Peak

By Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool,

Book cover of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Book description

Selected as a Book of the Year by New Statesman

Mozart wasn't born with perfect pitch.

Most athletes are not born with any natural advantage.

Three world-class chess players were sisters, whose success was planned by their parents before they were even born.

Anders Ericsson has spent thirty years studying…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Peak as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The work of Anders Ericsson changed my life. In this book, he describes his research into how certain people become really good at what they do. They all use one particular approach to achieving excellence. First, through a teacher, they learn the specific skills they need for their chosen activity. Then, they devote large amounts of time to practicing each skill to the point of mastery. Finally, with more practice, they learn to put all the skills together.

This way of learning is familiar to anyone who’s played a sport or a musical instrument. But it had never been applied…

From Barbara's list on achieving writing excellence.

In this book, my friend the late Professor K Anders Ericsson, proves that innate talent is not the most important factor in achieving expertise in any field.

Instead, deliberate practice is the key to improving performance and achieving mastery. But deliberate practice is not the same as regular practice: it involves specific and focused efforts to improve skills, often with the guidance of a teacher or coach.

It requires a high level of concentration and effort and can be mentally and physically exhausting. The book provides practical advice on how to apply this concept to any field.

There are three legs to the creativity stool: craft, timing, and distribution. When I started researching creativity, I assumed that craft was heavily reliant on natural born talent. K. Anders Ericsson is the leading academic in the field of talent development. This book makes clear a surprising, but important point: natural-born talent is probably at best grossly overstated, and probably non-existent. We can learn world-class levels of talent if we have the right access to time, resources, and motivation.

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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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