Bill Gates' 2020 blockbuster recommendation "The Frontiers of Growth": Proscis and Generalists

When I was a child, I often heard my parents say that as long as you are proficient in a craft, you can eat for a lifetime; later, the teacher told us that to read a lot of books and be versatile, you are a child with strong comprehensive ability.

Is it a field of learning to become a professional, or is it good at all fields and becoming a generalist to develop better?

The book "The Boundaries of Growth" tells us the answer. The author of the book is David Epstein, a New York Times No.1 bestselling author. He studied the real cases of first-class successful people in various fields in the world and found an interesting phenomenon: "generalists" have more possibilities of success than "professionals", and exploration across the scope of ability will be the key to the future era of decisive diversification.

This book tells us that generalists have more opportunities than specialized talents, broaden their multi-field knowledge to develop themselves, and find a suitable path for their own development. There is no limit to life, and the future can be expected.

Growth does not set boundaries The future can only be expected

01. Does the child who wins at the starting line have to run to the finish line first?

Children want to win at the starting line, this widely circulated parenting golden sentence, how many parents have ardent hope for their children.

Parents prematurely plan blueprints and pave the runway for their children.

The media has reported the story of such a "prodigy": in order not to let her child lose on the starting line, a mother in Wuhan spent 120,000 yuan to enroll her child in a training class in 5 years, and the child completed the second grade of primary school at the age of 5. The child's grades were very good in the first grade, but in the second grade, Xiao Jie's grades began to decline, from the top student in the class to a middle student, and gradually, he began to tire of school and wandered in class. Before the third grade, there were many people.

"The Boundaries of Growth" tells us that winning at the starting line is not the same as running to the finish line first. Anything is possible.

Under the guidance of professional teachers, these children initially achieved excellent results. However, in the long run, there was a bottleneck period very early, and the subsequent results were not very satisfactory.

Therefore, the so-called "winning at the starting line" may be a flash in the pan. The so-called ten-year tree, a hundred-year-old tree man. Life is not a 100-meter sprint, but a marathon. Children who win at the starting line do not necessarily run to the finish line first.

What you want to teach your child is not the closed skill of temporarily leading, but the open advantage of a lifetime. Children should be exposed to broader learning, and they should go further in finding the areas they are best at.

02. Broaden the breadth of knowledge and find the best match

There is a saying that the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the ocean line of curiosity.

Broaden the breadth of knowledge, find the choice that you are most suitable for, and deepen your cultivation on the basis of erudition, and you will go further.

"Xidan Girl" Ren Yueli once appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala for singing, and became famous in one fell swoop. After that, walk around the various areas for commercial performances.

She realized her dream of becoming a singer, but it did not prevent her from realizing her dream of becoming an entrepreneur across the industry. With the aura of a singer, she has continuously polished herself in a wide range of knowledge fields, opened her own new channels, started her own toothpaste business, and has now become worth more than 100 million, standing in new York Times Square as a female entrepreneur.

Chen Yu, who is also a strange talent in the field of music, not only has his singing voice liked by everyone, but also a composer and lyricist. At the same time, many musicians like him usually master multiple instruments instead of specializing in one.

Outstanding talents are not only a kind of position itself, such as Andy Lau, who spans the fields of music and film and television, but also has the talent of singer, lyricist, actor and producer.

Everyone is unique in their own right, reading a lot of books, broadening the breadth of knowledge, and finding the best match in the field. There is no limit to growth, in order to achieve one goal after another in your life.

03. Growth does not set boundaries, the future can be expected

Tolstoy once wrote in War and Peace: "His eyes were always fixed on the whole manor, not on a particular department of the manor ... As a result, Nikolai's agricultural operations have achieved the most brilliant achievements. ”

If a person wants to achieve a goal, it is not enough to rely on refinement and the content of the goal.

To put it simply, if you want to master an English major, you not only need to use English listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating freely, but also need to learn the background and cultural literacy of cultural knowledge, including Western literature and cultural knowledge. Only with this knowledge as a foundation can you truly internalize the English language.

A simple discipline requires broadening the breadth of knowledge in order for a profession to be proficient. What's more, to become a professional in a field, it is inseparable from the accumulation of knowledge.

Darwin's great theory of biological evolution is inseparable from his curiosity about the breadth of knowledge. His theories have had a non-negligible influence on the development of anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.

Jobs, the "father of Apple," also said that apple computers' beautiful fonts benefit from the calligraphy classes he audited at the university.

Best-selling author Meng Zhang, she is often asked that you are an expert in time management, but you know a lot about brand building, business models and nutrition theories. The off-duty gas station founded by Zhang Meng is to consult and learn from big names in various fields and broaden their knowledge fields.

I once heard such a saying that this person has eighteen martial arts and is proficient in all kinds, that is, the representative of generalists. Accumulating experience in different fields will not only effectively improve your creativity, but also serve you in each field of knowledge you learn.

In times of rapid change, it is more important than deliberate practice to deliberately try, which makes you feel bypassed and thick and thin. Cross-border is for better lifelong growth. Growth does not set boundaries, the future can be expected.

Write at the end:

In the book "The Boundaries of Growth", spanning sports, education, music, astronomy, art and medicine, etc., a large number of celebrity cases are listed, and the pace of generalists who are more adapted to the continuous development of society is deeply analyzed.

It is difficult for a professional to replace a generalist, and there is a specialization in the art industry, which can make you achieve excellent results. But touch bypass can enrich your different lives.

We need to forge ourselves into a multifunctional Swiss Army knife and continuously expand the scope of our capabilities with cross-borders – growth has no boundaries, and the future is not as far as possible.