Candice LandauLast Updated on April 12, 2025 by Candice Landau
For a long time I struggled with this idea: To be successful in life you have to focus in a narrow way; you have to pick one thing and do that until you are the best you can possibly be—golf and nothing but—Tiger Woods style.
I thought, If I can find this elusive thing that makes me fall in love to the exclusion of all else, then I’ll be happy. Then I’ll stop looking, then I’ll be able to focus, devote the requisite 10,000 hours to it to become an expert1.
The problem?
I have always had and will always have diverse interests. It’s what funneled me into a career in digital marketing in the first place, a subject that is inherently diverse.
And, it’s not that I haven’t tried focusing on just one thing. I have, time and time again. When I started my undergraduate degree, I declared Computer Science my major. At the time I dreamed of writing computer game scripts or stories, and I enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of programming. In South Africa, in high school, they were good about getting us started early and I had my first taste of coding in Borland Delphi. I loved the creativity and invention. I loved the challenge. Fast forward to my sophomore year at UC Davis and I’m a year into engineering mathematics and computer science, trying desperately not to fall in love with Anthropology and Geology, English and Psychology, subjects I had picked because A) I had these things called General Ed credits I “had to” complete, and because B) I probably really just wanted to study anything and everything that sounded interesting.
By the time I realized I had no desire to spend every evening in a lab writing code, I was so far away from being on track to complete any specific thing in any reasonable amount of time that I promptly had a breakdown and decided that the right course of action must be to study English as the thing I most wanted to do with any consistency in my life was write. This, I thought must mean I am supposed to be an English major. And so, much to what I assume must have been the astonishment of my major adviser, I switched from Computer Science to English.
While I did manage to graduate in 4 years, it was largely because I kept an overly full load of courses, and because I kept taking anthropology and archaeology courses whenever an interesting topic arose—my world was still full and my interest in learning diversely still sated.
Since then, little has changed. I still find the notion of narrow specialization forever somewhat incomprehensible. Even with my persistent interest in scuba diving, marine biology and everything related to the ocean and animals, I couldn’t imagine putting on blinders and deciding this is all I will do for the rest of my life. Impossible!
Some part of me has always known that the relentless push to focus on just one thing isn’t quite right, but until now I never had a thesis with which to back up this inner knowledge. That is until I read David Epstein’s “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.” This book made me want to own my title and tap into the power of “generalists” like world-class player Roger Federer, famed naturalist Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs—the man who needs no intro, and Arianna Huffington, author and founder of the Huffington Post.
The thing is, I don’t think I’m anywhere near alone in feeling this way. I believe that many of us, if not all of us, have an innate desire to learn and live diversely, to ensure variety is a part of everything we do. It makes life interesting, it builds new neural networks, It’s good for abstract thinking. It makes us stronger.
Today, I rarely specialize in one thing and only one thing. I write. I research. I strategize. I code. I pick up new things on the side too. I dive. I sail. I run. I cycle. I swim. I make jewelry. I create art. I continue to explore my world in every way—work and not-work related—and I can’t imagine another way to live that doesn’t mean trying new things.
In much the same way Susan Cain’s “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” illustrated the value of introverts, “Range” illustrates the value, importance and historical significance of those with varied interests.
The problem with specializing to the exclusion of all else is that specialization leaves you, well, specialized in a very narrow way. I recall being offered a position as a “Naturalist” giving tours on a boat in Alaska. When I asked the hiring manager if my lack of a degree in biology would be a problem, he said that actually, it was the opposite. “Someone with a PhD in marine biology has spent 5 years focusing on one nudibranch and nothing but. They can wax lyrical about that but ask them to tell you more about the other animals you see, the world beyond that, the geography, local literature and they’ll come up blank.” Now I’m sure that’s not true of every graduate, but you get the point–focusing in one specific area means you’re not practicing abstract thinking; you can’t see beyond what you know because what you know is deep but narrow.
The real value of being a generalist lies in your ability to connect ideas that may not immediately seem related. This tends to make you an excellent problem-solver, gives you insight a specialist won’t have, and gives you the space to explore the things you are interested in that may result in a good personality and career fit. An added bonus is that you’ll likely have the ability to tackle multiple different tasks rather than only a select few.
Stop shooting yourself in the foot if you’re a generalist. It’s okay to like and be good at many things. It’s not everyone’s jam but if it’s yours, you may be luckier than you think!
Citations:
1 It in his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claims that the 10,000 hour rule is the secret to becoming a world-class expert in whatever it is you’re practicing. Note: the authors of the original study have since disputed Gladwell’s usage and interpretation of this concept.
