Often we think that elite performers and experts are naturally gifted. They were born with “something a little extra”. And that’s why they became the best in their field. However, according to the world’s leading researcher on expertise Anders Ericsson we ALL have this gift. And with the right approach, we can unwrap this gift over time and become experts in whatever we pursue.
The gift – all of us have it.
Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson had been studying extraordinary performers, people who are experts in their fields, – musicians, athletes, chess players, teachers and more, for more than thirty years. In his great book “Peak” (check out the notes) he summarises his research and admits that they do have a gift, but it turns out that all people have it. This gift is the adaptability of our brain and body.
“Over my years of studying experts in various fields, I have found that they all develop their abilities … through dedicated training that drives changes in the brain (and sometimes, depending on the ability, in the body) that make it possible for them to do things that they otherwise could not … the clear message from decades of research is that no matter what role innate genetic endowment may play in the achievements of ‘gifted’ people, the main gift that these people have is the same one we all have—the adaptability of the human brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us.”
We ALL have this gift, and that means that we ALL can improve. With the right approach, we can achieve extraordinary results in pretty much anything.
Of course, in some cases, genetics play a huge role. For example, a short guy isn’t likely to become a professional basketball player, and it would be hard for a tall woman to become a top gymnast. But the truth is that we all can shape our brains and bodies in truly phenomenal ways. And the experts among us who do the seemingly impossible things actually know that and take full advantage of this gift. Our mind is incredible!
Adaptability of our brain – how London taxi drivers grow their brain
To prove the point of the gift of adaptability, Ericsson shares a study of London cab drivers in his book.
If you’ve ever been to London and took a Black Cab, you probably noticed that a driver would not use any kind of GPS. You tell him the address, and he just drives using the “map” in his head.
London is a huge, sprawling city with thousands of streets that intersect at the oddest of angles. With a population of almost 9 million, the city is also home to thousands of restaurants, office buildings, shopping malls, and all other sorts of establishments. It turns out, if you want to get a license to become a cab driver, you need to know your way around this maze. It takes two to four years to learn and pass the “All London” Knowledge exam!
For most of the people memorizing all London streets and over 20,000 main landmarks and places of public interest seems impossible. However, cab drivers prove the opposite – the human brain is plastic and able to adapt. Same way as you can grow your muscles, you can grow your brain. Literally.
In 2000 a UCL neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire decided to test the idea of brain plasticity and in her experiment compared the brains of London cab drivers with those of non-drivers. She discovered two things. Firstly, cab drivers had a larger posterior hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for navigation space and memorizing locations). Secondly, drivers who were on the job the longest actually had the largest hippocampi.
Trying to validate the findings and test if taxi drivers started with large hippocampi, she went further by scanning the brains of people who were about to start the cab driving training and ordinary non-drivers as a control group.
At the start, there was no difference in hippocampi size between the two groups of people. But she brought the same people to the lab four years after and performed the test again. It turned out, the hippocampi of the now-trained cab drivers actually were larger than those of the control group.
The main conclusion here – by developing navigation skills, cab drivers’ hippocampi grew. That means, when trained, our brain can physically grow, becoming capable of abilities which were out of reach before.
How experts take advantage of the gift of adaptability
London taxi drivers study (among loads of others) proved that ordinary people can improve their brain. We don’t need to have an extraordinary memory to start with, neither we don’t need any specific talent for cab driving. All we need is the right approach to training and years of practice.
Ericsson argues that all elite performers achieved extraordinary results, not because of their talent, but mostly through deliberate practice.
They are not just doing the same thing over and over for a long period of time – that’s what Ericsson calls a “naïve practice”. And it is something that most of us tend to do when we, for example, play a sport or practising playing chess (and that’s why most of us don’t excel at it).
Ericsson writes, “Research has shown that, generally speaking, once a person reaches that level of “acceptable” performance and automaticity, the additional years of “practice” don’t lead to improvement.”
Naïve practice will help us to develop some skills, but it would certainly not lead to adaptability and improvement as research shows.
What can bring us to the next level is purposeful practice. It lies in the base of the deliberate practice and must include the following characteristics:
- it has a well-defined and specific goal;
- it must be focused;
- it has to involve feedback;
- it requires getting out of the comfort zone.
As Ericsson puts it,
“So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation.”
But to join the Top Performers club, we need to practice deliberately. Deliberate practice adds two more essential points to purposeful practice:
- it requires a well-developed field (like sports, music, chess, etc.) that have clear and established top performers and equally clear means to achieving that level of expertise;
- having an experienced teacher (or coach) who can provide a very clear training program and learning techniques aimed at helping a student to improve performance.
Ericsson explains,
“…deliberate practice is informed and guided by the best performers’ accomplishments and by an understanding of what these expert performers do to excel. Deliberate practice is purposeful practice that knows where it is going and how to get there.”
To conclude, we are all gifted. And we are capable of achieving much more than we realize. And if we approach our gift of adaptability with a growth mindset and deliberate practice, we can excel at anything we are passionate about.
Questions for you for today:
– Who is the top expert in your field? What did s/he do to achieve this level of performance? How could you practice more deliberately?
– If your child has great ambitions to become a top performer in something, how could you help him to shift towards a deliberate practice?
As always, we are thrilled to hear your ideas on the topic below in comments.
Loads of love,
Irina & Dawid
