Jodi > Jodi's Quotes

“breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to a situation they’ve never seen before, which is the essence of creativity.”
― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

“Scientists and members of the general public are about equally likely to have artistic hobbies, but scientists inducted into the highest national academies are much more likely to have avocations outside of their vocation. And those who have won the Nobel Prize are more likely still. Compared to other scientists, Nobel laureates are at least twenty-two times more likely to partake as an amateur actor, dancer, magician, or other type of performer. Nationally recognized scientists are much more likely than other scientists to be musicians, sculptors, painters, printmakers, woodworkers, mechanics, electronics tinkerers, glassblowers, poets, or writers, of both fiction and nonfiction. And, again, Nobel laureates are far more likely still.”
― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

“The most successful experts also belong to the wider world.”
― David Epstein, Range : Le règne des généralistes : Pourquoi ils triomphent dans un monde de spécialistes (Business)

“The sampling period is not incidental to the development of great performers—something to be excised in the interest of a head start—it is integral.”
― David Epstein

“Practice that’s spaced out, interleaved with other learning, and varied produces better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility. But these benefits come at a price: when practice is spaced, interleaved, and varied, it requires more effort. You feel the increased effort, but not the benefits the effort produces. Learning feels slower from this kind of practice, and you don’t get the rapid improvements and affirmations you’re accustomed to seeing from massed practice.”
― Peter C. Brown, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

“Desirable difficulties like testing and spacing make knowledge stick. It becomes durable. Desirable difficulties like making connections and interleaving make knowledge flexible, useful for problems that never appeared in training. All slow down learning and make performance suffer, in the short term.”
― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

“Some people might start memorizing root words for the National Spelling Bee and then realize it is not how they want to spend their learning time. That could be a problem of grit, or it could be a decision made in response to match quality information that could not have been gleaned without giving it a try.”
― David Epstein

“ng through difficulty is a competitive advantage for any traveler of a long road, but he suggested that knowing when to quit is such a big strategic advantage that every single person, before undertaking an endeavor, should enumerate conditions under which they should quit. The important trick, he said, is staying attuned to whether switching is simply a failure of perseverance, or astute recognition that better matches are available.”
― David Epstein