The systems that build star performers

"If you were asked to build a future bestselling author, how would you go about it? Chances are, you'd start young, scouting for early signs of promise. You'd probably reinforce that raw talent right away, sending your protégé to writing workshops and private tutors. You might line their shelves with Pulitzer winners, assign the classics, fast-track an English degree - tracing a path right up to the gates of publishing."

"If you're a fan of tidy origin stories, that's your ending: STEM graduate discovers his true calling, becoming a star reporter and a bestselling author. Roll credits. We like that reading because it lets us keep our favorite myths about success intact. Epstein might have wasted his talents, we think, had he not figured out his real path before the clock ran out."

Conventional strategies for creating a bestselling author emphasize early talent development, workshops, tutors, canonical reading, and formal degrees. David Epstein began his career as an environmental scientist studying warming permafrost and monitoring carbon emissions, then shifted into sports journalism and rose rapidly at Sports Illustrated before writing a bestselling book, The Sports Gene. Scientific training furnished observational discipline, analytic methods, and an outsider point of view that proved valuable in reporting. Moving skills and practices from one milieu to another can make ordinary approaches seem inventive and yield advantages that linear origin myths overlook.

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