"We are not wired correctly to interpret our own development, necessarily, 'cause we just want what comes the fastest when in many cases, slower development is actually the best in the long run."

David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World and The Sports Gene.He holds a Master's degree in Environmental Science and Journalism, and has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated.

About David Epstein

One of the reasons that David points out on why prodigy stories are so attractive is because we're used to thinking of everything as being a trajectory. Hence why it's intuitive to want to give a kid a head start.The problem with that is we don't follow linear progressions.

What Makes Prodigy Stories Attractive?

Gunpei wasn't equipped to work on the cutting edge, but there was so much information available that he could take it from different domains and merge it.As a result, he developed this philosophy which he named Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology.<ul><li>Withered Technology: technology that's already well understood, easily available and, often cheap.</li><li>Lateral Thinking: taking it from an area where everyone is used to it and merging it with something else.</li></ul>This is what he used for Gameboy. Nintendo still uses this philosophy nowadays.

Lateral Thinkg with Withered Technology

We can think of the world as a learning environment, and the milieu in which you have to develop some kind of skill. We can distinguish between two different learning environments:<ul><li>Kind learning environments</li><li>Wicked learning environments </li></ul>

World as a Learning Environment

In this type of learning environments, we find clear rules and patterns tend to repeat. The performed task doesn't change.F.e. Think of chess, the grandmaster's advantage is essentially based on recognizing recurring patterns.

Kind Learning Environments

For the wicked world, you want a really broad training base, what scientists call a sampling period, where you're forming conceptual frameworks and abstract ideas that you can bend to the activity as the activity itself changes.In the 20th Century the biggest contributions came from Specialists. In the Information Age the biggest contributions started coming from Generalists.Generalists are people who spread their work across various tech domains often taking something from one and bringing it to another area where it was seen as extraordinary.

The Wicked World

"The more we work in a rapidly changing world, where we're not exactly sure what we should do next, or what work will look like next year or in five years or years, the more we want those people who have had a broad view and can kind of draw different stories of knowledge.And one of the ways I think about operationalizing that is essentially having a short term mindset.[...]We're essentially telling someone to choose for a person they don't yet know who is gonna be working in a world they can't yet conceive.Compare yourself to yourself yesterday and proceed that way"

In wicked learning environments, we find these characteristics:<ul><li>Information might be obscured</li><li>There are no discernible rules</li><li>The task can change</li><li>Even the feedback you get can be delayed and inaccurate</li></ul>Most of the work we do nowadays is more toward the wicked end of the spectrum, where we can't just count on things being the same over and over or giving us perfectly accurate feedback.

Wicked Learning Environments

Gunpei Yokoi didn't score well on his electronic university exams, resulting in him having to apply for a low tier job as a machine maintenance worker at a playing card company: Nintendo.One day, Nintendo's president saw him playing around with an extendable arm called the Ultra Hand, and told him "Turn that into a toy, we're going to market." And it's sort of a success.This resulted in Nintendo's president telling Gunpei: "All right, you're going to start a game and toy operation."

Gunpei Yokoi

Through this video, the best-seller author, David Epstein, demonstrates why divergent thinkers (or generalists) beat prodigies in the actual changing world.

Don’t take the prodigy pathway. David Epstein says become a broad thinker instead. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Get smarter, faster with our playlist ► https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5uULy4b0kV6dcSRjedcy3IymBytRT34Q The idea for Nintendo’s Game Boy system was born from a philosophy that had a much less catchy name: lateral thinking with withered technology. The term was coined by Gunpei Yokoi, a Nintendo employee who started at the company with a similarly dry job: machine maintenance worker. One day, a Nintendo executive noticed that Yokoi had built a simple extendable-arm-grabber toy in his free time. Let’s sell it, the executive said. It became a small hit. Yokoi was eventually promoted to help build out the company’s video game business. But he recognized that he didn’t have the expertise to advance the cutting edge of the video game world. So he decided on a very specific strategy: take already well-understood knowledge and technology from different domains and combine them in unique ways to create new products. The result was the Game Boy. In this interview with Big Think, David Epstein, author of the 2019 book "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World," explains how lateral thinking — a type of thinking where you approach problems from non-obvious angles — is a problem-solving strategy that’s surprisingly well-suited for our fast-changing world. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/generalists/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About David Epstein: David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World and The Sports Gene. He has master's degrees in environmental science and journalism and has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He lives in Washington, DC. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read more of our stories on personality types: How does your personality type affect your income? ► https://bigthink.com/thinking/personality-type-income/ Which stress personality are you? ► https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/seven-stress-personalities/ There are six types of worker, this study says. Which one are you? ► https://bigthink.com/smart-skills/6-types-of-worker/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want more Big Think? ► Daily editorial features: https://bigthink.com/popular/ ► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: https://bigthink.com/st/newsletter ► Facebook: https://bigth.ink/facebook ► Instagram: https://bigth.ink/Instagram ► Twitter: https://bigth.ink/twitter

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Personal Development

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Technology & The Future

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Problem Solving

Don’t take the prodigy pathway. David Epstein says become a broad thinker instead.

Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1
Get smarter, faster with our playlist ► https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5uULy4b0kV6dcSRjedcy3IymBytRT34Q

The idea for Nintendo’s Game Boy system was born from a philosophy that had a much less catchy name: lateral thinking with withered technology.

The term was coined by Gunpei Yokoi, a Nintendo employee who started at the company with a similarly dry job: machine maintenance worker. One day, a Nintendo executive noticed that Yokoi had built a simple extendable-arm-grabber toy in his free time. Let’s sell it, the executive said. It became a small hit.

Yokoi was eventually promoted to help build out the company’s video game business. But he recognized that he didn’t have the expertise to advance the cutting edge of the video game world. So he decided on a very specific strategy: take already well-understood knowledge and technology from different domains and combine them in unique ways to create new products. The result was the Game Boy.

In this interview with Big Think, David Epstein, author of the 2019 book "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World," explains how lateral thinking — a type of thinking where you approach problems from non-obvious angles — is a problem-solving strategy that’s surprisingly well-suited for our fast-changing world.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/generalists/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

About David Epstein:
David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World and The Sports Gene. He has master's degrees in environmental science and journalism and has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He lives in Washington, DC.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Read more of our stories on personality types: 
How does your personality type affect your income?
► https://bigthink.com/thinking/personality-type-income/
Which stress personality are you?
► https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/seven-stress-personalities/
There are six types of worker, this study says. Which one are you?
► https://bigthink.com/smart-skills/6-types-of-worker/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™
► Big Think 
The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. 
► Big Think+
Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/

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Want more Big Think?
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► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: https://bigthink.com/st/newsletter 
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Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life. Other Frequent contributors include Michio Kaku & Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

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