments (20) any man has ever won. The boy is Roger Federer.
The phenomenon is not restricted to sports. It applies to music, education, finance, almost everything; and to learn more about it, I’d recommend you to read the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein.
I find this book specially interesting because I myself practice and promote this cross-field and democratic style of learning. My main inspiration was an Urdu book I read during my childhood, titled ‘100 great Muslim scientists’. The book contained biography of tons of Muslim scientists including Ibn al Haitham, Al- Faraabi, Al- Khwarzami , Jabir Ibn Hayyan, Al- Biruni, Al- Kindi, Ibn Nafis, etc. And the thing that amazed me the most, was that almost every one of those scientists had contributions, and had written books in numerous fields. Many of them had notable works in mathematics, chemistry, botany, astrophysics, optics, literature etc., simultaneously.
I was always amazed, and thought how was that possible? And then I thought, maybe it is a thing of the past and is no longer valid in modern era of hyper-specialization. However this book “Range” by David Epstein gives me hope once again, that this cross functional learning is still useful in this modern age. And that it is not just a recipe for survival but a key to the mastery as well.
I would end this piece with a TED talk from the author of the book himself.
Happy learning.