Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

English language

Published June 11, 2016

ISBN:: 978-0-544-45625-9

(2 reviews)

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise is a 2016 science book by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and science writer Robert Pool. The book summarizes the findings of Ericsson's 30-year research into the general nature and acquisition of expertise. Intended for a lay audience, Peak is an expository book on deliberate practice, a term coined by Ericsson to refer to the specific learning method used by experts to achieve superior performance in their fields, and mental representations. The book was written partly as a response to the misrepresented but increasingly commonplace idea of the "10,000-hour rule," popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers and which Gladwell had based on Ericsson's own research. In this regard, Ericsson also published an excerpt from this book in Salon titled "Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong: Our research was key to the 10,000-hour rule, but here’s what got oversimplified".A website dedicated to …

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise is a 2016 science book by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and science writer Robert Pool. The book summarizes the findings of Ericsson's 30-year research into the general nature and acquisition of expertise. Intended for a lay audience, Peak is an expository book on deliberate practice, a term coined by Ericsson to refer to the specific learning method used by experts to achieve superior performance in their fields, and mental representations. The book was written partly as a response to the misrepresented but increasingly commonplace idea of the "10,000-hour rule," popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers and which Gladwell had based on Ericsson's own research. In this regard, Ericsson also published an excerpt from this book in Salon titled "Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong: Our research was key to the 10,000-hour rule, but here’s what got oversimplified".A website dedicated to the book was launched in 2016.

1 edition

conciselyverbose reviewed Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson

Review of 'Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

How do the exceptional become the exceptional? Is you kid who isn’t learning Calculus by age 6 doomed to a life of mediocrity? And what about this “10,000 hours makes you an expert” thing I hear about?

Peak is, at it’s core, a book about how we learn. The 4 word answer to that question is “practice the right way”, and Anders Ericsson uses his own research and the work of others to provide you a path to improving your ability to learn a new subject and to, with time, achieve expertise.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000 hour idea in his book Outliers, and there’s an element of merit to it, but it’s incomplete. Ericsson was responsible for that research, and goes into detail, but the short version is that the research was done in highly specialized fields with a lot of shared expertise already. He calls this deliberate practice. …

How do the exceptional become the exceptional? Is you kid who isn’t learning Calculus by age 6 doomed to a life of mediocrity? And what about this “10,000 hours makes you an expert” thing I hear about?

Peak is, at it’s core, a book about how we learn. The 4 word answer to that question is “practice the right way”, and Anders Ericsson uses his own research and the work of others to provide you a path to improving your ability to learn a new subject and to, with time, achieve expertise.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000 hour idea in his book Outliers, and there’s an element of merit to it, but it’s incomplete. Ericsson was responsible for that research, and goes into detail, but the short version is that the research was done in highly specialized fields with a lot of shared expertise already. He calls this deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice, as he defines it, may rely on a solidly established field with clear definitions and outcomes, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can take away to our own areas of interest. Setting goals, finding a way to get feedback to evaluate outcomes, and ensuring that you are engaged and challenging yourself the right amount are all strategies encouraged through the book.

Overall, the message is that the human brain is incredibly adaptable and that systematically approaching new subjects (or old subjects you want to improve) can allow you to reach levels you didn’t believe were possible.

This is a must read if you have interest in the brain.

Stout & Vetiver

rated it

Nov. 6, 2019