![\"\"](\"http:\/\/daveenglish.com\/peak-anders.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt\u2019s written by Anders Ericsson<\/a>, the lead psychology researcher who’s spent his career studying how humans acquire expertise, and Robert Pool,<\/a> a science writer. How the good become great. It was his research that Malcolm Gladwell used in his popular (and not quite right) \u201c10,000 hour rule\u201d in the book Outliers<\/a><\/em>. Now, Anders Ericsson is not as good a writer as Gladwell, but he paired up with an experienced science author to produce something much better than Gladwell: The distillation of a lifetime of fascinating research. It\u2019s first person, first rate. Smooth clear English. Logically arranged, a complete whole with no odd dangling bits, and an effortless glide of a read. I\u2019ve studied his tome\u00a0The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance<\/em><\/a>, which<\/span>\u00a0for psychology students is awesome, but it\u2019s hard to get the big picture and real perspective that Anders and Pool now give us in this book.<\/p>\n The overriding theme is great performance is not talent. It’s work. Anybody can be great.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one has ever managed to figure out how to identify people with ‘innate talent.’ No one has ever found a gene variant that predicts superior performance in one area of another, and no one has ever come up with a way to, say, test young children and identify which among them will become the best athletes or the best mathematicians or the best doctors or the best musicians.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He goes on to explain exactly how they do get great. It’s ‘deliberate practice’, and he carefully explains what that entails. Along the way we explore chess, tone deaf bad singers, memorizing long strings of numbers, Top Gun fighter weapons school, scrabble, ballet, Olympic swimmers, surgical procedures, savants, child prodigies, the Beatles, the Dan Plan, high jumper Donald Thomas, and Dogbert. It’s very cool. And it’s all fully referenced to academic research papers.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing the same thing over and over again in exactly the same way is not a recipe for improvement; it is a recipe for stagnation and gradual decline.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI can report with confidence that I have never found a convincing case for anyone developing extraordinary abilities without intense, extended practice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, the ‘all deliberative practice no talent’ idea has received some blow back. Including serious papers in leading psychology journals. This book is better for the academic push back, this is a great time for Anders to write this guide, as it has helped clearly define what deliberative practice is, and isn’t. It’s all in the book. With no filler about his personal life, or ego trips, or strange side avenues. The book is tight. Clear. Smooth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important lesson they gleaned from their teachers is the ability to improve on their own. As part of their training, their teachers helped them develop mental representations that they could use to monitor their own performances, figure out what needs improving, and come up with ways to realize that improvement.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cOne of the hallmarks of expert performers is that even once they become one of the best at what they do, they still constantly strive to improve their practice techniques and to get better.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The conclusions are powerful. We really can do (most) anything. If we know how to practice. But it requires disciplined practice. Lots of disciplined practice. And it might not be enjoyable.<\/p>\n \u201cAt it\u2019s core, deliberate practice is a lonely pursuit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Still. If you want to be really good at something you can. And being really good at something can be very rewarding. I just need to browse books on motivation now!<\/p>\n \u201cDoing the same thing over and over again in exactly the same way is not a recipe for improvement; it is a recipe for stagnation and gradual decline.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cTo date, we have found no limitations to the improvements that can be made with particular types of practice. As training techniques are improved and new heights of achievement are discovered, people in every area of human endeavor are constantly finding ways to get better, the raise the bar on what was thought to be possible, and there is no sign that this will stop. The horizons of human potential are expanding with each new generation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I heartily recommend this book for anyone serious about becoming a great pilot.<\/p>\n (All quotes from\u00a0Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise<\/em>, by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool<\/a>\u00a0. To be published by\u00a0Eamon Dolan\/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on 5 April, 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are loads of self-help books. Boat loads, as they say. Some are good. Most are not. This new book\u2014part self-help, part popular science\u2014won\u2019t help you lose weight or find inner peace; but if you want to learn to fly, or get better at piloting, or be the best pilot in the world in some airplane or mission\u2014this is the best book you will read this year. It\u2019s written by Anders Ericsson, the lead psychology researcher who’s spent his career studying how humans acquire expertise, and Robert Pool, a science writer. How the good become great. It was his research … Continue reading Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[22,45,58,46,40,59],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-book","tag-mastery","tag-mindset","tag-perpetual-pursuit","tag-practice","tag-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Citibank](\"http:\/\/innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/citi-talent.jpg\")
![\"Dilbert](\"http:\/\/innerairmanship.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_1895.jpg\")