DECEMBER 23 — If you’re pushing your child to become an expert (badminton, chess, studies etc.) before he or she is even able to vote, you may want to think again?
A massive new study (by Arne Güllich et al, see Biblio) dug into the lives of over 34,000 elite performers (Nobel Laureates, renowned classical music composers, Olympic champs, etc), and the findings suggest that early specialisation could be a trap as the road to greatness is long and varied.
The true world-beaters climb slowly, steadily. And crucially, they spend their early years dabbling widely, dipping into multiple sports, subjects, instruments — building what you might call a rich “learning capital” that compounds beautifully over decades.
David Epstein called this range. Think generalist, multiple domain learning and wide interests.
Almost 90 per cent of top young stars never make it to the adult pinnacle. The real champions often go through what the researchers call a “sampling period”: trying this, that, and the other, forging broad foundations while sacrificing quick glory for deeper gains.
They play the long game, plain and simple.
Here are the top two conclusions from the study:
Early exceptional performers and later exceptional performers within a domain are rarely the same individuals. Eg. world top-10 youth chess players and later world top-10 adult chess players are nearly 90 per cent different individuals across time.
I bounced this thesis off Lee Chong Wei’s career. It appears that Lee peaked only at age 27.
He began playing badminton seriously around age 11 and joined the national squad at 17.
His international debut came in 2000 at the Asian Junior Championships and World Junior Championships, where he earned bronze medals — respectable junior-level results, but far from serious dominance.
The rest, as we know, is history with Lee holding the No.1 spot for 349 consecutive weeks between 2008 and 2012.
Across the highest adult performance levels, peak performance is negatively correlated with early performance.
Most top achievers (Nobel Laureates and world-class musicians, athletes, etc) demonstrated lower performance than many peers during their early years.
Do names like Michael Jordan and Didier Drogba sound familiar? The first was cut from his high school varsity team (apparently for being too short and raw!) and the second only debuted professionally at 21 before making his big Chelsea move at 26.
Another key name is Dennis Rodman who was short and cut from teams in high school, worked janitor jobs, and drafted only at 23.
Across high levels of adult performance, world-class performance in a domain is associated with smaller amounts of discipline-specific practice, larger amounts of early multi-disciplinary practice.
This is the non-sexy way of saying that world-class adult performers had a lot of range and flexibility during their early years.
Specialisation shouldn’t be forced from Day One; it should emerge naturally after plenty of exploration with this adaptability (almost polymathic vibe) for learning visible throughout.
And this isn’t just about athletics. Nobel Laureates, for instance, are way more likely to have quirky artistic hobbies compared to lesser scientists.
That breadth sparks connections hyper-specialists simply miss. Innovation — in science, art, wherever — thrives at the messy intersections of fields.
Eg. Max Planck founded quantum theory but was also an accomplished pianist who composed music and played seriously throughout his life.
Richard Feynmann, also a quantum physics expert, painted and cracked safes as personal hobbies.
Herbert Simon pioneered artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and decision-making theory but also played the piano, composed, painted, and played chess enthusiastically.
On the other hand, Güllich et al’s conclusion isn’t infallible. I’m thinking of people like Magnus Carlsen who was kicking serious ass in chess even before puberty and Diego Maradona who was already recognised as a child prodigy with a ball.
Still, a 34,000 sample size is formidable. If nothing else, no need to freak out if our kids aren’t dominating the class or the field young.
Let them wander into unrelated pursuits. Prioritise long-term growth over shiny short-term bling.
Cultivate joy, curiosity, grit, that inner fire. Playing the long game demands patience, sure. It means resisting the greed for instant results, the delusion of quick fixes and a shiny perfect3 report card.
If the data’s anything to go by, that’s exactly where the real wins lie.
Bibliography
Güllich, A., Barth, M., Hambrick, D. Z., & Macnamara, B. N. (2025). Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance. Science, 390 (6779), eadt7790.
Epstein, D. (2021). Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world. Penguin.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
