David Epstein in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell 

Fascinating conversation. As a former professional ballerina who was “discovered and chosen” at age 5.5, and was “forced” into the exclusive world of elite ballet training, even being banned from doing recreational things such as downhill skiing, and just about anything that could cause injury or undo my intense physical training. Sadly, I not only burned out, but was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at age 20 (I turned professional at age 16). As an adult I have taken the opposite approach, and have worked in a variety of fields including teaching & artistic coaching, medicine, politics, advocacy, human rights, social justice, and Disability Rights. Sadly (?), I never made it to the top of any field I have worked in...🤦🏼‍♀️

What a great combination of brilliance and decency! I am a longtime Malcolm Gladwell fan, and now a new fan of David Epstein’s. I’m looking forward to reading his new book “Range.”

It's amazing how accomodating they both are of each others' ideas even when some are seemingly 180 degrees out of phase. I have read both Outliers and Range and I think both books have their own place in the world. Planet Earth needs more of such a beautiful combination of brilliance and tolerance👌

What a charming intro: their exchange of criticism that birthed their love 😅🥰

they're both so tiny, and brilliant and kind.

They just validated every person with ADHD’s experience ever

The degree of humility these two posses, so rooted, so tolerant, so open..... just wonderful

wow!! amazing interview

Two great authors I follow. Great!

“Presumably you could keep searching, forever” was meant to say, “One can’t keep searching”, and hence what should be the stopping rule. But Epstein responded to the question for himself. Gladwell smiled because even though his question was misunderstood, he was going to get a great answer. 46:08

The audio is really quiet I had to turn volume all the way up, a little bit of audio enhancing would make the quality of this video better. Quick reupload. ;)

this is an interview worth watching once and then go experiment in your life, then come back once more and learn something new.

Beautiful minds ❤️💜🎈

Range is a really good book! I enjoyed it immensely. I'm going to re read it soon.

Range is great book! Just finished it.

Unstructured allows discovery of natural individual skills

In reference to Malcom’s comment people racing a car. I was always amazed at people racing steam engines at the turn of the century. And it seemed to be a spectacle. And a horse racing a train. Am I wrong?

These two men are very well spoken and just as considerate.

This is so phenomenal

So entertaining and witty.

Sir Epstein's talk is very similar to sir Ken Robinson's talk about finding the element. And i love it ❤ And when he mentioned "self regulatory learners are the best learners", unschooled or democratic schooled kids that was mentioned by sir robinsons came to mind.

Not finished watching, but I wanted to get this out before I forget it. As a polymath, I find it really interested that the idea of variety as a key to performance, kind of endearingly naive. Most of society REALLY wants people to stick to "their lane." And those who teach, weirdly resist any other method than the one they use. It'd be great if they just stopped "training bureaucrats" which is what the current system was designed to do.

Never do as they say, study their behavior and do as they do

Isn't this just like the Foxes vs Hedgehog theory

Malcolm Gladwell did a fantastic job in this interview❤

poor audio and too low audio

There are other examples of either model being extremely successful. Mike Tyson was heavy weight champion boxer at 20 years old and unified all belts in succession before he was 24 years old. That's absolutely insane to be the best in the world at something so physically demanding at so young

Burnout is lack of allowing creativity

i hate when people like this are ignorant of the Sudbury Model of K-12

Tim Duncan is another example of an NBA player who specialized later. He was a swimmer with little interest in basketball.

"Know Thyself" means doing the action and the reflection. Without reflection we can't know anything. It's all just superficial data in unruly quantities. So, no, one doesn't know themselves just performing actions, functions; "choosing" an activity or career. It's the result that matters. Looking at the average western human, we don't tend to account for the results of what we do, at least not longer than a few seconds inside the individual bubble.

00:37:10

Null set, best digital computer analysis of biological unknowns, very good result to know. Centaur modelling indicated for FSD...

I vibe with a lot of what David Epstein is saying.

Honestly, I think specialization is relative. The example of the tennis player still involves a type of specialization, given that he played lots of sports from early childhood. He "specialized" in tennis at an age where lots of kids would still be bouncing between soccer, ballet, piano, and math club. Mid teens is still early specialization when career changes and mid and quarter life crises are so common these days - granted, not as early as Tiger Woods, but still earlier than most of the population. But to me, a true generalist would be the musician who also is a math wiz but plays soccer on the weekends or someone who excels in totally unrelated things. But, I guess it could be said that I'm confusing choosing a field with choosing a specialization...?

Malcomb is less analytical but perceptive , brings up a theory will the other digs to prove the theory

Isn't the real problem that the both of you try to argue by anecdote?

I love ur book mr Epstein! Please...talk more slowly..it’s way toooo fast

most beautiful 3:10

*This guy didn't kill himself.*

Soccer and basketball are team sports dependent on teamwork

Both correct ....both athletes practiced excessively

33:50 "they tried throwing money at them and it didn't change anything" Reading that from a job I don't particularly like because it pays 3x as much as anything else I can find. Was it not for the pay I'd have gone after 6 months, lol. What is he on about? Paying people works. You just need to pay more than the others. They probably tried throwing pennies and concluded paying people more doesn't work. No shit.

Tiger Woods is not a happy person ..too much pressure

Serious, professionally trained ballet dancers, of both sexes, need to train hard, early, and exclusively to really “make it” to the top rung in their field. A big reason for this is physicality. Young bodies need to be trained, shaped, and formed from an early age. After age 11 most children’s bodies become harder to shape & correct. How do you react to this idea?

Theory: Gladwell only agreed to this interview to bury the other google results for “Malcolm Gladwell Epstein”

At around 53:00 Malcolm says that women leave higher positions in science because women tend to separate what they enjoy doing vs what they are good at. This overly simplifies a more complicated reality. Women leave in part because the industry is still male-dominated, especially in academia.