How To Be Proven Wrong

<p>Imagine writing a book that sells millions of copies over the course of nearly a decade, and then, out of nowhere, another author comes along and challenges it. What would you do? </p><p>In Malcolm Gladwell’s massive bestseller <a href='https://geni.us/z7msDc'><em>Outliers: The Story of Success</em></a><em>, </em>he posits that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is required to master any skill. Implicit in Gladwell’s argument is that success is the manifestation of specialization. If you want to be among the best at something, you have to focus solely on that singular skill. </p><p>David Epstein first disputed the 10,000-hour rule in his book <a href='https://geni.us/yjBcBt'><em>The Sports Gene</em></a>. He was then invited to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference <a href='https://geni.us/dU0xUWA'>to debate Gladwell on this topic of specialization</a>. Neither they or their critics would have predicted the friendship that came out of the debate. But their discussions spawned the ideas that became Epstein’s second book, <a href='https://geni.us/5KVcqK'><em>Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World</em></a>—which doesn’t just challenge the 10,000-hour rule, it may well debunk it. How did Gladwell take it? As Epstein explained <a href='https://dailystoic.com/david-epstein-interview/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=to-be-proven-wrong'>in our interview with him for DailyStoic.com</a>:</p><p><em>He could have viewed our ideas as in zero-sum competition. But he didn’t. He viewed it as an opportunity to engage in more discussion—often politely antagonistic but very productive discussion—and consequently we learned from one another. [This] set in motion what became not only a really productive intellectual relationship for me, but also a model of how two people publicly associated with certain ideas can engage without forcing zero-sum competition.</em></p><p><a href='https://dailystoic.com/seneca/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=to-be-pr