I finally managed to finish reading Range. Took me around 3 months. The book was packed with thought-provoking ideas. I ended up writing multiple blog posts on some of the topics covered by it. This book is definitely in my top 3 best non-fiction books I ever read.

If this was the old me, I would have tried creating a summary capturing every idea from the book but failed to revise the notes ever again cause it would be big and boring. Equipped with my new strategy: One Chapter == One Action, I created a note highlighting the specific lessons I can/should implement.

I am now filtering the lessons I learned from Range and summarising them as answers to questions. That’s what I felt reading this book: it answered many questions I had in my mind.

Here are the 4 questions the books helped me find answers for.

Is It Too Late To Start?

In a world where so many young prodigies get highlighted in the media, it can easily feel like we are already late to the party. How can we be great at something if we didn’t start it when we were 5 years old?

But the reality is, late bloomers or late specialists are more common than the media portrays. That is because the world is a wicked environment and its problems can’t be solved with simple repeated deliberate practice.

Head start provides advantage in kind environments, but in wicked environments, it’s never too late to start.

Is It OK To Switch Career?

After spending 5 years at Medical School, does it really make sense to give up your career as a Doctor and become something else? The Sunken Cost Fallacy keeps us attached to goals we have committed to already. However, the goal we set years ago might not be relevant anymore. People change with experience, so maybe there is a better fit for you.

The book talks about trying out different domains to “flirt with your possible self”. You won’t know what you like until you try it. And once you do find something you like, it’s better to switch than be scared and stick to your established life.

Switchers are winners. You switch for better match quality.

Can I Be Successful Without Finding My Purpose?

I already published a post about this based on the lesson learned from the book: Long-Term Goal Setting Could Be Premature Optimisation. The answer is Yes.

Successful people often don’t start with a purpose in mind. A lot of innovation happens without knowing what the end result would be. These people tend to focus on short-term plans that will bring them to the next best promising situation and then pivot again using that as a launching point.

In absence of long term plan, just make short term plans to reach next best promising situation and pivot from there.

Can I Be Successful Without Being An Specialist In A Domain?

The biggest lesson I derived from the book was understanding the importance of Generalists.

People have different tendencies in how they want to learn and solve problems. Some people like going deep and some people like learning broadly. Most of the time, people are a mix. And everyone is important!

While specialists can solve problems in a domain with their deep knowledge, sometimes they get stuck since they lack cross-domain knowledge. That’s where the generalists come in. They combine knowledge across domains (often using analogies) to solve problems. This is called lateral thinking.

Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology – a strategy for generalist.

So it’s absolutely fine to be a Generalist. You can innovate by combining cross-domain knowledge, while specialists will innovate by breaking through the limits of their domain.

Final Thoughts

These are the lessons that resonated with me the most. When you read the book, you might pick up other ideas. I highly recommend reading the book if you are a reader.

Personally, this book has given me a boost in confidence. These questions made me hesitate to start something new or take risks. But now I have answers to all of the questions/doubts below:

• What’s the point? You are too late anyway.
  • I am not. The kind of things I want to do fall under a wicked environment most of the time.
• Are you sure you want to do this? Is this your purpose? Are you fine doing this for the rest of your life?
  • This is not my purpose, but often it’s something new that will help me learn new things which will bring me to the next promising situation.
• You are just becoming a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None“!
  • The real saying goes “Jack of All Trades, Master of None, but often better than Master of One“

Basically, don’t be too uptight about trying new things in life. Try it even if it feels pointless.