Dr. K. Anders Ericsson is the co-author of Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise. He is a Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Stockholm, Sweden and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon. He has worked with a Nobel Prize winner and written extensively on performance and increasing ability. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
Episode Summary: The New Science of Peak Performance with Author Dr. Anders Ericsson
- I am interested in how “I” can do things better
- What happens when someone changes their performance?
- Novice à expert? What changed?
- Started with cognitive memorizing tasks
- Random digit record: currently around 500
- What role do genes play in expertise development?
- At high levels of expertise, we don’t see any correlation between natural ability (genes) and expert performance
- With training, you are building something that allows you to perform at higher levels
- Once you reach the level of automation, improvement declines or ceases
- Doing something for decades doesn’t lead people to improve
- Gifted children start an activity very good, but they reach a point where they need to build skill structures and they start to struggle because they find it much less rewarding
- Naïve practice- engaging in the activity
- Purposeful practice- follow a commitment to improve with immediate feedback
- Deliberate practice- coach or teacher
- Have a teacher that can guide you allows you to reach levels you couldn’t without it
- Coaches help you with pacing- so you don’t burnout or fatigue
- The goal of deliberate practice is not to reach potential but to expand and grow it
- The foundation of the house determines how many stories you can add
- We limit our own potential
- Pushup record: consecutive 8000. Pushups in 24 hours: 20,000
- Malcom Gladwell- Outliers and the 10,000-hour rule
- Gladwell got it wrong- 10,000 hours (alone) does not an expert make
- There is nothing magic about 10,000 hours
- He was right that exception achievement is not created instantaneously
- Intentional and deliberate
- If you are going to put in a lot of time you want to choose something you are interested in
- You can’t improve everything at once
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Additional Items Mentioned
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool
Malcom Gladwell – Outliers: The Story of Success
