Episode 66 – Anders Ericsson Ph.D. M.D. – The Science of Expertise

[00:00:02] Welcome to the Human Experience Podcast. The only podcast designed to fuse your left and right brain hemispheres and feed it the most entertaining and mentally engaging topics on the planet. As we approach our ascent, please make sure your frontal, temporal and occipital lobes are in their full upright position. As you take your seat of consciousness, relax your senses and allow us to take you on a journey. We are the intimate strangers.

[00:00:36] What's up, folks? This is our episode with Dr. Anders Ericsson. In it, we cover a range

[00:00:43] of topics, but mainly we deconstruct, demystify the idea of being a genius. I mean, this is

[00:00:51] so important because I feel like there is this vague representation of what a genius

[00:00:57] is. And we, when in our society, we put it in a place where it's sort of this unreachable

[00:01:03] goal. So what Dr. Erickson's work is doing is kind of giving the power back to the people in that

[00:01:13] we can all do this. We can all become geniuses. We have that gift already innately within us.

[00:01:22] So I think you will truly enjoy this episode. It was really fun to have Dr. Anders on the show

[00:01:30] just to discuss it. The book is called Peak Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.

[00:01:37] Highly recommend this read. Wonderful book. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter,

[00:01:44] both at TheHumanXP. Please make sure that you get there, follow us on Twitter,

[00:01:50] find us on Facebook, give our page a like. If you enjoy what we're doing here, obviously just

[00:01:56] become a member, help us cover server costs. Bandwidth right now is just overloaded. And

[00:02:03] I'm of course paying for that out of my own pocket. So if you guys could just help us cover that,

[00:02:08] I would, I would be sincerely thankful, but otherwise this was such a fantastic episode.

[00:02:15] And I just felt so passionate about this work. I had to bring Dr. Anders on to the show and just

[00:02:21] really, really dig into, you know, what makes people so good at what they're doing? How do we

[00:02:27] figure out, you know, what, what makes a genius a genius? So I think you guys will really enjoy

[00:02:32] this episode and thank you so much for listening. The human experience is studying the science of

[00:02:47] expertise with our guest, Mr. Anders Ericsson. Anders, my good sir, welcome to HXP.

[00:02:55] My pleasure to be talking to you.

[00:02:57] So Anders, the book we are talking about is Peak, the book that you wrote with your co-author,

[00:03:05] Robert Poole. I found this book amazing. I found an article actually that you wrote

[00:03:14] and I read it and I knew that I just wanted to bring you on to the show.

[00:03:18] But we'll get into the book.

[00:03:20] We're going to get there.

[00:03:21] I kind of want you to, how did you become, I mean, how did you get into studying this

[00:03:31] expert kind of, how did you get into studying experts?

[00:03:36] Well, you know, it's like most things in life, you know, there are kind of accidents, but

[00:03:43] that goes through almost as far back as I can remember, you know, that I and I know a lot of other people are really interested in,

[00:03:52] you know, what is it that you can do if you really want to be as good as you can be?

[00:03:57] And I think I was brought up in a family that really supported this idea that, you know,

[00:04:03] if you were willing to seek out the right kind of teachers and do the right kind of things,

[00:04:08] there really weren't any things that limited you from being successful.

[00:04:14] And I think, so my real first commitment was when I did my dissertation,

[00:04:20] I started studying problem solving.

[00:04:24] And I did that by having people think out loud while they were solving,

[00:04:28] you know, sort of laboratory type problems.

[00:04:32] And what I found interesting is, you know, the differences in the thoughts,

[00:04:36] and especially you can understand a lot of the differences in people's success in solving problems

[00:04:42] by kind of hearing what they're thinking about as they're trying to solve the problem.

[00:04:48] Right.

[00:04:49] And then I guess the next step here, I was invited to go to the United States

[00:04:54] and kind of apply this methodology and I met a researcher who was interested in the question here of

[00:05:02] can you really increase your short-term memory?

[00:05:06] And so we basically agreed here.

[00:05:08] He was interested in whether you could,

[00:05:10] and I was more interested in what are the differences in the thinking

[00:05:14] that's associated with different performance.

[00:05:17] Your background is in psychology then, right?

[00:05:21] That's correct.

[00:05:22] I actually started out in nuclear physics at the Royal Institute of Technology,

[00:05:26] but eventually I got more interested in psychology at the university,

[00:05:31] so I kind of transferred over.

[00:05:33] Nuclear physics, wow.

[00:05:36] fix my hair. I found this book intriguing from, you know, the different levels and the different

[00:05:43] steps that you go through. First of all, the first kind of thing that you say is that there is no

[00:05:49] gift. Like no one is kind of born with this sort of talent. Am I on track here?

[00:05:56] Exactly. And I think what we're kind of saying is something, you know, very similar to what you

[00:06:02] were saying but slightly more in the scientific flavor where we don't know that there are people

[00:06:08] who exhibit very exceptional performances in any domain that do so without there being kind of a

[00:06:16] training history that would be sufficient to explain how they're able to do that and i guess

[00:06:22] we start out in our book talking about mozark and his ability here of just listening to any kind of

[00:06:28] sound and being able to tell which kind of musical note that was associated basically with that

[00:06:35] sound frequency for the average person these these ideas can be daunting and learning a new language

[00:06:42] and picking up chess i mean i'm an avid i love that you use the chess analogy in your book i'm

[00:06:49] an avid chess player and you know and and the the thinking for me it very much applies because you

[00:06:58] A chess player can walk away from a game and kind of in their mind through memory, they can remember where the board is and where the pieces go.

[00:07:06] Let's talk about that a little bit.

[00:07:09] And I think that's kind of is the key idea that goes through all types of expertise is that you're actually changing your mind and your brain.

[00:07:20] So you basically can actually mentally generate information.

[00:07:26] so you know like some chess players as you were pointing out you know they can play without seeing

[00:07:31] the chessboard so you have one player who sees the chessboard and another one who's looking away

[00:07:36] and a skilled chess player can pretty much play as good a game of chess while they're watching

[00:07:42] you know can't see the chessboard and i think that idea here of that you can see that not just the

[00:07:49] photograph of the chessboard but you can actually analyze it and see opportunities and you can plan

[00:07:56] of moves so you would be able to tell now what is the most, the best move for you in

[00:08:01] a given situation.

[00:08:03] That kind of ability of being able to have that, the mental thoughts and the kind of

[00:08:09] support that you need for that type of planning and reasoning, that I think is the hallmark

[00:08:16] of expertise.

[00:08:16] And what we're claiming here is you're not born with that.

[00:08:20] That is something that you acquire over very extended periods.

[00:08:24] you kind of gradually refine your abilities to get to the highest levels.

[00:08:29] But I mean, don't you think that there are certain genetic factors

[00:08:33] that may give an advantage to some people versus others?

[00:08:38] For me, for example, running this show,

[00:08:40] I mean, I have a voice that is kind of easy to listen to through the radio.

[00:08:47] I mean, doesn't that give me sort of an advantage

[00:08:49] versus someone who doesn't have a voice that is suited for radio?

[00:08:54] would respond to that is that when we've looked here at performances and i think when it comes to

[00:09:00] being a good host for a radio show i guess there aren't really any established metrics that would

[00:09:07] allow different people to sort of be measured on on that uh performance scale but if we look at

[00:09:13] sports and music and chess and uh i guess we've also looked at professions like you know success

[00:09:21] in surgery, how well your patients are basically the outcome of your patients after a certain

[00:09:30] amount of time, so you can really judge whether somebody removed all the cancerous tissue.

[00:09:35] We actually can't find now what are those limits that would actually exclude some people

[00:09:42] from being successful in these domains, with one exception, and that exception is body

[00:09:49] size.

[00:09:51] Your bone seems to be influenced by a process that you can't influence by training.

[00:09:57] So I guess it's good to be,

[00:09:59] if you're a center in NBA, being very tall is going to be critical.

[00:10:05] If you want to be a world-class gymnast, being very short is actually going to be very advantageous.

[00:10:11] And then there's all sorts of intermediate relations to your body size.

[00:10:18] But when it comes to pinpointing anything else, I'm not saying that it doesn't exist.

[00:10:24] What I am saying is that having searched for it for like 30 years, I've yet to find compelling evidence that some people are born with certain kinds of abilities or characteristics that basically is really critical to their success when it comes to performance.

[00:10:43] Okay, so moving past that, then it comes down to deliberate practice.

[00:10:49] You talk about deliberate practice and purposeful practice.

[00:10:54] Just the idea of putting the practice in, right?

[00:10:59] Right.

[00:11:00] And I think that is probably where I think our book is making a sort of a major contribution or point is that all practice is not equal.

[00:11:11] You know, some people talk about when you go out and play a game of golf, you know, that you're kind of practicing.

[00:11:18] and I guess when you play doubles with your friends

[00:11:22] you're kind of engaged in practice

[00:11:24] and people talk about a doctor diagnosing patients

[00:11:30] that's that sort of practice

[00:11:32] and our point is that most of the time

[00:11:35] when you're actually doing things like that

[00:11:37] you're really not changing your performance

[00:11:40] you're not able to actually improve how well you're doing things

[00:11:43] it's more that you do the same thing

[00:11:46] a little bit less with less effort.

[00:11:50] So like a muscle memory type thing?

[00:11:54] Well, we basically argue that in order to change your behavior, you have to engage in

[00:12:00] what we call purposeful practice.

[00:12:02] So instead of just trying to do as well as you can, you're actually pinpointing something

[00:12:08] in your performance that you can change.

[00:12:11] And this would give an example that I often refer to.

[00:12:16] Assume that you miss in a doubles game a backhand volley.

[00:12:22] Well, the game will just continue.

[00:12:24] Okay, so let's assume that you encounter the same situation the next day.

[00:12:29] Are you going to be more able now to react to that situation?

[00:12:34] And the argument is probably not.

[00:12:37] So if you want to change your backhand volley, if you instead now engage here in purposeful practice, trying to improve your backhand volley, if you have a coach that now can basically allow you to stand there ready to return the backhand volley, and as you now acquired kind of the fundamental correct way of hitting the ball,

[00:13:00] He can then make it more difficult by forcing you to move away from the net and then eventually embed it here in rallies.

[00:13:08] That type of very focused training where you're allowed to do several very similar actions, that is actually effective in changing your performance.

[00:13:20] So much more than basically accumulating more playing time in tennis.

[00:13:27] And you can take that same example and pretty much any activity and basically hone in on one thing and then you develop a training environment that allows you to do this thing and thereby really improve that particular aspect that is then sort of embedded in how you react to future situations.

[00:13:52] Right. I mean, I feel like becoming an expert, becoming world class in what you're doing, I mean, everyone wants that. Everyone kind of strives for that. Or the people who are really driven in whatever regard in what they're doing, they're trying to be the best at it, right?

[00:14:12] So, I mean, what is that one common thing that you found while you were studying these experts that was the common denominator?

[00:14:23] So let's go back to chess where there's actually some really good data on.

[00:14:29] And they've actually interviewed people, chess players, who are playing in tournaments.

[00:14:34] So they have chess ratings.

[00:14:36] And then basically asked the question, what is the kind of activity that you can engage in?

[00:14:41] So if we try to estimate how much you've been doing of this activity, that actually correlates with how good a chess player you are.

[00:14:48] and what they found was that the best kind of or the activity that seems to be most highly

[00:14:57] correlated and actually explains almost half of the variance in chess ratings is the amount of

[00:15:05] time that you spend by yourself studying chess and one way that you can study chess is to you

[00:15:12] know play out master games from books but instead of just looking to see what moves they're making

[00:15:18] you can kind of put yourself in that situation and now try to make the next move and then you

[00:15:26] can immediately see here did you actually pick the move that the master players picked

[00:15:31] and if you didn't you may have to sort of really think through here why would the world-class

[00:15:37] players pick a different move and i guess today you know we have such good uh programs for chess

[00:15:43] playing that you can actually ask the chess program when you're actually playing out a particular uh

[00:15:50] chess game uh and that and you get immediate feedback and that will now lead you to sort of

[00:15:57] question how you actually analyze that situation because if you picked a different move from the

[00:16:02] one that actually is the best move for that particular position, then there's room for

[00:16:07] improvement. And you need to now figure out here why you didn't consider that move and figure out

[00:16:15] how you need to rethink in order to be able to uncover that move when you encounter a similar

[00:16:22] situation in the future. So, I mean, are we talking about a sort of level of heuristic

[00:16:28] learning where you're kind of learning it for yourself or I mean is is that part of what's

[00:16:37] important to this or is I mean you I know that in the book that you say that you need someone

[00:16:43] there teaching you and someone kind of giving you feedback on what you're practicing and how

[00:16:49] you're practicing it right so you need somebody to kind of give you feedback so I guess you know

[00:16:54] when you play chess you know if you lose at the end but you don't necessarily know what kind of

[00:17:00] moves you should have been doing differently during the game to basically have avoided that loss

[00:17:07] so the more that you actually have either a program or a very skilled person actually give

[00:17:14] you immediate feedback as you're doing something like picking a chess move or hitting a chess ball

[00:17:20] where you actually try to place it.

[00:17:25] Then you can get actually that immediate feedback

[00:17:28] and now you can more easily train

[00:17:31] and make changes to your performance

[00:17:33] so you incrementally over time

[00:17:36] making all these gradual changes

[00:17:39] that eventually will now kind of give you

[00:17:42] this expert performance that you desire.

[00:17:46] And I guess our point is that

[00:17:48] much of those changes is really happening in your mind so when you're actually you know returning a

[00:17:56] serve a very skilled tennis player can actually even before the server make contacts with the ball

[00:18:03] start making guesses that are better than chance about where that ball is when going to go okay

[00:18:11] yeah and and and the same thing in other kinds of sports and and even when it comes to teachers

[00:18:18] of the findings is that the best teachers, the teachers that are able to help their students

[00:18:23] improve most during a school year, they are the ones that when they look at a video of

[00:18:29] a class situation, they will be able to pick out potential problems.

[00:18:34] A student who is no longer engaged and may actually now disturb their neighbor or do

[00:18:40] something disruptive so they can actually intercede well before now that student is

[00:18:46] doing something.

[00:18:48] that virtually any human interaction has that element that skilled individuals are able to

[00:18:55] kind of anticipate what's going to happen and can therefore get an advantage over other people

[00:19:01] who lack that skill of anticipating what's going to happen. So it's also a pattern recognition

[00:19:07] that's happening. Right. So basically your previous experience allows you now to kind of

[00:19:14] see the situation in a much richer fashion. So, for example, we know that soccer players,

[00:19:23] because you can't see all the players at once, they actually move their head around. So they have

[00:19:28] a description here where all the players are and where they're kind of heading to. So if you were

[00:19:35] to get the ball, you would now be able to pass it to somebody who would have a much better opportunity

[00:19:41] to do something with a ball because of your, you know, view here of what is going to happen

[00:19:48] and by then, you know, basically taking advantage of that knowledge.

[00:19:53] So it's clearly patterns that you recognize, but it's in some ways more, I would argue,

[00:19:59] like a clear situational description that even allows you now to sort of think about options rather than more instinctively trying to do something that seems right.

[00:20:12] because experts, they seem to actually have that opportunity of reviewing their options

[00:20:19] and thereby, you know, if they make something that doesn't turn out,

[00:20:24] they can actually return to that situation and try to figure out

[00:20:27] what is it that they actually didn't pay attention to

[00:20:30] that would actually explain now why that wasn't a very good option.

[00:20:35] So we're starting to develop a kind of picture of how this happens, I think.

[00:20:42] I want to bring this up because the 10,000-hour rule,

[00:20:48] I think this was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell.

[00:20:53] And Mr. Gladwell, if you hear this, my apologies for what I'm about to say.

[00:20:56] But I think it was parroted by a lot of my friends in the startup industry,

[00:21:04] in the entrepreneurship industry.

[00:21:07] You have to have the 10,000 hours in.

[00:21:10] and it would just make me want to kind of vomit.

[00:21:14] And you kind of changed the thinking on this.

[00:21:21] I think even Mr. Gladwell even put out a retraction on the rule itself

[00:21:29] and that perhaps the data was misinterpreted, right?

[00:21:35] Well, you know, I think there are basically two points.

[00:21:40] that I want to make about Malcolm Gladwell,

[00:21:42] he cited our work on musicians,

[00:21:45] and he basically made the claim

[00:21:48] that there was something magical about 10,000 hours

[00:21:52] because he found that our group,

[00:21:56] now the problem was that it was just the average

[00:21:58] that was 10,000 hours at age 20,

[00:22:01] as opposed to that everyone was above that limit.

[00:22:05] But I guess our point was two things.

[00:22:10] There's no magical hours that are necessary, and it depends on the domain.

[00:22:16] And in fact, if you want to be winning an international piano competition, I guess I estimate that it's more like 25,000 hours that is necessary for somebody to actually win a competition.

[00:22:31] There are other domains where you basically can become world class.

[00:22:35] So in this kind of curious memory task where you remember numbers, we showed that at least when we did the research, we produced somebody who got the world record here for a number of digits that they could memorize when they're presented one per second.

[00:22:55] But that was 400 hours was basically all that was needed to kind of reach that extreme level.

[00:23:04] so I think the point is

[00:23:06] and maybe the most important issue

[00:23:09] that people are not paying attention to

[00:23:12] is it's not hours that you do things

[00:23:15] it's hours where you actually engage

[00:23:17] in this purposeful practice

[00:23:19] where you ideally are working with the teachers

[00:23:22] so then I guess it would meet the criteria

[00:23:24] for the deliberate practice

[00:23:26] so you actually are identifying things

[00:23:29] that you want to change

[00:23:30] and then the teacher is actually helping you

[00:23:33] find out what is the kind of training that would allow you now to make that kind of inching up of

[00:23:39] gradually stretching yourself to a higher level and then once you reach that goal you know you

[00:23:45] look for something else that you can gradually stretch while you're engaging in this purposeful

[00:23:51] practice by doing similar things with immediate feedback where you actually can inch yourself

[00:23:57] to the goal that you set.

[00:24:00] So this idea here that just doing things for 10,000 hours

[00:24:04] does not produce experts.

[00:24:06] And in fact, as I was pointing out here,

[00:24:09] playing 10,000 hours of chess

[00:24:12] is probably not going to get you anywhere close to that.

[00:24:16] And in fact, apart from the initial training

[00:24:21] that you get when you actually start playing chess,

[00:24:23] but once you get to where you're competing in chess tournaments,

[00:24:27] just playing more chess is just more or less that you're executing the same skill.

[00:24:32] You really need to challenge yourself.

[00:24:35] And if you can find ways that you fail, that's an opportunity to improve.

[00:24:40] That's a beautiful segue.

[00:24:42] Perfect.

[00:24:43] Because you talk about comfort zones.

[00:24:47] And I hear this a lot from people who talk about self-help and improving yourself.

[00:24:57] Just growing as a human being, we need to grow or move past where we are comfortable.

[00:25:05] Exactly.

[00:25:06] And I think anybody who has tried to make a change in their habits of some sort, you know, realize that it's so easy to just keep doing what you have been doing.

[00:25:20] But if you want to change it, that's actually going to require you to be consciously aware so you can actually now control your behavior and then gradually gain that new sort of habitual skill that you were really desiring.

[00:25:39] And it's sort of, I guess I often mention, if you want to improve the weights that you can lift in a maximal lift, if you keep basically just lifting weights that are very light, it's not going to make a difference.

[00:25:55] So what you really need to do is to push that limit.

[00:25:59] And we talk about in the book here about when you push your limits, you put pressure on your bodily system.

[00:26:08] So actually, the cells will now signal and produce biochemicals because they're being pushed outside of this comfort range.

[00:26:17] And that will then elicit or activate genes that will produce capillaries and do all sorts of physiological adaptations.

[00:26:28] Now, obviously, it's really critical that you don't push that boundary so much that you actually break something.

[00:26:35] So it's a very tenuous, there's this ideal zone where you actually are stimulating this growth,

[00:26:42] but you're not basically putting yourself at risk for breaking something.

[00:26:48] Hmm. You know, I love what you guys are doing because it's just, it demystifies this sort of

[00:26:56] elusive, amorphous, unreachable level of, oh, you're a genius. And in our world, in the way

[00:27:09] things are, there's such a high level of competition and you're constantly competing.

[00:27:17] someone who is just naturally or, you know, whatever it is, a prodigy at something, you just,

[00:27:23] it's almost a sense of defeat. You almost feel defeated, you know, and as an average person,

[00:27:28] you just, you're just like, oh, okay, well, I'll never be able to do that, you know? So,

[00:27:32] what your work has done, I think, is it has demystified it and it has removed this sense of

[00:27:43] enigma from, you know, this idea of becoming an expert, becoming world-class at doing something.

[00:27:51] Well, thank you so much. I think that's a terrific summary. And what I would argue that a lot of

[00:27:58] people have talked about that you can improve. What I'm hoping that our book is doing is providing

[00:28:03] additional information now on the path that other people have taken who actually reached a higher

[00:28:09] level of performance. And I guess what we're finding, the more research we're doing, we're not

[00:28:14] finding these people who, you know, just discover their gifts. And in fact, I think it's a very

[00:28:21] counterproductive view that a lot of college students and other people have, that they kind

[00:28:27] of go around sniffing at different activities, hoping that they will find their gift. And I guess

[00:28:33] what Robert and I talk about in the, especially in the last chapter of the book, you know, is this

[00:28:39] You're the creator of your own performance.

[00:28:43] You're actually creating your own gifts by engaging now in the kind of training activities that will then allow you to actually be able to do the things you want to do.

[00:28:54] So it's really key here to kind of start your quest here towards doing something.

[00:29:00] I mean, you can always change and do something else, but just basically being there waiting for you to discover something that, I guess, from the evidence that we have, just doesn't exist, is a very unproductive way of spending your college years.

[00:29:18] it's it's interesting i mean it i mean when we think about when we think about someone who's

[00:29:24] attempting to reach this peak level of performance and everything that they have to do to get to that

[00:29:30] point i mean where would you say you know through the research you've done and the people you've

[00:29:36] studied where would you say the biggest stumbling block is for a person well i personally think that

[00:29:45] one of the issues is this conception here that you know you're starting to

[00:29:50] doubt yourself and that you should be doing something else now there obviously

[00:29:56] are domains that are so highly competitive that

[00:30:00] you know, even if everyone was equally able to succeed,

[00:30:05] you know, there would be a low probability here

[00:30:08] that you would be one of them.

[00:30:10] But I think in general, I believe how parents

[00:30:14] and other individuals can actually provide you

[00:30:18] with support and help here to, you know,

[00:30:21] and especially by finding the right kind of teacher,

[00:30:24] that's how you can grow.

[00:30:26] And I think the focus should be maybe more on this idea here that you can acquire skills that really allow you now to be independently contributing to basically all sorts of experiences of yourself and of other people.

[00:30:44] So if you're a musician and you can actually produce music that other people will actually be moved by, then you can really do something.

[00:30:56] guess I think acquiring that level of skill and if you end up now finding a path where you can be a

[00:31:03] professional composer or you know musician you know that's great but maybe the focus should be on

[00:31:10] having a lot of people being able to reach that kind of point where they can really assess what

[00:31:18] they're doing and they're sufficiently skilled that they can actually produce things that are

[00:31:22] valued by other people, whether it's by drawing or basically music or basically writing or

[00:31:31] basically thinking through various kinds of problems. So, you produce scientific solutions

[00:31:36] or other types of solutions, but generally giving people those mental tools that allow them to be

[00:31:43] contributors to our society. I think that is probably where I see the more general implications.

[00:31:51] I agree that some people should be given the opportunities here to push the bounds and getting resources so they would be able to do this full time.

[00:32:01] but obviously not all of us can do that.

[00:32:06] And so helping people here to develop these abilities

[00:32:10] in activities involving social interaction

[00:32:15] and other things that they really enjoy,

[00:32:19] I think should be the main goal.

[00:32:21] And then we can see here how some of them,

[00:32:25] some people would be able to give them the time here

[00:32:28] to kind of, you know, be making it full time

[00:32:31] and reaching sort of world or international level.

[00:32:36] Yeah, and I mean, there's many ways that I could take

[00:32:39] kind of this conversation at this moment,

[00:32:41] but I want to bring up the case of Sir Roger Bannister.

[00:32:46] You know who I'm referring to, right?

[00:32:48] I certainly do.

[00:32:49] Okay, so, sir, for anyone listening,

[00:32:52] Sir Roger Bannister, the year is 1954,

[00:32:56] and no one thought that anyone could run a mile in under four minutes.

[00:33:02] And suddenly this guy named Roger Bannister,

[00:33:05] he is able to do it within under four minutes

[00:33:09] and suddenly everyone else is also able to run the mile in under four minutes.

[00:33:16] Where, I mean, what is, Anders, what is, tell me,

[00:33:20] explain to me what is going on in this sort of network of belief

[00:33:25] have when something is impossible when we think something is impossible and then we see someone

[00:33:32] do it accomplish it and then suddenly people are able to do it themselves well and i think

[00:33:39] when it comes especially to motor skills and sports and music what you do see is that there is

[00:33:47] not just a change in how high people can perform but there also is a difference in how people are

[00:33:55] And I guess we kind of associate these changes now in the type of training that you're doing

[00:34:01] and sometimes how early you start training as explanation now how people can actually reach higher levels.

[00:34:09] And I think in the running example, there may be, you know, we had runners, especially long distance runners,

[00:34:18] that were so vastly superior to everyone else.

[00:34:20] But once it became clear, the kind of training that they engaged in, now it was actually something that other people could acquire. And actually, by training in this new way, they were able to reach and even surpass those pioneers.

[00:34:39] but I mean I want to get into the psychological aspect of it because I mean it because there it

[00:34:46] did seem like there was a psychological barrier to this I mean outside of just I mean yes of course

[00:34:53] the the training aspect and working hard for to get to this point yes that that factors in but

[00:35:00] also, if you believe that something is impossible, then it will be that. It will be impossible,

[00:35:09] right? That's certainly true. And I think that actually Bannister, you know, he was,

[00:35:16] you know, a medical doctor. So, he was actually forced to train in a little bit different way

[00:35:23] than many of the other runners who were kind of not basically training to become doctors.

[00:35:30] And I don't know to what extent, you know, basically the need for him to actually get effective training during much shorter time was contributing now to his ability here to actually do this.

[00:35:46] And I think the other issue that I've read was that people were kind of afraid that if they push themselves maximally that they may actually die.

[00:35:58] You know, it was sort of, but I think partly because of his medical training, I think he realized that basically, unless you have a pathological condition, you don't really are able to push yourself so hard that you're going to die from the process.

[00:36:15] and that may actually have at least been kind of part of the issue that once other people saw here

[00:36:22] that it was possible then those fears here that you would basically exhaust yourself to the point

[00:36:29] that you were going to drop dead you know those were not realistic but I think that's part of what

[00:36:35] the exciting thing is when you're exploring the limits of performance is you don't really know

[00:36:40] what the limits are and I guess what we sometimes find is that the way you get beyond those limits

[00:36:47] is not by kind of pushing them but actually finding now a different way of training that

[00:36:52] actually allows you now to get results without actually you know changing that particular

[00:36:58] constraint it's interesting your answers are intriguing because I mean it's it's not what I

[00:37:05] expect. I mean, you're not saying, oh, okay, well, do it this way, but kind of change. I mean,

[00:37:12] you're not saying change your mentality, change the way that you're training and the way you look

[00:37:17] at training. And am I interpreting that correctly? Yeah, I think you're completely right. And I think

[00:37:23] that idea that training should be a preparation now for you being able now to find ways that you

[00:37:31] can rely on when you're competing. And during training, you can actually explore all sorts of

[00:37:37] possibilities. Because when you're competing, and especially the Olympics, I mean, that's

[00:37:43] a one-time thing, you really need to have prepared so you can give your very best performance. You're

[00:37:50] not trying to change anything during the Olympics. All the training is actually happening before

[00:37:56] you engage in the run. And I think kind of that idea of understanding yourself and experimenting,

[00:38:06] having a trainer and coach that can actually help you see how making that particular change

[00:38:12] will actually improve you somewhat. And once you start looking at the difference between the very

[00:38:19] best runners or athletes, they're minuscule very often. So basically making some small changes

[00:38:28] may actually be sufficient, you know, to allow you to, you know, be a winner as opposed to coming

[00:38:35] in second or third. I mean, so do you think that, do you think that picking, like, for example,

[00:38:41] picking up piano at a late age or something, do you think that that would inhibit the amount of

[00:38:49] or the amount of proficiency versus picking it up while you were 10 or 11 or 15?

[00:38:56] Well, I think there is some evidence suggesting that when you actually compare people as adults,

[00:39:05] you find that there's a different kind of myelinization.

[00:39:11] So basically these fast circuits of the brain,

[00:39:16] that there are areas that are myelinated, which is at least correlated now with an early start of music training.

[00:39:24] And we know from other domains that, for example, ballet, that you have this turnout of your feet for ballet dancers.

[00:39:35] And that is something that you need to actually practice between ages 8 to 12, because that's when the bones calcify.

[00:39:46] But it's not that the joints are more flexible in ballet dancers.

[00:39:52] It's more that the resting position of the feet has actually changed because you've actually pushed

[00:39:59] that development of the joint. And that turns out to be something, changing the joints is not something that you would be able to do as an adult.

[00:40:10] So that is kind of, it's more that you have to catch that period during development when you can actually now get the training changes and adjustments.

[00:40:20] and now how much is basically something that you wouldn't be able to acquire when you're an adult

[00:40:28] you know that's a really interesting question that we're just starting to learn

[00:40:33] in a book we kind of point to for example the cab drivers in london you know memorizing some

[00:40:40] 25 000 streets and their interconnections you know and that all that learning is happening when

[00:40:46] they're adults. So, it's very clear here that, you know, we find all sorts of examples of people

[00:40:54] who can learn tremendous amounts as adults. Now, if you actually put people in, you know,

[00:41:01] in competition, would there be an advantage for somebody who did some training as a young

[00:41:06] individual? Now, that is something that I guess we don't really know. But the potential for learning

[00:41:13] as adults is vastly underrated and and we see all sorts of examples here of people

[00:41:20] you know achieving amazing things as adults um interesting and it it really is i i find this work

[00:41:29] so intriguing just because i you know i personally i i push myself to you know that point that brink

[00:41:37] of madness where I feel like I have to master everything that I do.

[00:41:42] And, you know, but let's make this conversation a little bit practical.

[00:41:46] We've gone through the theory and, you know, what can an average person do to, you know,

[00:41:55] for their everyday lives to get, be better at, you know, something that they're doing

[00:41:59] that they want to get better at doing?

[00:42:02] well uh i i guess uh to be sort of general i think the important thing is to kind of identify

[00:42:09] something that you really care about um so you want to be better at something and and and i guess

[00:42:16] we talk about in the book you know people who uh various ages you know want you know they've been

[00:42:23] playing the guitar for, you know, years and years. But they basically found that they sort of reach

[00:42:31] kind of a plateau. In those cases, I think the ideal is to go to a music teacher who's worked

[00:42:38] especially with people, adults. And that basically seems to just open up doors, because it's very

[00:42:48] hard to know by yourself here what you need to do. But a teacher can actually take a look at what

[00:42:53] do and now actually, you know, kind of create a map for a path that would actually allow

[00:43:00] you now to be able to do things that you thought were impossible.

[00:43:06] Now, there may be domains here where we don't really have available teachers and then our

[00:43:13] recommendation is, you know, identify somebody who is able to do what you would like to do

[00:43:18] and then maybe try to find out some kind of social exchange

[00:43:24] that would allow you now to have this person help you improve

[00:43:29] and share what experiences they had about improving.

[00:43:37] Basically, Freakonomics Radio invited people who wanted to improve various things

[00:43:43] to volunteer to be subjects for some radio shows they were going to be doing.

[00:43:49] And they got like 6,000 responses.

[00:43:54] And now I guess what they're trying to do is to organize this in groups

[00:43:59] of particular skills that people are interested in

[00:44:02] and provide now the opportunity for teachers to connect up with students

[00:44:08] and especially those teachers who have experience of teaching students with a particular background.

[00:44:15] So you would actually be able to point to your students and show, ideally with videotapes,

[00:44:21] how they were able to get from this point to some other point.

[00:44:24] And I think as this is going to happen, hopefully there will be a sharing of that experience and knowledge

[00:44:31] that would allow now people not having to sort of find the path to improvement by themselves,

[00:44:38] but they can actually draw on the successful paths that other people have discovered.

[00:44:44] Yeah, I get that.

[00:44:47] You know, it's interesting because the ideas that we've had through science

[00:44:53] in regards to the brain and neuroplasticity

[00:44:57] and our ability to kind of learn new things and generate new synapses,

[00:45:02] I mean, that paradigm has changed in the last 20 years or so.

[00:45:06] So, I mean, 20 years ago, people, scientists were saying, no, the brain stays a certain way.

[00:45:13] You have a certain amount of brain cells and that's it.

[00:45:15] And that's the way it remains.

[00:45:18] But now, we're talking more about how the brain has this capacity to regrow and continue to learn.

[00:45:30] And, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:45:34] Well, you know, I think it's very interesting that we know that there are these changes.

[00:45:41] But I think personally, I'm more interested in the behavioral implications.

[00:45:45] And I guess I've been looking for limits, you know, things that you really can't change by training.

[00:45:53] And by more or less looking for those limits, what I found is that it's very hard to find hard evidence for limits.

[00:46:01] when I talked to people who were near elite

[00:46:05] and then for various reasons they decided to stop

[00:46:09] it wasn't like they felt that they had hit a ceiling

[00:46:13] it was more that they didn't really see that compared to other people

[00:46:17] of the same age that they weren't very likely here

[00:46:21] to be able to improve sufficiently to be able to

[00:46:25] overcome these individuals that had a higher performance

[00:46:31] But I think the question here about searching for limits, and if there are such limits, I think that would be really helpful.

[00:46:38] And I'm not saying that there aren't any limits.

[00:46:41] What I'm saying is I've yet to find affirmative, hard evidence for those limits.

[00:46:47] And as long as we don't have evidence for those limits, I think we should encourage people to explore.

[00:46:54] And that's what I'm so excited here about people, middle-aged individuals who are now putting in, you know, a couple of hours, maybe every other day, you know, pursuing some skill or some kind of expertise that they always wanted and finding now that, you know, they're able to make achievements here that they kind of thought were impossible.

[00:47:20] Yeah, definitely. I agree. I think that we do need to encourage people to learn new things, especially people who think that they can't or have this idea in their mind that maybe they are too old to do such a thing.

[00:47:39] um in the book you talk about the dark side in of believing in innate talent and what did you i

[00:47:48] mean what did you mean when you were when you were talking about that part in your book well we

[00:47:52] would basically you know if you believe that you can't do things that obviously is the killer here

[00:48:00] it's not going to make you very motivated to engage now and trying to stretch it's sort of

[00:48:06] you know, this kind of sense here that you are, you know, behaving irrationally here,

[00:48:12] trying to do things that it's well known that you will never, ever be able to master.

[00:48:17] And I think that is a really destructive idea. And I think I mentioned similarly, this idea here of

[00:48:25] going around looking for your unique ability, I also think is sort of a destructive. So if you

[00:48:33] use the time by basically finding, you know, a working goal that you want to basically pursue,

[00:48:41] so you find some activity that you want to improve, I believe that you will, as soon as you get to

[00:48:48] that point of being independent, so you can actually evaluate what you're doing and you can

[00:48:53] kind of help yourself keep learning and you can, you know, generate things that other people value,

[00:48:59] now you've kind of gotten the experience here

[00:49:03] what it takes to reach that level

[00:49:05] and I guess what we're hoping is

[00:49:07] that if you can give that experience to children and adolescents

[00:49:11] you know they can draw on that experience in one domain

[00:49:14] and generalize to see here what it really takes

[00:49:18] because if you have the view here that

[00:49:20] if you can't get it without effort

[00:49:23] you know then it's basically wasted time

[00:49:25] then obviously you're going to be limited by that belief

[00:49:29] yeah yeah uh certainly um you know we're we're approaching the end here anders but i i kind of

[00:49:37] want to i want to touch on uh people or just the idea of um being good like i i found myself

[00:49:50] kind of um getting really good at anything that i tried so i would get extremely bored at

[00:50:00] I mean, is there, what's the danger in, you know, either being good at studying or being good at learning things quickly versus having one thing that you are good at and kind of, you know, the master of all trades or, you know, that old saying?

[00:50:24] well i'm i'm a great believer that if you could you know pick at least one area and maybe some

[00:50:32] people can pick a couple of areas where they can really kind of develop uh expertise i think that

[00:50:39] provides sort of meaning and and i think that's one of the nice things at least for me i've always

[00:50:46] felt that, you know, you never reach sort of the limits. And if you even reach kind of the highest

[00:50:54] limits, and I talked to people who, you know, reach world class, now you can basically go one

[00:51:00] step further. So it's basically, you know, you can keep challenging yourself. And I think by

[00:51:08] basically excelling in that, you know, one or two domains, it also provides you with all sorts of

[00:51:14] social opportunities and it provides for a career path where, you know, maybe during the beginning

[00:51:20] here, you're acquiring and you're learning from your teachers and then you become a teacher and

[00:51:25] then eventually you will be kind of a mentor and helping young people by supporting them.

[00:51:33] So it's almost like, you know, you provide sort of an opportunity here where you actually can

[00:51:39] contribute as an individual not just to yourself but to you know your society and make uh you know

[00:51:47] the world a little bit better place uh because i think it is really important here to find a way

[00:51:54] here in which you can link what you're doing uh in the domain of expertise here uh that it really

[00:52:00] has consequences for making things better for other people yeah let's let's definitely hope that

[00:52:07] we are making the world a better place for our children's children and their children.

[00:52:13] I mean, the world seems like a really scary place lately.

[00:52:18] But one last question here, Anders, and we'll start to close.

[00:52:23] But do you believe that IQ is a variable thing?

[00:52:29] Well, you know, IQ is just sort of, I guess, what you get when you test people with a particular

[00:52:35] training procedure.

[00:52:37] What I've found is that IQ is correlated with how well you do in school because it sort of was designed to kind of test your ability to very rapidly understand things.

[00:52:51] and basically, but what we're finding here is that when you look at domains like music,

[00:53:00] Go, and other kind of domains here where people keep improving,

[00:53:05] what we find is that IQ correlates with performance when you're starting.

[00:53:11] Now, this is when you're actually learning kind of the rules and stuff like that.

[00:53:15] But as you're getting better, we find that it seems like the way you're finding now and generating your performance is mediated by things that you've acquired.

[00:53:26] You've actually changed the way your brain is working and how you can actually plan and think about things.

[00:53:32] So at the more skill levels, it doesn't seem that IQ and other general cognitive abilities are correlated with performance.

[00:53:41] It's almost like you've now acquired new structures that are actually responsible for your higher level of performance.

[00:53:51] Yeah. And that's what I really love about what you guys are doing is just you're removing the kind of unreachability, like this sort of idea that, okay, well, some people are geniuses and other people aren't.

[00:54:11] And that, through your work, you're just leveling the playing field.

[00:54:16] And you're saying that with enough practice, with the right practice, with deliberate practice, and with the right guidance, and by putting yourself outside of this sort of comfort area that you're in, you can be just as genius, just as good as some of the world-class performers out there.

[00:54:38] right and and and i think you know this kind of idea here that that people you know really can

[00:54:44] grow and and change and and what i like about the expert performance work is that when people are

[00:54:51] performing you know like in sports and other domains you want to have fair conditions and

[00:54:57] basically somebody who is performing better than other people everyone recognizes well that person

[00:55:03] someone's doing better. And I think that the more that we can actually find ways here of

[00:55:08] using objective performance on tasks that matters, the criterion for, you know, who should basically

[00:55:16] be doing various things. That's, I think, what I'm hoping for. I think a lot of our current system

[00:55:25] is based on this idea that if you're going to be doing well in school, that automatically is

[00:55:33] you're going to be as a doctor or whatever. And I think once you start looking at some of that

[00:55:38] research, the correlation between how good you were doing when you were being trained in medical

[00:55:44] school doesn't seem to be a good predictor of how well you will actually be as a medical doctor.

[00:55:51] So the more that we can basically, you know, emphasize how well people are doing as professionals

[00:55:57] and then see here how we can actually help people, you know, reach that level.

[00:56:02] I think that would be having the chance here of improving outcomes for patients

[00:56:08] and helping other professionals, you know, be able to do a better job that they're assigned to do.

[00:56:17] Yeah, well said, my friend. That's, yeah, well put. I love that.

[00:56:22] You know, Anders, I really appreciate you making the time to be here with us today.

[00:56:27] Where can people find your work, buy your book?

[00:56:31] Well, basically maybe the best place is a website that Robert Poole and his wife has set up, which is peakthebook.com.

[00:56:45] And, you know, Amazon would probably be a good place for a lot of people to find it at a discounted price.

[00:56:53] Yeah, I highly recommend the book to anyone listening. It really does open your eyes to kind of the mystery behind these high-level performers that, you know, for so long have been unreachable.

[00:57:10] And, you know, and the book is, it's a long read. It's not like an overnight book. But in that sense, there's a lot of information in it. And, you know, we had an hour here today. So I definitely recommend people pick up the book and kind of check out the work for themselves.

[00:57:31] Well, thank you so much.

[00:57:33] And, you know, the more that I think people, you know, feel empowered, and one of the greatest compliments that I know is when people say, you know, when I read your book, I actually contacted a teacher.

[00:57:47] And boy, has that made a difference in my life.

[00:57:51] Now, basically, that may not be for everyone, but that idea here of possibilities, we shouldn't rule out anything.

[00:58:00] And when you look carefully at the science, there's very little information that shows that people cannot do things.

[00:58:08] Yeah, beautiful.

[00:58:10] It's so beautiful.

[00:58:11] This is The Human Experience.

[00:58:14] Such a great episode with Anders Ericsson and his co-author Robert Poole, who was not able to be here today.

[00:58:24] The book is called Peak.

[00:58:25] Go pick up a copy.

[00:58:28] we will see you guys

[00:58:30] you will hear from us next week

[00:58:32] thank you guys so much for listening

[00:58:34] Anders my good sir thank you so much for being here

[00:58:36] it was my pleasure