I read about birds to understand how I can work more collaboratively on a specific project. I look into ancient myths to better understand how a client can tell a story. Or, I look deeper into a case study on mold growth to see if there are lessons on virality.
I’ve always been this way, and the people I hold closest to me operate pretty similarly. We read everything (my Goodreads list is at 300 and my GetPocket article list is double that). Because we don’t necessarily read to immediately apply. We read to absorb and learn. Then, suddenly 2 days, weeks, or years later from the archives we pull that article we read about the discovery of Saturn and see a translation with a problem we’re working on.
My routes for learning anything are almost never straight; they’re wiggly at best and a big a** tangle from time to time.
I also dabble. This month I might take on permaculture, but next month I might play around with looming. Career-wise, I started in a super restrained corporate law environment, and now I help in super loosey-goosey design impact.
My routes for learning anything are almost never straight; they’re wiggly at best and a big a** tangle from time to time.
For me, this is how I learn. For others, it’s weird. More accurately, it’s inefficient. People suggest I read what I need to know and move on. If the problem is a strategy problem, why read about birds? Read about strategy. Actually, read about strategy and be able to strictly apply some model to the challenge.
There’s always been this really uncomfortable tension, but the read and apply model as a default never made sense to me. We’re animals within a natural ecosystem that has existed far longer than we have. Why wouldn’t I look to nature? And why would I apply the model of someone that’s never been in the position my clients and communities are in? Do I really need a specific logic model to think through what it feels like to have your water cut off? Or being unable to buy a car?
Because of the tension, and not being in the majority, I’ve always felt some kind of way about this conflict. I knew it was me but was it “right“?
Then I read Range by David Epstein.
Not only is this way of thinking a thing, but it’s incredibly advantageous. In his not too short but not too long read, David Epstein targets the specialization myth. The (VERY Western) belief that you need to choose a profession and just hammer at it, getting as deep and credentialed knowledge as you can. He illustrates the time old myth by talking about Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. Both are indisputably some of the greatest male athletes of their time. One started his sport seriously at 3…the other in his late teens to twenties. One focused solely on golf, the other played several sports…well.
Convention would have told a Federer he started too late and was too lax, but that opinion clearly would have been incorrect.
What Esptein breaks down is that all too often we see the world as simple, when it’s really complex (or in design terms “wicked’). I’ve been learning about wicked environments in adaptive change work I’m doing, and what I’ve learned is you can’t approach wicked problems with the expert model. Wicked problems change. They evolve. They’re not the same each time they present themselves. Wicked problems require agility and the ability to think differently. In otherwords, the ability to absorb and translate.
BOOM.
I cannot put into words how meaningful reading this book has been for me. It’s validated something I’ve known all of my life. Something I try to communicate to all of my clients.
There’s room for our special kind of special.
For me, one of my special kind of specials is that I’m what one interviewee calls a “T”. I’m not particularly interested in hammering away at a niche challenge for decades. To me, that’s not how communities work and it’s not how my mind works (in the book the deep knowledge approach is called an “I”).
I would much rather learn enough broadly across domains and synthesize. I find new ways to approach old problems or approach new problems using old technology in novel ways. Now, I realize I do this because I don’t see knowledge as an end but rather a means.
Epstein also puts language around the issue I’ve always had with the concept of grit; namely that it can come at the expense of emotional intelligence and authenticity. That I can quickly pick up and let go of something doesn’t mean I don’t have grit. Perseverance is not an issue for me, that much I can tell you.
What it does mean is that I continue to cultivate enough confidence, security, intuition, and sense of worth that when ion’t (I don’t in formal parlance) want to do something, I’m not going to do it. The negative messaging that can get attached to grit can cause us to forgo our curiosity for the sake of looking naive or capricious. Or forgo new opportunities that may not be long term. Neither of these are my ministry.
Epstein also puts language around the issue I’ve always had with the concept of grit; namely that it can come at the expense of emotional intelligence and authenticity. That I can quickly pick up and let go of something doesn’t mean I don’t have grit. Perseverance is not an issue for me, that much I can tell you.
What it does mean is that I continue to cultivate enough confidence, security, intuition, and sense of worth that when ion’t (I don’t in formal parlance) want to do something, I’m not going to do it. The negative messaging that can get attached to grit can cause us to forgo our curiosity for the sake of looking naive or capricious. Or forgo new opportunities that may not be long term. Neither of these are my ministry.
Epstein also salves the wounds some of us suffer (from society and self-inflicted) when we move a bit more slowly and less linearly.
I’ll never forget the day I was told I was a late-bloomer. The last thing a recovering perfectionist, Type A, quintessential overachieving eldest wants to hear is that they’re late anything…let along blooming.
I’ll never forget the day I was told I was a late-bloomer. The last thing a recovering perfectionist, Type A, quintessential overachieving eldest wants to hear is that they’re late anything…let along blooming.
In reading this book what I’ve come to realize is I move slowly; that much is true. I take my time. I immerse. I go deep, then surface, then deep again. To the outside world, this can look inefficient, or even late. That is until I catch my stride. Then there’s no catching me.
I’m not going to spoil much of the book, but if you’re someone who rejects that “expert” is the only approach to learning and solving the world’s challenges I highly recommend you read the book. It gave me so much language I didn’t have, case-studies to support what I’ve felt, and a better sense of how to work with the way my mind operates.
And if you too have taken a different approach to your journey, I’ll leave you with these words that were the most meaningful for me, “Don’t feel behind.”