Podcasts

Range: Specialization vs Diversification

Are you a specialist? Have you spent endless hours honing your skills in one particular area? Or are you a generalist? Someone who samples here and there, and strives for breadth, not depth, in your career? It can be difficult to know which way to go and there can be an enormous amount of pressure put on us, particularly as young people, to choose a path and stick to it no matter what. But what if quitting was just as important as grit when we talk about excelling in our chosen field? What if becoming a world-class tennis player, a virtuoso violinist or Nobel laureate does not require early and narrow specialization but instead can come about from knowing when to say "this just isn't for me" and broadening your experience base elsewhere before finding your niche? David Epstein - Investigative reporter at ProPublica and the author of the ‘Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World’ joins Jonathan to discuss. As always we have Newsround, and Jonathan responds to all your tweets and texts. see more