By Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool
You probably don’t recognize the name Anders Ericsson, the lead of author of this book. But chances are you recognize some of his work. One of his studies of violin players in Berlin played a pivotal role in two popular books: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. Specifically (and famously), Gladwell proclaimed the 10,000 hour rule – that to become a true expert in any field required 10,000 hours of a certain type of practice.
In this new book, the authors discuss the work of Ericsson and his colleagues as they have tried to learn more about how we build expertise and how we can do so more reliably.
The book follows the research, and does it in an interesting, logical and practical flow; and while it does talk about research, it isn’t highly academic. Here are the descriptive chapter titles:
- The Power of Purposeful Practice
- Harnessing Adaptability
- Mental Representations
- The Gold Standard
- The Principles of Deliberate Practice on the Job
- The Principles of Deliberate Practice in Everyday Life
- The Road to Extraordinary
- But What About Natural Talent?
- Where Do We Go From Here?
The book is highly readable and in the end, a document of hope that we aren’t locked into a pre-determined DNA-based station in life – there are ways to become far better and expand our potential beyond what we might have believed possible if we take the right steps.
In short if you read Outliers and liked it, why wouldn’t you want to go to the source, learn the nuances as well as the advances in the research since it was written? And even if you never heard of Ericsson, the 10,000 hour rule or the idea that talent isn’t really the biggest determination of our ultimate success, wouldn’t you want to know what is?
I highly recommend this book if you want to become more expert and skilled in any are of life or if you are coach or teacher of others with the same goal.
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