The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 147: Anders Ericsson - What Malcolm Gladwell Got Wrong About The 10,000 Hour Rule

Episode Date: August 3, 2016

Episode 147: Anders Ericsson - What Malcolm Gladwell Got Wrong About The 10,000 Hour Rule ANDERS ERICSSON, PhD, is Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University.  He studies expert performance in domains, such as music, chess, medicine, and sports, and how expert performers attain their superior performance by acquiring complex cognitive mechanisms through extended deliberate practice.  He has edited "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" (2006) and "The Development of Professional Expertise" (2009). In the book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell based his "10,000 hour rule" on Ericsson and colleagues's research on musicians. His latest book is titled, "PEAK, Secrets From The New Science of Expertise." Have you ever wanted to learn a language or pick up an instrument, only to become too daunted by the task at hand? Expert performance guru Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. Peak condenses three decades of original research to introduce an incredibly powerful approach to learning that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring a skill. Ericsson's findings have been lauded and debated, but never properly explained. So the idea of expertise still intimidates us — we believe we need innate talent to excel, or think excelling seems prohibitively difficult.  Peak belies both of these notions, proving that almost all of us have the seeds of excellence within us — it's just a question of nurturing them by reducing expertise to a discrete series of attainable practices. Peak offers invaluable, often counter-intuitive, advice on setting goals, getting feedback, identifying patterns, and motivating yourself.  Whether you want to stand out at work, or help your kid achieve academic goals, Ericsson's revolutionary methods will show you how to master nearly anything. Episode 147: Anders Ericsson - What Malcolm Gladwell Got Wrong About The 10,000 Hour Rule Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show "Deliberate or purposeful practice involves practicing alongside a great coach or teacher." In This Episode, You Will Learn: Being really thoughtful and deliberately thinking of ways to get better help you sustain excellence Why it's so important to develop daily habits -- Being aware of the tradeoffs -- Using time wisely The impact of Nobel Prize winner, Herbert Simon -- Anders worked with him for 3 years Impressive listening skills -- How developing your ability to listen will dramatically improve your life He has not found any evidence that shows that people are born successful -- It's learned What does it take to be successful? What exactly Malcolm Gladwell got wrong about the "10,000 Hour" rule It's not just engaging in the domain -- There must be purposeful practice with a coach Always operate on the boundary of what you can and can't do. Why Anders and Malcolm Gladwell do not talk Nature vs. Nurture debate - Family culture and interactions -- How they impact your life A study of quarterbacks and their family backgrounds How do you measure deliberate practice? Creating the gap -- Where you are and where you want to be Keynote speech - Think, Feel, Act -- We want to cover all three and most importantly change how you act The Four Step Process Specific Goal Set Intense Focus Immediate Feedback Frequent Discomfort "Always operate on the boundary of what you can and can't do." Continue Learning: Read: Peak - The New Secrets of Success Read: How To Become an Expert at Anything To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 082: Dan Pink – The Science of Motivation, Legendary Writer & Ted Talk Episode 086: Seth Godin – How To Become Indispensable & Build Your Tribe Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Anders Ericsson on the show, please don't hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell Bio From Amazon.com ANDERS ERICSSON, PhD, is Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University.  He studies expert performance in domains, such as music, chess, medicine, and sports, and how expert performers attain their superior performance by acquiring complex cognitive mechanisms through extended deliberate practice.  He has edited "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" (2006) and "The Development of Professional Expertise" (2009). In the book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell based his "10,000 hour rule" on Ericsson and colleagues's research on musicians. His latest book is titled, "PEAK, Secrets From The New Science of Expertise." Have you ever wanted to learn a language or pick up an instrument, only to become too daunted by the task at hand? Expert performance guru Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. Peak condenses three decades of original research to introduce an incredibly powerful approach to learning that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring a skill. Ericsson's findings have been lauded and debated, but never properly explained. So the idea of expertise still intimidates us — we believe we need innate talent to excel, or think excelling seems prohibitively difficult.  Peak belies both of these notions, proving that almost all of us have the seeds of excellence within us — it's just a question of nurturing them by reducing expertise to a discrete series of attainable practices. Peak offers invaluable, often counterintuitive, advice on setting goals, getting feedback, identifying patterns, and motivating yourself.  Whether you want to stand out at work, or help your kid achieve academic goals, Ericsson's revolutionary methods will show you how to master nearly anything.

Now, that kind of ability to perceive a dynamically changing situation in such a way that you will be able to, when you get the ball, know what to do with it, that seems to be something that is very difficult to acquire. And you even have to be sort of aware that that is something that makes the best players different from the less skilled players, that they're actually able to read what other people are going to be. here maybe a second from now because it's going to take time for you when you get the ball to actually send it somewhere else so it's not enough just knowing where people are when you last looked you're going to actually have an understanding here what's changing are leaders born or are they made our host ryan hawk believes that leaders can be made through determined focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success

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you. I promise you guys will enjoy it. learning leader.com slash website. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here, a special treat tonight. For more than 30 years, psychologist Anders Erickson, an expert on the field of professional development

and inventor of the hotly debated 10,000-hour rule has studied the people who stand out as specialist in their fields. Over time, he's come to understand that we are all capable of extraordinary feats. Malcolm Gladwell made that phrase 10,000 hour rule famous in his book Outliers, and Anders and I discuss specifically what Malcolm got wrong. Few of the other topics we got into. Why you always need to operate on the boundary of what you can do and what you can't do. Then we discussed the classic nature versus nurture debate,

as well as Anders described how we can use deliberate practice to improve our performance, both at home as well as at work. You guys are absolutely going to love this one with Anders Erickson. Anders, this one is a massive thrill for me to be speaking with you because your work has greatly impacted my life. And so first of all, thank you so much for being here on the Learning Leader Show. My pleasure. And my question to get us rolling is around, I have a feeling you're going to have a good answer

over this, but this is around leaders and others who have sustained excellence and continuously improved over the course of their life, really. And you, you know, you've professionally researched people like this. You are one yourself. And I'm curious, what are some of the common virtues or themes you found in the people who've been able to sustain excellence over an extended period of time? Now, most of my experience comes from talking to people who've already reached kind of, you know, a very high level, and then they become sort of people participating in our research. Now, what I would say is striking for anybody who is very successful and can reproduce sort of superior performance is that they're really thoughtful and they're really interesting people who, you know,

very, very clearly, deliberately are trying to figure out ways here to do things better. And they get tremendous satisfaction from kind of reviewing what they have done and basically setting goals for what they are going to be doing. And I also find that, you know, they seem to have worked on developing daily habits that really helps them support, you know, basically them putting, the very best time towards the most difficult and challenging tasks. And, you know, and I think they're also quite aware here of the tradeoffs of basically, you know, using your time wisely and just in general sort of thinking about how they can get better

and also being very generous in sharing that information with other people. they're working with, whether they're students or just people that they interact with. Really interesting. When you think of really thoughtful, interesting people who are deliberate about deliberately thinking of ways to improve, who are the, what's the first, maybe that, who's the first person or two that comes to mind? Well, the person that I spent the most time with who I think everyone would recognize as extremely successful was Herbert Simon. He got the Nobel Prize in economics in 1978. And I was a postdoctoral fellow with him for three years. And we have stayed in contact after basically I left for my job at University of Colorado. He's passed away now. But that's probably

the person that I've been able to see, you know, on a daily basis and being able to have, at least biweekly interactions with, where I got a sense here of how does he think. And basically, he also shared information here about, you know, how he developed some of his habits and some of the thinking that went through his earlier contributions. Did he provide feedback slash coaching to you directly? You know, that's one of the things that stand out to me as being the most compelling characteristic of him. And that is that he actually listened to when you were talking about things.

You know, he was seeing a number of people on a sort of a weekly basis. And I just remember talking to other people who came to visit him that they were so impressed that, you know, he was really listening. and then trying to ask questions that would probe and support this individual's own ideas into becoming something that would be even kind of more substantial and, you know, successful. I, and the reason I brought that up is because obviously we're going to get to more of your work. But first I want to ask for the few people who don't know you at Anders, what when you meet somebody who is first, is meeting. you for the first time and they haven't read anything that you've put out in the world. And they say, hey, oh, nice to meet you, Anders.

What do you do? How do you respond? Well, I tend to tell them, you know, that I'm a university teacher in psychology and that I guess my interest is to study people who are exceptionally successful and trying to understand how they came to be that successful. And I also tend to tell them that, well, we've been finding. now after doing research on this for 30 years is that we don't really find evidence that people are born to be successful, but rather the things that really does seem to make the difference

is what they actually do and how they deliberately change themselves by engaging in very goal-directed practice activities. That has to create some fascinating dinner party conversations, I'd have to think. Whenever you hear of somebody who studies what makes up experts or success and the fact that it's backed with 30 years of research that you've done with your colleagues, I have to believe that you might have some of the most interesting conversations really out there. Well, to tell the truth, I think at least recently what I can remember is having conversations on airplanes where I talk to somebody sitting next to me. And I think it's really interesting. I would say that most people would kind of almost take a step back and say, you know, innate talent, I mean, that must be so really important.

And then we started a discussion here about, you know, what is it that they know that leads them to believe that in a talent really is that critically important? And then I tried to tell them about some of the research. that we've been doing and especially showing that, you know, when you start out at something and show some kind of, you know, that you're better than other kids or adolescents who are just starting out, that that doesn't seem to have any really predictive power for whether you're going to actually become very successful. Because what it really takes to be successful, we can show really reflects something that where the individual has really changed.

So the individual is different from what they used to be when they started. And we attribute that to the kind of training and the kind of practice activity that they have engaged in. So I think when we first started communicating some of the notes that were passed back and forth via email with me as well as your team. you know Malcolm Gladwell's name was brought up and and he a lot of people have read the book Outliers which he is where he suggests that with a certain amount of practice anyone can achieve a level of proficiency that would rival potentially a professional and it was deemed the 10,000 hour rule and others have said you know you are the person credited with inventing the 10,000 hour rule, but, you know, your next piece of work peak, the book I've referenced that I've,

I read that I love, and I would encourage people to read, shares why Malcolm Gladwell's theory and outliers about practicing something for 10,000 hours, mainly, maybe if you think of the Beatles example or others that are in there, practicing something for that many hours, and you can become a professional is actually quite flawed. I love for you here at the beginning to get that, that part cleared up as we dive deeper into why Malcolm's theory in that book is not accurate. And I'm really glad that you stated the rule that way because I think a careful reading of what Michael Gladwell wrote, and I think he's been explicating that in some recent interviews. He wasn't making the claim here that anyone could do it.

I think he's clarified and argued that you really need a lot of talent, but if you have the innate talent, you still basically need that extended period of engaging in the domain. Now, that's kind of different from what we were arguing. We made it very clear that it's not just engaging in the domain, like, for example, the Beatles playing in front of audiences for thousands of hours. We're arguing that in order to get better, you're going to actually have to do something to change how able you are to do something.

And we basically refer to that as purposeful practice or if it's under the supervision of a teacher who has brought other individuals to the level that you want to go to, we call it deliberate practice. But when we're counting hours, we're actually counting the number of hours that musicians were spending by themselves working on tasks that they had been assigned

by their teachers to actually be able to do things that they couldn't do in the beginning of the practice session. So that kind of idea here that you can basically just keep doing what you're doing. So if you're in a job, after 10,000 hours, you magically become an expert is something that we explicitly argue as false. And that when you look at the scientific evidence,

you really don't find that special. spending more time doing the same thing actually will improve your performance when you measure it by objective criteria. So basically you need to always operate on this boundary of what you can and cannot currently do, basically forcing yourself outside of your comfort zone and it's helpful to not only helpful but probably mandatory to have some sort of expert giving you feedback. Is that what you're saying? Exactly. So one of the problems when you want to get better at something is, you know, what is it that you can actually change that will actually improve your performance?

And most people wouldn't know that because, you know, they're trying to do their best. But by having now a teacher that it actually helped other individuals and can draw on, on, you know, 100 years of training experience that have been distilled over the years, you know, that teacher can actually look at you and say, well, with about a couple of weeks of practice, you would be able to actually improve this aspect. And here is kind of the practice activities that you can do, where you can actually monitor how you gradually are getting to the point where you can now start doing things that you couldn't do previously.

So for example, if there's a difficult note combination for a pianist, how to get that to a speed where you would be able to play it now at kind of the preferred rate of playing will require you kind of doing it and making adjustments, and then eventually you will be able to reach that target speed and having the control over your keystores. So you can actually express something musically with, you know, hitting those series of keys. It really makes me think I just, Anders, I just had a really insightful conversation with a guy by the name of Ryan Holiday. And he wrote a book, a couple books, but most recently called Ego as the Enemy. And one of the chapters in the book refers to the fact that the best in the world never stop being a student.

And he specifically refers to Kirk Hammett, who is a guitar player for Metallica. And when he got that role, he earned that job when, you know, most people, they think once you become the league guitar player for Metallica that you've so-called made it. And basically, if you can just kind of hover around where you are, you're going to be solid. But what Kirk did that was different than most is that he hired a coach and not any coach, but Joe Saturani, one of the greatest guitar players in the world, to coach him for two-fold. years after he was already in one of the best rock bands in the world. And it just showed that he understood the importance of deliberate practice and getting direct feedback from a professional. It made me think a lot of your work. Well, thank you. No, no, that is, I think, something that is very consistent among the very top performers. And I think in some ways, part of it is that you want to, you know,

show other people. But I think maybe just as important is your own exploration of actually being able to do things that you haven't been able to do, you know, that is something quite exciting and precious. And as a scientist, I think once you uncover something that is surprising to you, that seems to have some real implications here for what other people can and can't do, You know, that's really exciting when you feel like you're actually the first person doing it. And I think at that highest level, I find that people actually are taking that challenge. And that is one of the reasons that make their life as exciting.

So they can kind of just keep moving that challenge further and further. And I think the example that you gave here of somebody who deliberately takes on a teacher, I mean, that is an extremely nice example that shows, you know, that kind of change. Do you and Malcolm Gladwell talk? I have never been able, been contacted by Michael Gladwell. And I think in some ways, if he had contacted me before his outliers book, we would have been able to make some small adjustments and eliminate, you know, some of the mistakes. but I've never talked to him directly. And I guess my publisher contacted him, but we never really got any replies.

Do you think in some way, though, him creating such a buzz for that phrase, even though it's not accurate, has helped you? Well, I see it as two parts. The one thing that I think is really destructive is that sense. that people almost, and maybe that's the reason why it's so popular, this idea that if you just keep at something for, you know, 10,000 hours or, you know, decades, that you will actually end up as an expert. Because I think not realizing that that's not enough is in some ways really kind of creating problems for individuals who are motivated and might be able to, you know, basically engage here and try. training activities that would really enhance their performance. Now, the other thing I think that he focused in on, which I agree with, is in some ways, this counterintuitive finding that many of the changes that seems to be necessary to reach

the highest level of performance, they take a long time to actually happen. And if you look at some of the research on athletes, when you actually look at the fundamental changes in the capillary supplying blood to muscles, the changes in the diameter of the arteries, the remodeling of the heart, once you start thinking about those as being necessary to actually become a very successful endurance runner, well, then you can actually see here that. why it may take, you know, 10, sometimes 15 years for somebody to actually reach their highest level of performance. So, you know, some would say this is a classic nature versus nurture debate. And, you know, I go back and forth on this because I played, just to give you a little bit background on me, I played all sports growing up, was able to earn a college scholarship to play football and played a little bit professionally after my days in college.

My younger brother did the same thing, but then was drafted in the first round, the NFL draft and has played for 10 seasons in the NFL. Wow. So looking at our family, however, neither of my parents played sports in college a little bit at the high school level. So some would say, though, our genetics had something to do with our success in athletics. I have some other thoughts that maybe I could add to that. But when you see members of the same family, this is obviously not uncommon.

You see brothers or brothers and sisters all the time competing in the Olympics. I was just watching the Olympic trials, and there's triplets, brothers, all three of them competing in the trials here for the United States. So it's not that uncommon to see this from a genetic perspective at helping. Now, obviously, I think some of it has to do with, or a lot of it, you would probably say has to do with the coaching they received and the fact that their parents hopefully did probably did a good job of setting them up to be successful in that regard. When you see it from that side and you hear the nature versus nurture debate, what do you

think? Well, I think that's a really interesting question. And I think what I would argue is that when I've been looking at that evidence, I would kind point to the similarities and how basically there's a family culture of doing things together. And I would assume here that you and perhaps your brother had some interaction or at least that you having the success that you did in some ways allowed your brother maybe to have even better circumstances than you did. And my feeling is that when you actually look at that literature, it's very hard to distinguish.

And I think by taking more seriously what it is that the children are doing before they actually start working with external coaches, you will actually find that there are possible explanations for that development of performance that wouldn't sort of of drawn genetics. And somebody might even say that given that brothers, you know, they're not identical genetically. The fact that you have families that are very successful provides even more evidence that it's the environment and the opportunities generated by that that would explain how so many of them became successful. Yeah, I think it's an interesting point

because you also see the sons and daughters of professional athletes sometimes go on for them to follow in their footsteps, and some of that might have to do with the fact that their parents are experienced in doing that. I want to maybe take a little bit, a lateral view of this. So I was reading this really interesting, and again, Anders, I have an athletic background, so some of this stuff appeals

to me more than others. But you've studied athletes as well. But I was looking, there's this great piece on the MMQB titled How Quarterbacks are Made. I played quarterback, so I'm interested in these types of articles. And I thought it was at least thought-provoking that here are a few stats from this year's NFL draft, and I'd like to get your take on this.

So 13 of the 15 quarterbacks drafted this year, they spent their childhood in two-parent homes and the majority of both of those parents hold a four-year college degree. It's 13 to 15 guys. Also, at some point, prior to high school graduation, 12 of the 15 quarterbacks drafted received individual instruction from a quarterback coach who was not a parent or a team-affiliated coach. So these kids are coming from, for the most part,

the overwhelming majority come from two parent homes and their parents had the means to pay for individualized instruction from a person not affiliated with their team or it wasn't themselves as a parent. So it actually made me feel kind of bad in a way that there are some kids that maybe don't have a chance because they're not, they don't come from means like with parents who are able to provide in that regard. And it shows that that has helped so much. but it also is in line with, I think, deliberate practice, getting feedback from an expert. And it, again, made me think of the research that you've done. Well, I think this is really interesting.

And I would say that in domains like music, swimming, gymnastics, ballet, most of the individuals who really reach the world-class level seem to be starting, you know, at an age somewhere between five and seven, and maybe sometimes earlier than that. So it's very hard to see here that the child is driving the start of practice. It's more that the parents are basically providing these opportunities, and I think you make a great point here about the expense and also about the time that a lot of parents spend driving their child to practice and to competitions and other kinds of things. So I think that is something that people don't even think about that many of the sports

that require that kind of support and early start of training are going to be restricted to those families where the parents have the resources and the motivation to give those opportunities to their children. Yeah, I agree. I think it's just something, I don't know, I think digging down and finding parallels to your research and looking at other areas is important. And there's one of the other parts I like to do.

We talked a little bit briefly before recording some of the aspects and things I like to do on this podcast is to get practical, meaning find ways to implement your work for every single part. person listening to this podcast right now. So I'd like to ask, in some of the ways I do this is maybe I could relate at least initially here to myself. So let's say I want to become Anders the greatest keynote speaker in the world. Let's say I want to be the best of this. This is something I've started taking on probably about nine months ago once my podcast became pretty popular. People started asked me to come speak and get on stage and I didn't have much experience before then but since I

have and I've also received a lot of coaching. I'm curious going to the to the guy himself asking you if I say I want to be bigger than Tony Robbins on stage, what are the specific things you would tell me to do starting right now in order to make that happen? Well, it sounds to me that you've already contacted coaches. And I guess to some extent, it would seem to me that not only finding the way that you're communicating, but also finding a message that people would view as useful to them and hopefully also new to them would be key for basically how they perceive the experience of having heard your keynote.

And I guess I would, you know, I remember when I started teaching, I didn't do as good a job because I actually was brought up in Sweden. So when I started teaching in college here in the United States, I was a different experience and different expectations than I had had in Sweden. But as I kind of got, you know, feeling more comfortable about. about what I was doing, I was now basically asking the students for feedback and also asking them questions here. What was it that they felt that they actually got out

of my lecture and I was actually looking for evidence that I was successful here and lighting some fires? So especially if a student told me that they had gone to the library or gone to the internet to look up, things that I've been talking about in class and found now something that they thought was either interesting or a little bit inconsistent with what I said. To be able to sort of get people to be moved in that way would be sort of the feedback system that I could rely on. Now, I didn't

have access to coaches that would basically give me feedback here on what I was doing. But I also think that it is interesting that the expectations. So Tony Robbins, when people actually come to him, they have expectations. And I think that may be one of the hardest things to be able to acquire where people will have sort of the appropriate expectations. And that's going to influence how they actually view your keynote. So it's not just like you could replicate what he was doing and get the same response. I think there is that dynamics with, as you get more famous, that people's expectations, it's sort of like going to a restaurant that you have great expectations for.

I bet you that some of the things will probably taste better in that environment than if you would have gotten them at a much less sort of elegant restaurant. That's an interesting point. It makes sense about how expectations can change the way people view or feel about whatever they're experiencing, whether it's food or keynote. So what would you, let's say somebody listening works at a job and they want to improve their personal performance at work. So how can they use deliberate practice to improve that performance? No, I would say that the first thing when I talk to people about improvement is, how can you actually measure your current improvement and how can you actually specify the kind of improvement that you would like to have? So it's almost like you need some kind of measurement that would now allow you to actually identify where you are. now and where you would actually want to be.

And I think, actually, as I've been working more now with teacher organizations, I guess the key for a teacher is really being able to help students acquire a certain skill or knowledge in a sort of a more effective way. So if you have somebody who can do that basically more effectively than other teachers, then that teacher would be a better teacher. And I think when it comes to you giving keynotes, how would you actually measure your success? And what is it? Is it fame that basically would be the criteria whether you're successful here in your quest to be a keynote speaker?

Is it basically analyzing the kind of comments or ratings that people who listen to you generate? Or is it basically that you have a message? So now you're more interested in how many of the people listening to you were actually moved to change anything that they were doing. The latter is how I personally would measure it. How would you measure it? Well, personally, I think with respect to the book, when I find somebody who tells me that when they read the book, they started thinking and were actually motivated to go out there and maybe seek out a teacher. that they could actually start working with. Now, that would seem to me to be the highest compliment that our book could get. And I think that thinking through how one would be able to sort of measure something like that.

Now, one issue here with books is I don't know how many more books I'm going to be writing, and especially on this topic. But the idea here is to kind of be clear. so you actually have something to work with when you're actually working backwards. And so I've also worked with psychotherapists, and they're starting to get really interested now in assessing how people feel when they first come to the psychotherapy clinic. And then, you know, basically at which point they actually leave the clinic, you know, what is their state? Have they really improved in what they wanted to improve?

deal with. And now we can actually measure and compare. And some therapists seem to be more able to help their patients improve more than other therapists. So that provides now information here about what the therapists that are less successful might be able to change so they would now become more successful in their treatment of patients. You know, you made me think of some of my good friends that have helped me when it comes to speaking, Anders, and they said at the end of a great keynote, hopefully you've done three things.

And those three things are you've changed the way people think, you change the way people feel, and most importantly, you change the way people act. and I feel like that's what you're saying with your book. If your book has created them to go out and seek out a coach, somebody to provide them with feedback that that's most important to you. Is that accurate? Right, because it seems to me that if you have hope here of helping people, I guess the belief is that for people actually to be more successful, they're going to have to change something that they're doing.

and if you can actually help them making the right decisions here about what they should change, that's really the most successful interaction that you could possibly have and you could maybe even feel that you're working towards making our environment a better place. Oh, completely agree. I think that's what your work has done for so many people, even if maybe, like, you know, I'm going to be completely honest. I came upon your work because of Malcolm Gladwell, though. That's why I did.

I wonder what percentage of people that now that you are well known to came to you because of Malcolm Gladwell? Good question. Now, most of the people that I have contact with, you know, is within academia. So I guess I've been working for 30 years. So many of them I would have known well before Michael Gloucline. that wrote his book. But now, when it comes to the general public, you may be completely right.

Yeah, I mean, I don't mean that in a demeaning way. I just mean that in an honest way of coming about your work in that regard. That's why I mentioned, I think, previously in our conversation that that could have potentially helped get your work in front of more people, even if the original message spread not by you, but by others, was not fully accurate. And in that regard, you have an opportunity to have an impact on more people, which I'm extremely grateful for. And I think that's what is neat sometimes about how the world works is that, you know, you can get your, you can affect change in people, maybe in ways that you didn't think initially was how it would, the vehicle for your message was brought to them differently than you could have expected. And I think people who got interested in this idea of really wanting to improve, that is, I guess, the kind of group that I would love to speak to.

Because I think there is a lot of insights here and a lot of research showing the kinds of changes that are possible if you engage in the right kind of training activities. And what I would want to stress, because I think it's a central theme of our book, is how your experience and what it is that you mentally represent about the situations you're in. And if you actually have a very accurate representation when you're playing basketball, when you get the ball, you're going to be able now to basically pass it or do something with a ball. that it's going to be likely to be very beneficial to your team. Now, that kind of ability to perceive a dynamically changing situation in such a way that you will be able to, when you get the ball, know what to do with it, that seems to be something that is very difficult to acquire. And you even have to be sort of aware that that is something

that makes the best players different from the less skilled players that they're actually able to read what other people are going to be here, maybe a second from now, because it's going to take time for you when you get the ball to actually send it somewhere else. So it's not enough, just knowing where people are when you last looked. You're going to actually have an understanding here what's changing. And we see the same thing when it comes to playing chess,

when it comes to teachers observing a classroom, and being able to spot an individual or a student who is starting to be kind of a little nervous or kind of not able to concentrate on the activity of the class. So you can actually intervene before the student is starting to interact with their neighboring students and now interrupting them. And now you have a bigger problem that will really sort of interfere with your ability here to have the class being productively. focused on what you want to teach them.

It feels to me like a lot of your work coincides with another fantastic professor I just spoke with Dr. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset. Have you worked with her at all? I've met Carol several times and I read her work. And I think in some ways I think our work kind of complement each other. I think the way I understand Carol's work, she's really trying to ask the question here, can you improve? And the fact that if you believe that you can and actually you pursue ways here to kind of persist and basically work on your goals, you're going to be much more successful than if you think that you can't.

I think, at least I like to believe that we're really trying to get down closer to the mechanisms about what is it that you actually need to be able to do. And how would you be able to, you know, for example, with the help of a teacher, guide you towards now becoming good because that teacher has guided a lot of other individuals like yourself. So they know the kind of specific training. And it's not sufficient just for somebody to want to get better because I think there's a lot of examples of people wanting to get better, but not having the knowledge about what is it that they can change and how do you actually sequence those efforts to change. So you're really building up that kind of representation that the expert has

that will actually then eventually elevate your performance substantially. I took a few notes from a more than a few. When it comes to becoming an expert, developing mastery, as maybe Robert Green, or you would say, a few of the, here's four parts. And I know this is, I'm just kind of regurgitating your work, but I wanted to share this with you and have you then follow up on it. The four things. Set a specific goal. Have intense focus. Receive immediate feedback.

And then put yourselves in situations to be frequently uncomfortable pushing outside of your comfort zone. As I said earlier, operating on the boundary of what you can and cannot do. You know, that's a very, very nice summary. And the one thing that I would want to point out, is that when people try to become better at what they're doing on the job,

one of the problems is that they will encounter one situation, and that basically will now be dealt with, and you may reflect on it, but you really don't have that opportunity of actually changing so you can actually build up your skills to handle a similar situation, because that situation may not happen for an understanding, couple of weeks. So what we're arguing is that purposeful practice, you're actually defining now a training environment where you will be able to get sort of one trial after the next. So if you

make a mistake on one test, for example, a diagnosis of a chest or a mammogram, and if you make a mistake on that, then you will get another similar mammogram if you've actually created now a library of mammograms where you actually know if they were cancers or not. So this idea here of being able to help people getting similar kind of tasks so they can actually keep repeating and actually get immediate feedback, that seems to be so powerful in actually improving performance in a way that just being on the job and encountering new situations will not. I love it, Anders.

This is, as I mentioned, it's been an absolute thrill. You don't often always get to talk to some of your literary heroes and you've given me that opportunity. So thank you so much. I have a question. When you originally saw that my podcast was called The Learning Leader Show, what was the first thought that came to mind? Well, I think I probably, you know, a little bit egocentricly was thinking about sort of being a

leader helping learning, but I can see that it could also be, you know, referring to learning by the leader. But I think either way, I think the leader, in my view, is a person. who is actually able to get all the people in their unit to perform at a higher level than somebody else might. So basically the way you evaluate a leader, I think, is by evaluating the ability and the productivity of the group that they're leading. And if a leader can actually help individuals perform better, that will actually be helping everyone. And that includes guiding individuals to learn more and thereby be able to perform at a higher level or producing more quality products. So that's a little bit what I was associating.

Oh, interesting. I love it, man. I really appreciate it. And again, this has been a thrill for me. Where would you send our listeners to learn more about you online? Well, there is a website that my co-author, Robert Poole, is organizing, and it's basically the website's name is Peek the Book in one, basically, dot com, and there you will find some links and information.

Perfect. P-E-A-K-T-H-E book.com. peek thebook.com. Anywhere else, social-wise, I did not see anything on Twitter. I don't think. Anything else, though, you'd send people? Well, you know, I'm kind of a little bit behind the technological revolution.

You're too busy doing work. Well, you know, keeping up with my email. So that, I guess, is the only way that you can reach me except by phone. But I think the website for the book might be a good starting place. Okay. And yeah, sorry about that. No, that's perfect.

That's good. No, thank you. Again, Andrew, so much for putting the work that you have out into the world for all of us to digest and learn from and have it positively impact our lives. And you've certainly helped me today as well as an extension from the, the written work that you put out there. So thank you so much. I want to continue our dialogue as we both progress on our journeys. And I look forward to talking to you soon. Well, it's been a pleasure. All right. Thanks so much, Anders. Thank you. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until

next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.