I just had the opportunity to listen to the authors of Freakonomics. During a Q&A session Dr Levitt, the economist of the duo, elaborated on how he became an economist even though his math skills were less than legendary (His high school, math teacher remembered him as one of the few who had scored a 2 on the Calculus AP test).
He told of a turning point in his life when he returned home after his first little bit of doctorate work at MIT just having passed his classes and was reconsidering his future. He shared his concerns with his father who was a medical researcher. His father told him of a similar situation he had experienced when going to school. His father’s mentor called him into the office and told him he wasn’t a medical researcher and the only way he was going to be successful was to find an area of medicine that had little to no field knowledge available.
So he took it to heart and became the world’s foremost expert on intestinal gas. (GQ would later a cover story on him) So Dr. Levitt after hearing his father’s “only inspiring story” returned and focused on obscure and benign research that nobody else wanted to do. Eventually, he would go on to win the John Bates Clark, the equivalent of a Junior Nobel Prize for his research.
It reminded me of the power of finding a niche. Become the best at something and then like Dr. Levitt’s partner, the journalist, find a way to connect others that can benefit from your expertise and ba-da-boom: bestseller! Their new book Super Freakonomics looks to capitalize on that winning formula again.
