Peak (Book Notes)

Peak – Secrets from the new science of expertise by Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 5, 2016)

If you want to get better at getting better, this book is for you. It is empowering to watch science disprove many of our commonly held limiting beliefs about things like “potential” and “natural talent.” Expertise in nearly anything is attainable through disciplined, long term application of a systematic framework for improvement. I have applied lessons from Peak to improve the quality of my practice. As a result, both the rate and the quality of my learning have impoved. Our entire family will continue to benefit from these lessons.

• Introduction: As humans, we create our own potential by training our brains, and are not limited to a predetermined amount of “potential.”
• Chapter 1: “Purposeful Practice” is a specific practice methodology optimized for continued progress, and includes:
  • Concrete, measurable goals of incremental improvement
  • Rapid, honest feedback loop
  • Continually pushing through current limits
• Chapter 2: “Purposeful practice” increases your physical ability to perform what you are practicing (including measurable changes to your brain), which disproves the theory that ability is predetermined by genetics.
• Chapter 3: Sidestep the limits of short term memory and increase performance by building and upgrading “mental representations,” which include:
  • Pieces of new data
  • Meaning (which turns pieces of new data into “chunks” stored in long term memory)
  • Retrieval structure
• Chapter 4: The fastest and most certain path to expert performance is “Deliberate Practice,” in which “purposeful practice” is guided by an expert coach.
• Chapter 5: Focus on developing skills, not increasing your knowledge.
• Chapter 6: Increase motivation by maximizing reasons to persist and minimizing reasons to quit.
• Chapter 7: Huge progress is possible at any age through either “purposeful practice” or “deliberate practice.”
• Chapter 8: Natural intelligence can provide an edge at the most basic levels of skill acquisition, but the quantity of “deliberate practice” is the only clear predictor of future mastery.
• Chapter 9: Teaching is most effective when skills (not just information) are taught with a combination of deliberate practice and expert mental representations.