The Science of Deliberate Practice with Anders Ericsson

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Speaker I: The essence here that once you have something that you can measure your performance against, then it becomes clear that if you want to change your performance, something has to happen. And I think that's where purposeful practice, or if you actually are in a domain here where we would argue that there is a teacher who actually has validated techniques for helping you bridge that gap or bridge part of the gap, uh, with basically known training methods. But it is sort of, I think, you know, the really magic here of learning, you know, how you try to do your best and then basically how do you actually get further than your very best? And I think that's where you need to basically have that background in terms of teachers. Because if you're already doing what you think is the best, how would you basically then figure out how to improve that further? And I think that's where a teacher would be able to see and compare you against other individuals and now see what is it that you need to be changing in order to actually increase your accuracy or the speed or power or the quality of the ideas that you're generating. And I think that's really the heart of, um, deliberate practice where you're not really just trying to do exactly the same thing, you're actually trying to do it slightly differently in a way that would allow you to basically, uh, be on the path here of reaching a higher level of performance.

Speaker K: I'm Srini Rao and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds, started movements, built thriving businesses, written best selling books and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakablecreative.com. Anders welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Speaker D: My pleasure. I'm really, uh, looking forward to talking to you again.

Speaker K: Yeah, likewise. So we, uh, are bringing you back for a second time because I have a new book out called An Audience of One Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake, in which I dedicated an entire, entire section of it to deliberate practice because I thought the ideas were so important. And I thought who better to talk to about this than you, given that you literally wrote the book on the subject. But before we get into all of that, I want to ask where did you grow up and what impacted where you grew up end up having on the direction that you've gone with your life and your career?

Speaker D: Well, you know, I guess you don't really have an experimental control. Uh, I grew up in Sweden, uh, in Stockholm, uh, which is the capital of Sweden. And um, um, pretty much spent my adult sort of life until I got my Ph.D. in Sweden. I, uh, was a foreign exchange student in the United States, which I think allowed me to kind of get to a point where I really felt comfortable with English and the American culture. So after I graduated I got an opportunity to do a postdoc in the United States. So I moved there with my family and then basically I ended up staying. Uh, I got a job, um, and I've had a couple of jobs. One, uh, as an assistant professor all the way to full professor at university, ah, of Colorado in Boulder. And now, um, most recently I've been a professor here at Florida State University.

Speaker K: What is the education like in Sweden? And what impact uh, did the culture itself, uh, have on your life and kind of the path that you've chosen, do you think?

Speaker I: Well, you know, uh, I guess, uh,

Speaker D: it's uh, unfortunately a relatively long time ago. Uh, so in Sweden at that time they had much more kind of early branching, uh, off. So I guess in fifth grade I got onto a track that was sort of leading me to uh, academic, uh, types of opportunities and uh.

Speaker I: And I don't know, I think when

Speaker D: I grew up it was interesting for me, the contrast when I went to the States for that one year where I engaged in sports and all sorts of activities. In Sweden, ah, at that time it was fairly, uh, strict, uh, emphasis on the sort of the intellectual. Um, and I guess one of the things I loved to do was to watch films. And I guess I had a group of friends and we tried to Sort of catch all the highly rated films. Um, but I think, you know, more generally, I think I was always interested in my own thinking and how I could improve it. Um, and I think, you know, my dissertation was really focused in on trying to get information about what people are thinking about when they're confronting problems. And so that was kind of like the starting point for, um, my career when I actually studied. Now, what are the consequences if you really engage with the right kind of training? You know, what are the changes that you can really accomplish?

Speaker K: I remember something that really struck me from our last conversation, uh, when I went back and listened to it and you told me this story, uh, about when, uh, you wanted to learn history. You actually chose, rather than memorizing, to go and read history books. And as a result, you're able to answer questions on tests without necessarily memorizing or doing the work that was assigned. Why does that happen? What occurs in the brain that allows that to happen? And why do you think that this is not the way that we are taught right now?

Speaker D: Well, I personally found it repulsive to memorize because it just didn't seem to me that it actually allowed me to develop and. Or in some kind of perceivable way,

Speaker I: uh, so kind of that idea here

Speaker D: of actually trying to understand the meaning. And I guess I was even interested in, you know, when I was learning mathematics. You know, I mean, why are things the way they are? And it seemed to me that the best explanation was to kind of go to history and see how things kind of developed and evolved. And then, um, you know, got crystallized into mathematics and some of the other academic disciplines. So that kind of idea here that if you really want to keep information and in some ways allow you to learn something that can add to what you currently know, you really do need that meaningful approach. Because if you're memorizing, then basically you're going to use the same methods to memorize new information. So it's almost like you have this

Speaker I: blackboard where you're writing a lot of

Speaker D: stuff on, and then with a new test, you're basically just erasing what you had and putting in some new stuff. And that just seemed to me to be at least a waste of time

Speaker I: and also didn't really give me that

Speaker D: confidence that I understood so I could have conversations with people about things. Um, and I think that testo that you really understood or reflected on what it is that you're trying out, uh, to, uh, index in your memory so you can retrieve it if it ever becomes relevant. That, I guess, was something that was really important to me.

Speaker K: What's happening neurologically in the brain, uh, when this process is occurring, when you, uh, take this approach to learning as opposed to memorizing?

Speaker I: Well, I think if you're just memorizing,

Speaker D: so you're just kind of rehearsing in the most rote manner, that basically will activate very different parts of your brain system than if you're in some ways encoding the information semantically. So you're actually looking for what is

Speaker I: it they already know that's going to

Speaker D: be relevant to this new piece of information.

Speaker I: Um, and I think, in particular, comparing

Speaker D: that new information with the information that you used to have that you had

Speaker I: already stored, and then reconciling that in

Speaker D: a way that allows you now to kind of add new information without basically ruining any sort of previously, uh, correctly encoded information.

Speaker K: Let's say we took something like reading a book, for example, or even listening to this podcast. How would you take that same approach that you've just described and apply it to something like reading a book?

Speaker I: Well, I personally think that you have

Speaker D: to have a goal with reading a book. Uh, or maybe sometimes you can read a book several times with different goals. Uh, but I think if you're reading, like most of my reading, it's relevant to my research. So I typically have a reason why I would read an article. Uh, so I basically then read it, and in particular looking for things that might potentially be inconsistent with what I believe or what I know. Uh, because that, I guess, is what I, you know, as I'm now accumulating a lot of knowledge, you know, that's probably more interesting than the information that is already consistent with, uh, what I know.

Speaker I: But basically trying to understand that at the level where I can now ask

Speaker D: questions about it, to what extent is this really inconsistent, or is it the author's opinion that it is inconsistent? But once you start looking more carefully at what it is that the researchers did, you find that it really isn't inconsistent. Uh, there is, um, an alternative explanation here for why they got results that they thought were different when in fact they were actually doing a different study than, uh, the one that I guess I would have done under the similar circumstances.

Speaker K: You're a college professor, and I'm wondering, one, knowing everything that you do about expertise and human performance, how would you update the current education system to account for the knowledge that you possess? And what impact has it had on the way that you teach your own students at the university you're at?

Speaker D: I think that's A great question that I would say that I'm currently thinking about and struggling a little bit with. And I think our school system is more generated in terms of giving students a certain type of experience and knowledge

Speaker I: and not really asking the question.

Speaker D: I mean, what are the information and the skills that somebody who is graduating now from our educational systems should have?

Speaker I: And I think that's where I see

Speaker D: that kind of interesting tension between our work on expert performance. Because many of those domains that we've studied, like music, sports, chess, they are having a, uh, developmental progression in a career building that is virtually independent of the school system.

Speaker I: So the question is, if you wanted

Speaker D: to develop abilities to be a medical doctor or whatever, would there be skills that you could actually acquire during your high school or middle school career that

Speaker I: in some sense would make it easier

Speaker D: for you to become a very successful surgeon.

Speaker I: And I believe that just understanding the methods by which you become really good at something may actually have a real value for individuals once they now encounter a different domain, that they have an understanding here. What are the necessary activities that are required to really become successful and keep improving your performance across your career.

Speaker K: Do you have children by any chance?

Speaker I: Two.

Speaker K: Okay, so I asked Dan Coyle this question. Uh, a lot of parents are listening to this. You knowing what you do about uh, human performance and the ability for people to reach sort of peak potential, what impact has that had on the way that you've raised your children? And what advice would you give to parents that are listening?

Speaker I: So, uh, my wife and I divorced really early on. So she's really the one that had the primary responsibility for the day to

Speaker D: day upbringing of my uh, children.

Speaker I: But I think I spent summers with

Speaker D: them and basically, uh, uh, during some periods, once a week we were together.

Speaker I: And I think what struck me was looking at a lot of individuals who make an early commitment to a career that that's pretty dangerous. Um, I saw a lot of people who had career ending injuries also the tremendous competition in many domains. So to me it was more important to communicate that kind of setting some goals and some activity and then try to improve and learn how you could actually change by working with the teacher or in some cases I would even be able to help them. So that more general preparation and um, I guess with our current school system, you going to make decisions that are mostly important here for your career after you maybe even in college. So basically that idea that you're actually preparing somebody for the opportunities of developing skills, but leaving it open as to what particular professional direction that you would go in uh, for as long as basically, uh, is required for you to

Speaker D: basically get started on your career.

Speaker K: What role does age play in our ability to acquire skill or develop skill at this level of proficiency, uh, in terms of getting to expert level performance?

Speaker I: I think that's really interesting question and I think I would want to start out saying that as we're learning more and more here about how various types

Speaker D: of training can really improve and change people.

Speaker I: I think age doesn't seem to be a very important constraint on how you can change now in a field where you're competitive with other individuals. It's clear that somebody who starts preparing, working with teachers at age 5 are uh, basically going to be much more likely to be successful as musicians when they compete for opportunities to be in the best music academies, maybe when they're in their early 20s. So basically if you start when you're 15, it's going to be awfully hard for you to kind of catch up with those individuals who had an earlier start. But if you basically are now looking at a domain where people are starting at much older ages, then I think I see less problems. It may be that in many domains there's a fair amount of knowledge and skills that is going to benefit somebody to being successful in that domain that they have acquired earlier on. And I think I mentioned earlier that idea of being successful in some other activity is actually going to give you some really good insights into the type of training and the type of organizing of your day that is going to allow you to be most effective here in your development of skill in this new domain.

Speaker K: It's interesting you say that because one of the things I talked about in this new book was the fact that my 9th grade band director gets far less credit than he deserves for the habits that I've developed as a writer. Because almost everything I learned about practice and a habit and how it could improve performance was learned in ninth grade almost 30 years ago.

Speaker I: And I think that's a really important point. And I find it kind of intriguing that it doesn't seem that basically I've been working with some people in medicine. So when they're accepting, say surgeons to a competitive program, they're really not looking back to see what that individual, their experience here of um, developing excellence in other areas and their insights into what it should take them in order to really be successful in this new domain. And I think that might actually be something that, that some of the organizations that I've been meeting with, uh, are starting now to incorporate as part of what they Put emphasis on when they accept individuals in job positions or in training positions.

Speaker K: It's interesting because I think about my early life, uh, career wise, and it was characterized by nothing but failure. Uh, getting fired from jobs, being really average at jobs. And I'm wondering if you see patterns like this in people who become expert performers. Uh, are there places, you know, earlier in their life where they're really bad at something? Is that common? And what leads to the drive and motivation for somebody to say, okay, you know what? I'm committed to becoming an expert at this thing?

Speaker I: I think that is a really interesting question. And, um, and I personally believe that, that I would focus more on that kind of satisfaction and drive and that

Speaker D: sense of, um, control that individuals get

Speaker I: when they feel like they're able to

Speaker D: do what they really wanted to do.

Speaker I: So just going back to myself, basically being interested here and how I could improve my own thinking and basically figuring out ways here that I would be

Speaker D: able to do research that would convince

Speaker I: me that I actually learned something that I didn't know before. So I think that personal quest that drives you. And basically there was many times that, uh, we did all sorts of explorations that never amounted to anything. But I didn't view those as failures. I viewed them more as you're eliminating kind of alternatives, which makes it maybe more likely here that you eventually will find, you know, the more, uh, productive and fruitful direction to go.

Speaker K: What role does grit play in becoming an expert performer? And you said that you didn't view those as failures. And so often when we fail in some way or another, the sting of it feels incredibly permanent. And we tend to get our identity sort of intertwined with the failure, uh, and get emotionally derailed. How do you prevent that from happening?

Speaker I: Well, I personally think that once, you know, maybe what you would like to become and then be able to identify. I remember when I was in high school, I was reading biographies of people that I really admired and I thought it was really interesting to observe, you know, the much more complicated process that allowed them to develop and eventually find something that ended up becoming very, very important that somehow established them as a sort of, you know, famous contributing scientists. But basically that long process that they went through and basically how they more or less were thinking and kind of learning from their experience as opposed to taking the evidence here that they couldn't do certain things, uh, as some kind of evidence that they failed or lacked the abilities, uh, I think that was really influential to me. And I think that idea that failure, if you basically look back on it. Now, obviously, if you could find a teacher, I think that teacher would be able to give you a much better sense here. What path and what are the necessary changes that you need to go through in order to really be able to do the things that you want to do? Um, and once you look at that discrepancy between what you can currently do and what you would like to do, and then being able to see a path which may be much longer and maybe more frustrating than you expected, but it is a path that other people have taken. And, um, having a teacher, being able to point to those individuals and what it is and how long it took for them to get to the point which you are aspiring to get to.

Speaker K: What do you think it is that causes people to give up?

Speaker I: I don't know that I've talked to that many people giving up. I was struck by, when I was talking to some, uh, downhill skiers, and I was kind of interested in this question, whether a very successful athlete gets to a plateau where they're convinced that they can't get any better. And, uh, when I was talking to these downhill skiers, I realized that they kind of ended their active, kind of competitive careers not because they didn't think they could get better. It was more that their belief was that there were people that were sufficiently much better than they were, that they didn't really see a chance for them to basically be able to catch up with those individuals and basically now, uh, become successful. Um, and I think that's kind of an interesting problem because if you're looking at what you can change, which is something that you actually have more control over than if you're going to basically be able to, uh, reach a performance that's better than other people who are also engaged in training and may sometimes have better circumstances, better financial resources, and whatever other things that may actually be a disadvantage for you. So I think figuring out what is a domain where you actually have some reasonable chances here of doing what you want to do that isn't so competitive that you're always going to have to worry about that there's some people who may be even better than you are, and there's no way for you to now find a slightly different path that would allow you to succeed, uh, in spite of or independent of their success.

Speaker K: Yeah, it's interesting because earlier we were talking about constraints, and I couldn't help but think about athletics, of all places. You know, I played basketball in my seventh grade basketball team, and I kind of knew. I was like, I'm never going to be a professional basketball player. I'm constrained by the design of my physical body to never reach NBA level performance. But I also wonder if I could have gotten really good as a high school basketball player by understanding what I do about performance now.

Speaker I: Well, you know, and I think figuring out that basically ability, especially when you're in adolescence, how you could get better, I think that. And getting that pleasure of getting the sense here that you can actually change your ability here to achieve on the court by basically engaging now, uh, in

Speaker D: the right kind of training.

Speaker I: And I guess in our book we put a lot of emphasis here on finding that mentor or coach who in some ways would be able to kind of help you identify now, uh, what are the next steps that would be allow you to get the most benefit here for your training? Because I think one of the things that I see people do is going on it alone and having not really capitalizing on the knowledge that, that some individuals have already accumulated here about. For example, I've been talking to NBA shooting coaches. It turns out that it's relatively rare for basketball players to really work with a shooting coach to kind of establish that fundamental skill. I think it's more recognized that if you want to be a musician, it's really key that you acquire the right fundamentals. Or if you're a ballet dancer, if you acquire ballet skill and still have some imperfections in what you're doing that may actually be disastrous to you when you get to a higher competitive level where you actually have to relearn a lot of the fundamentals to be able now to be on the right track that would allow you to kind of keep reaching the highest levels.

Speaker K: One of the things I'm wondering about is what role does the Pygmalion effect play, uh, in the performance that somebody gets when they're working with a coach. So to give you an example, let's say the coach has a strong belief in your capability to do something. I had a seventh grade band director who for some reason decided to tell me that I would make all state bands someday. The day I picked up the instrument, I had shown like not an ounce of potential for that. I was the goof off kid in sixth grade band who when they asked me about, you know, what the flags on the notes were, I said they were for decorations. Not exactly Allstate band material in the making. So I wonder what is the role of the belief that the teacher has in the student, uh, when it comes to achievement?

Speaker I: Well, you know, I think that is really Important. And especially the younger the student. You know, it's almost like the student has a very difficult time assessing here what they can and can't do. But I also think that that interaction that you have with the coach or somebody who believes in you is very motivating, not just for the student, but also for the teacher. So basically finding opportunities like that. And that's one reason why I think I would recommend to parents to find something that they are interested in investing time in and actually making that as a possible activity where they would be spending time with one or several of their children, engaging in that activity, and basically often improve together, uh, to kind of give that sense here that, you know, you're actually designing a social activity where the challenge is sort of allowing you now to, you know, give your praise and sort of good feedback to the student when they're actually doing improving. And that sets now the stage here, giving them a sense here what they need to do in order to improve. And if you believe that a lot of individuals, if they have the right kind of motivation and are not willing to do what it takes, then I think it's an interesting question. You know, I think many, many students would be able to achieve at a very, very high level if they had that kind of motivational and instructional support that I think you had.

Speaker K: So let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit and let's actually get into the how to of, uh, deliberate practice. And part of the reason I wanted to bring you back for a second interview is I wanted to make a case for deliberate practice, even when it comes to our creative work, even if that creative work is not necessarily intended to reach an audience of millions of people. What is the value of getting good at something, uh, just for the sake of getting good at it? And then let's talk about specifically the how to.

Speaker I: Well, I think with most skills, uh, there is a starting point where you actually start out where you're very limited. But I think, and I think if you look at music, uh, and the Suzuki Method, where you're actually having the parent and the child interacting and producing

Speaker D: kind of musical experiences.

Speaker I: But when you get to a point now where the child or adolescent is now able to kind of think about what they're trying to achieve. So you have a child maybe who can be humming a melody or basically having a sense here of, um, a musical experience that they can generate in their head. And now basically that is going to allow them then to be able to work with practice so they can actually externally Generate what's in their head. And I think that is sort of a general finding that I see across all the different domains. When you get to that point where you have an idea and then you actually are using the skills that you have to make that external. So if it's an image, if you are a, uh, visual artist, or if it's a story for a writer, that you basically have something that you want to communicate. And now in order to successfully do that, skills are going to be critical. Uh, you can also evaluate now yourself by rereading your story to see to what extent could this be improved and to what extent would it actually get closer to, to that experience that you really wanted to give the people who may or may not be reading your story.

Speaker K: Let's talk about, uh, this idea of the 10,000 hour rule, because I think the thing that I really got from your book and your work was that mindless repetition does not constitute deliberate practice. And I think one of the things that got, uh, in people's head from the 10,000 hour rule was, oh, if I just do this thing for 10,000 hours, I'll get great at it. I remember Jeff Colvin, who had written the book Talent is Overrated, said what I do at the driving, uh, range every day is a pathetic example of deliberate practice. And that if he did that every day, there's no way he would have a chance against Tiger woods on a golf course.

Speaker I: Right. And I think that the essence here that once you have something that you can measure your performance against, then it becomes clear that if you want to change your performance, something has to happen. And I think that's where purposeful practice, or if you actually are in a domain here where we would argue that there is a teacher who actually has validated techniques for helping you bridge that gap or bridge part of the gap, uh, with basically known training methods. But it is sort of, I think, you know, the really magic here of learning. You know, how you try to do your best and then basically how do you actually get further than your very best? And I think that's where you need to basically have that background in terms of teachers. Because if you're already doing what you think is the best, how would you basically then figure out how to improve that further? And I think that's where a teacher would be able to see and compare you against other individuals. And I'll see what is it that you need to be changing in order to actually increase your accuracy or the speed or power or the quality of the ideas that you're generating. And I think that's really the heart of, um, deliberate practice, where you're not really just trying to do exactly the same thing, you're actually trying to do it slightly differently in a way that would allow you to, you know, to basically, uh, be on the path here or reaching a higher level of performance.

Speaker K: It's interesting because we've been talking about this in the context, I think, of technical proficiency around particular skills, whether those be athletic or artistic skills. How does this get applied in the context of a working environment where an employee is working for a manager? Because in my experience, just because somebody is a manager, it doesn't make them an adequate coach.

Speaker I: No. And I think that's why we have, uh, suggested that ideally you should actually have learning environments where you have basically individuals who are performing according to everyone's standard at a higher level. And then basically you would try to basically see what is it that they are doing as a means now to help other individuals find a path towards basically reaching at least a higher level of performance. And there are sort of interesting ways. The one that, uh, we talk about a lot, because it's been so researched, is in chess, where if you're playing a chess game, you're obviously each time trying to do your best move. So how would you basically be able to know how, uh, you could have done a better chess game? Well, what people have done in the past is actually record chess games between world champions and other really good chess players. And then once you have the sequence of moves that they took, you can actually now simulate playing against these world champions. But now you're actually trying to figure out what you would do if you were the opponent. And then once you figure out what you would do, you can now compare that against what the world champion did for that exact same position. And if there's a mismatch, that's an opportunity now for you to actually think through and try to figure out why did the world champion do it this way, whereas you were trying to do it this other way and thereby having that chance to kind of improve.

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Speaker E: hello hello, it's Brooke Devard from Naked Beauty. Join me each week for unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self care, journeys, wellness tips and the products we absolutely love and cannot get enough of. If you are a skincare obsessive and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine, this podcast is for you. Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey, you'll love this podcast as well. Because we go so much deeper than beauty. I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries about their relationship with beauty. You'll also hear from skincare experts. We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry. If this sounds like your thing, search for Naked Beauty on your podcast app and listen along. I hope you'll join us.

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Speaker J: is on a mission to help you tune into what you love audiobooks, podcasts and everything in between with JBL's live headphones. These headphones are perfect because of their high res sound, making your fave stories and voices come alive with so much detail exactly the way you they were made to be heard. Plus they have 80 hours of battery life so you can binge without pressing pause all summer long. Find your pair@jbl.com who knew Walmart business

Speaker G: could help a thriving office motivate their employees? Pamela knew she uses Walmart business to get the assortment of items her team needs at the prices she loves.

Speaker H: As the office manager, it's my job to make sure my team stays on top of their game. I can get the basics like cleaning supplies and paper towels, but what they really can care about snacks and she

Speaker G: can get everything they need. When they need it.

Speaker H: Greg loves wheat crackers. Brenda craves sour candy. And Max, oh boy, he needs protein bars and milk and apples.

Speaker I: It's Walmart.

Speaker G: Built for your business. Who knew?

Speaker K: Really struck me, particularly in Jeff Colvin's book was, uh, the story that he opened the book with, which is about two guys sitting around at Procter and Gamble fresh out of college, one out of Harvard and the other out of Dartmouth, basically not appearing to have any long term potential for success, basically playing waste paper basketball. And those two guys turned out to be Steve Ballmer and Jeffrey Elmelt. And I wonder what it is that is predictive of long term success and why we misjudged the we're not accurate when we judge the potential of it.

Speaker I: Well, part of the problem, I guess is that, uh, if you have this developmental process, and I think a lot of the research that's been trying to predict success are trying to find these basic abilities that they think will actually make a difference once you reach higher levels. And that is, I guess, one of the things that I wrote about recently, that once you start looking at chess, music and all sorts of domains, what you find is that IQ and cognitive ability are quite predictive of how well you are doing as a beginner. If you're actually evaluating the quality of, um, chess moves or your ability to play music or do music tasks, IQ actually is predictive of that performance. But what's interesting is that when you acquire more skill, those correlations disappear. So it is as if you were actually building something quite new that as you're building it, will now start mediating your ability here to perform at a superior level. So that would sort of speak against the possibility here of actually predicting your future performance. If we exclude things like maybe your past history of becoming very good at other things, uh, that might suggest here that you have a sense here of what is it that you need to do here in order to improve your performance and the domain that you have selected here for becoming successful at.

Speaker K: It's interesting. Part of what prompted this question is as I was writing a new piece this morning about the various lessons I'd Learned from about 100 people that I had interviewed. One of them was from Todd Herman, who said, you know, your performance is what's M measured, not your potential on the field of play. People care about your performance. And it took me back to this documentary I watched called the Year of the Quarterback. And it's about the year that Tom Brady got drafted and there were five other quarterbacks that went before Tom Brady in the NFL draft. He was a sixth round draft pick. I think he was 199. And the quarterbacks who went before him, all of them had done extremely well in college, better than Brady. One of them had UH won an NCAA championship. Another UH was also wildly successful. One of them was a guy named Giovanni Carmazzi, got drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, played one game and couldn't hack it in the NFL. Another guy I think was named T. McGuire, didn't really last very long in the NFL. Tom Brady was a sixth round draft pick. And he walked up to Bob Kraft on the first day of practice and he said, Mr. Kraft, my name is Tom Brady. And Bob Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, said, I know who you are. And Tom Brady replied, I'm going to be the best decision you've ever made. So how is it that somebody's potential like these other two guys doesn't match up with their performance and then you get Tom Brady as a result?

Speaker I: Well, you know, I guess if I as a scientist had had the chance to, you know, study Tom Brady, especially at that beginning moment, I think that would be really interesting to see. Now obviously he had a lot of self confidence and the question I guess would be what is it that. And I don't know enough about Tom Brady's early history, what kinds of experience that he had. But all I know about Tom Brady is that he uh, seems to be a person that at least is highly consistent with what we've learned here about purposeful and deliberate practice. Somebody who is really thinking through and analyzing videotapes and, and in some ways engaged in this continuous process of trying to improve one's ability here to make the right kind of decisions. And I think that it's a kind of an interesting sort of related parallel when it comes to music prodigies. Uh, they find that it's quite rare for children that were music prodigies to become very, uh, sort of acclaimed music adult, um, performers. And one reason is that the way that the prodigies often got their early performance was by being highly instructed by the parents. And the parents did not seem to actually give these individuals that degree of freedom where they can actually develop now their ability of monitoring themselves and being able now once they reach adulthood to kind of keep improving. And I think that is sort of an interesting question that I guess if we could interview these other quarterbacks to get a better sense here of um, what is their background and to what extent where they actually had acquired the fundamentals so they would be able to kind, uh, of perform. Now, sometimes it's a curse if you're a high performer, and then people expect you to keep performing immediately. I don't remember about Tom Brady, about what his initial experience was, but sometimes if you come in and the expectations are adjusted, you're going to have an easier time making that transitional period that allows you then to get to a point where you're performing sufficiently well, but you're still improving, um, and thereby being able to establish your NFL career.

Speaker K: That really, I think, raises a question for me about the role that self worth and sort of the intangible things play in our ability to achieve expert performance. Because I think the skill development part is very obvious. We have a list. We know how to do it. What role do all these intangible skills play in this?

Speaker I: Well, I think once we looked at the musicians, it seemed to me that once you looked at their daily lives, there's a lot of very helpful decisions that they made. And, um, I remember one thing that struck me was when I was talking to some of them, they claimed that they were not dating sort of, quote, normal people, people who hadn't the same kind of commitment to excellence as they did because they found that it was very difficult to do that because they had different priorities. So instead they found other individuals who were equally committed to other things that had that kind of respect for basically finding that time and being able to pace yourself in a way that really allowed you now to get enough sleep so you would be able to engage in full concentration the following day when you're actually engaged in your practice. So I think once you start looking at all these things, there's a lot. And having now kind of the emotional support and the kind of resources that would allow you now the freedom of actually focusing in on your own development, I think is very, uh, valuable and may have some really indirect effects here on your ability here to kind of, uh, start out and keep a career developing.

Speaker K: Wow. Um, one other question around this. Given that we are in an incredibly distracted world, and the deep dive that I've done into Steven Kotler's work around flow and focus and attention, what is the impact of our ability to manage our attention on our ability to cultivate deliberate practice? And since you and I last spoke, what have we seen in terms of human performance that has surprised you, uh, and exceeded results that you saw back then?

Speaker I: Well, I personally think that when you look at individuals, uh, even the most successful individuals, they try to find ways that simplify their lives and basically protect

Speaker D: Them against,

Speaker I: uh, intrusions. And this was true even before we had all the iPhones and other types of telecommunication. I mean, they, for example, riders would tend to go off into places where they were basically isolated and could completely control now their working hours. So they could kind of work in the morning and then maybe spend the afternoon taking, uh, uh, walks and doing other kinds of relaxing things. And I think once you start recognizing that, if you want to have that focus and be able to direct that to the kind of improvement or the product that you're generating, if you're a writer or a painter or whatever, I think that's going to, uh, you know, people are going to start recognizing that and find ways, uh, to basically protect themselves. And now obviously I can see a problem here that a lot of the things have to do with fame and basically the way you manage your, uh, basically your followers and engaging other people here, Being interested in what you're doing is kind of a problem that they didn't have. And maybe, you know, doing what I sort of found kind of interesting that some painters, they actually found a wife that was sort of interested in the social part, basically work, and the wife was doing kind of the. And obviously, uh, you know, today it could be a partner or it could be just a professional that you're working with. Uh, basically that idea that there may be ways here that you would be able to create sort of an organization where you maximize the opportunities for the person who is doing the product creation as being sort of different from other people, uh, being more involved here and

Speaker D: the sales and um, pr, uh, aspects.

Speaker K: Wow. Um, well, this has been really, really fascinating and eye opening and thought provoking, as I kind of expected it would be. I really have enjoyed our conversation. So I want to finish with my final question, which is how we close every interview at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Speaker I: Well, I think that's up to the individual. Um, and I personally believe that.

Speaker D: And I guess I remember my mother

Speaker I: always was very insistent on the fact that being mediocre was the worst possible thing that could happen to you. And it was sort of your opportunity and your chance here to kind of seek out what could be your contribution here that could potentially make, uh, a small impact for the better here. And I guess that kind of quest is something that I think I've been pursuing. And I do find that people that I meet that I find particularly interesting and successful, they also seem to have that sense here of, um, more or less the search for making A contribution that goes outside of your own needs and that hopefully would allow other people

Speaker D: to lead more happy, um, and productive lives.

Speaker K: Well, I think that makes a really fitting and beautiful uh, end to our conversation. Where can people find out more about you and your work?

Speaker I: Well, basically, uh, um, I don't have a website. Um, I guess I find that uh, actually answering emails is keeping me very busy. So I have been reluctant here to try to expose myself to, to more uh, and I don't have any social director here that can do the uh, uh, answering of emails and stuff like that. I um, don't know. I think you know, I have my university uh, email address and uh, that's probably if people have some ideas. And I guess I'm particularly interested in helping people who are interested in doing some projects that would incorporate and test some of these ideas that we've been exploring with the hope here that that may actually allow now to kind of get the real value here of some of the uh, ideas that we've sort of extracted here by studying experts for

Speaker D: these uh, three decades.

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Speaker J: It was a um, mansion.

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Speaker I: I've got ideas.

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Speaker F: It's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one. You can set earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show, see terms@discover.com credit card.

Speaker G: Who knew Walmart business could help a thriving office motivate their employees? Pamela New. She uses Walmart business to get the assortment of items her team needs at the prices she loves.

Speaker H: As the office manager, it's my job to make sure my team stays on top of their game. I can get the basics like cleaning supplies and paper towels, but what they really care about snacks.

Speaker G: And she can get everything they need when they need it.

Speaker H: Greg loves wheat crackers. Brenda craves sour candy. And Max, oh boy, he needs protein bars and milk and applesauce built for your business.

Speaker G: Who knew?

Speaker J: This summer, JBL is on a mission to help you tune into what you love audiobooks, podcasts, and everything in between with JBL's live headphones. These headphones are perfect because of their high res sound, making your fave stories and voices come alive with so much detail exactly the way they were made to be heard. Plus they have 80 hours of battery life so you can binge without pressing pause all summer long. Find your pair@jbl.com Monday AI agents took

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Speaker A: have you ever felt a twinge

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