A Summary of Lessons from Peak: How To Master Almost Anything
You have probably wondered why some people are amazingly good at what they do. Is it good genes or better practice? Peak: How to Master Almost Anything by Anders Erickson answers these questions convincingly.
And the straightforward answer is no. There are no special humans. You and I can just as well become champions.
Here is just one story to illustrate why. You may already be familiar with it but it is one of those things you never get tired of hearing. In 1985, with little more than a 90-page manual, Richard Williams decided that his two girls, Serena and Venus, would become the greatest tennis players of their generation.
Day after day, from age four, they did tennis practice like no other four-year-olds before them. And by the time they were teenagers, the two sisters were ready to take the world by storm. The rest, as they say, is history. Their awesome story is part of the beautiful biopic Richard Williams starring Will Smith. I suggest you watch it.
Back to the sisters:
Serena is widely regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all times with 23 grand singles titles and her sister, Venus, is not far behind. Without considering their background, you might be tempted to think Venus and Serena are tennis freaks.
But here’s the thing:
They were just lucky girls whose father decided to set them on a path to greatness. At first, this might seem unbelievable until you consider another similar story, that of the Polgar sisters.
Polgar, the father, wanted to prove a simple idea: With enough practice, you can be anything. And who better to test the idea on than his girls. The results were incredible! Judit, the second born, is regarded as the strongest female chess player ever after their father taught them chess from an early age.
The techniques the two fathers used are contained in one of my favorite books: Peak: How To Master Anything by Anders Ericsson. Here are my top takeaways from this amazing read.
Lesson 1: The gift in all of us
Nature, the universe, God — whatever you might call it — has gifted you with something unique — the ability to develop incredible talent. This gift is made possible by the adaptability of the human brain and body. Scientists are only now fully appreciating how adaptable they truly are.
Anders writes:
…since the 1990s brain researchers have come to realize that the brain — even the adult brain — is far more adaptable than anyone ever imagined, and this gives us a tremendous amount of control over what our brains are able to do. In particular, the brain responds to the right sorts of triggers by rewiring itself in various ways. New connections are made between neurons, while existing connections can be strengthened or weakened, and in some parts of the brain it is even possible for new neurons to grow.
So if you are ever in doubt about your ability to learn and adapt, the science says you’ve got it. Here is another nugget of wisdom to ponder:
“In this new world it no longer makes sense to think of people as born with fixed reserves of potential; instead, potential is an expandable vessel, shaped by the various things we do throughout our lives. Learning isn’t a way of reaching one’s potential but rather a way of developing it. We can create our own potential. And this is true whether our goal is to become a concert pianist or just play the piano well enough to amuse ourselves, to join the PGA golf tour or just bring our handicaps down a few strokes.”
Lesson 2: The myth of experience
Here is a tricky question: Is a doctor with twenty years of experience better than a doctor with just five on the job?
Surprisingly, more experience doesn’t equate to better performance. In fact, it may result in poorer performance. Because once you reach an ‘acceptable’ level of performance, you stop improving. To improve, you must engage in what’s called purposeful practice.
This is the kind of practice that has well-defined, specific goals because, without these, there is no way to judge whether a practice session has been successful.
The other characteristics of purposeful practice include:
- Purposeful practice is focused
- Purposeful practice involves feedback
- Purposeful practice involves getting out of one’s comfort zone
Here is what Anders writes about practice:
“Regular training leads to changes in the parts of the brain that are challenged by the training. The brain adapts to these challenges by rewiring itself in ways that increase its ability to carry out the functions required by the challenges.”
We perceive the world through mental representations
For your brain to process information efficiently, it creates mental representations of your experiences. Anders defines mental representations as follows:
“A mental representation is a mental structure that corresponds to an object, an idea, a collection of information, or anything else, concrete or abstract, that the brain is thinking about. A simple example is a visual image. Mention the Mona Lisa, for instance, and many people will immediately “see” an image of the painting in their minds; that image is their mental representation of the Mona Lisa. Some people’s representations are more detailed and accurate than others, and they can report, for example, details about the background, about where Mona Lisa is sitting, and about her hairstyle and her eyebrows.”
The main takeaway here is that each skill or experience that you have is stored as a mental representation. Deliberate practice specifically targets these mental representations to make them more detailed.
Mental representations are domain specific
Mental representations are very domain-specific and only apply to the skill you have developed. What this means that chess players are not automatically better mathematicians because what makes one a great mathematician is not the same as what makes one a great chess player.
Lesson 4: When you practice in a mature field of expertise and have someone to guide you, purposeful practice becomes deliberate.
While purposeful practice will get you ahead of your peers, the real deal comes from what Anderson calls deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice takes advantage of those who came before you because they know what works and what doesn’t. For example, in music practice, deliberate practice takes advantage of hundreds of years of practice lessons that have been honed over many years by pioneers in the field. This is possible because almost every discipline has improved over the years.
“Progress is made by those who are working on the frontiers of what is known and what is possible to do, not by those who haven’t put in the effort needed to reach that frontier. In short, in most cases — and this is especially true in any well-developed area — we must rely on the experts to move us forward.”
At the same time, many disciplines have clear gaps between beginners and pros. That is a great example of deliberate practice at work.
Pro tip:
If you want to get really good at something get into a field that already has experts. They will guide you along the way. Great examples include: Golf, tennis, chess, basketball etc.
The following are some of the characteristics of deliberate practice:
Characteristics of deliberate practice:
- Deliberate practice develops skills that other people have already mastered. This is to say that effective training methods already exist
- Deliberate practice takes place outside one’s comfort zone. Deliberate practice only works if you perform at your near maximum
- Deliberate practice involves well-defined and specific goals. The goal is always targeted improvement
- Deliberate practice is deliberate. Deliberate practice requires full attention.
- Deliberate practice depends on effective mental representations. Performance can only improve if the mental representations are okay
- Deliberate practice involves feedback and modifications. feedback is what tells you whether or not you are improving
Conclusion
Peak is one of the most revolutionary books out there. It promises to change the life of anyone who takes it ideas seriously. Go out and get yourself a copy.
