The Building of Experts – The Surprising Principles of Skill Acquisition and Learning
Too Long, Didn’t Read: Building skill requires practice; you’re probably practicing wrong; amplify your progression by learning how to learn; your destiny lies in your hard work, not your genetics
Anybody who knows me, knows I am a scholarly individual. Ever since I can remember, learning has been a deep passion of mine. I never dreaded going to school; in fact, usually the opposite. The immense scope and magnitude of knowledge humans have acquired over the years is breathtaking to me.
Whether at work or in an official academic capacity, I believe learning opens doors, builds character, and enhances livelihoods. However, learning is only half the battle, application of learning – taking what you know about the subjects around you and applying it to make the world a better place – is truly the pinnacle of any learning journey. I believe this is where “expertise” begins, a deep academic understanding of a given subject with an uncanny ability to utilize such knowledge to solve problems.
But what exactly does it take to become an expert? What makes some people like Tiger Woods and Mozart so good at what they do? How do you become an expert?
Recently, my learning journey has taken me on a deep study of the science of expertise. Turns out, there is a lot of research to answer the above questions, and I dove straight in.
I was so inspired by my findings that I have launched a small business with the goal of bringing the science of skill acquisition and learning to the masses – you can learn more at www.power-of-practice.com. I just published my first product, a scientifically designed journal to facilitate skill acquisition.
Below are a set of principles I have compiled that briefly discuss my findings on building expertise and how we can utilize them to improve ourselves, I hope you enjoy.
Principle 1: Skill Acquisition Requires Substantial Practice
Practice is the key to skill acquisition.
The famed physicist Niels Bohr once famously said “an expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
If you want to get better at something, you have to practice, this is a fact of life.
Interestingly and a surprise to most people (including to myself originally), researchers have found that genetics plays a very little role, if any role at all, in the potential one has. The hypothesis that some individuals’ genetics determine their talents was the first hypothesis researchers set out to corroborate for why some people seem to be so naturally gifted. On the surface, it seems logical and easy to chalk up society’s experts as just special people that were born predisposed towards greatness as a result of their genetics. This simply has not been found to be true. There is no research that has found any genetic differences between experts and non-experts alike. Sure, there may be some fields – such as Football or Wrestling – where physical stature derived from genetics can influence your performance, but outside of a few obvious scenarios, genetics is a relatively minor role in the whole scheme of things. Of course, the argument of nature vs nurture is one that is not yet conclusively decided, but findings up to this point suggest nature has a minimal role in the building of experts.
Interestingly, on this (unsuccessful) journey to find what genetics breed greatness researchers did find one unexpected common denominator across all experts, no matter the domain. Practice. All experts, no matter the domain, practiced immensely. Like a lot. They not only dedicated themselves to practicing their craft, they practiced in very specific ways that maximized their learning. This was the breakthrough discovery researchers were looking for, subsequent research has further unveiled the techniques of practice that are most fruitful (more on this in Principle #2).
One interesting case study is the world-famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The prevailing narrative suggests that Mozart was born a musical genius, endowed from birth with a genetic makeup that predisposed him towards musical greatness. A deeper look however, muddies the water on this narrative.
Mozart’s father, Leopold Mozart, was a distinguished music teacher who published perhaps the most authoritative source on violin music theory of his time. Not only a musician, Leopold’s true passion lied in pedagogy, which is just a fancy word for teaching. Before Mozart’s birth, Leopold had a storied career playing music, teaching music, and writing authoritative texts on music. This obviously made for a ripe environment to raise children with a particular aptitude for music. From the moment of his birth, Mozart was surrounded by music, receiving intensive, world-class instruction from his father. By age 5, Mozart’s father quit his job to teach his son music full time, eventually touring him across Europe to perform for various royalty and elites. Mozart lived and breathed music. ?By the time of Mozart’s first breakthrough composition at age 21, he had perhaps been through the most intensive, rigorous music instruction regimen ever experienced by an individual up to that point in time.
Principle 2: Not All Practice is Created Equal
Soon after failing to find any genetic differences among experts, researchers turned their attention to studying the one common denominator they did find – practice. Numerous studies, aided by new brain imaging technology, have unveiled the truly best ways to practice.
Mindlessly logging hours strumming your guitar is not enough, to truly grow your skills you have to practice in a certain way:
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Principle 3: When you Practice, your Brain Changes
We now know the brain is plastic. Simply put, this means that your brain has the ability to change itself. Practicing has the effect of adjusting the wiring in your brain. In the same way your muscle fibers regenerate and rebuild stronger after lifting weights, your brain rebuilds after a hard practice session. This is why it is so important to practice outside of your comfort zone.
Our brains are essentially a big electrical circuit, composed of an unfathomable number of neurons working together to make you, you. The neurons in your brain talk to each other through synapses, forming chains of communication known as neural pathways. Neurons carry and transmit electrical pulses, much like a processing chip does in a computer, but in a biological way. Insulating each neuron is a fiber know as myelin sheath, and the more myelin sheath that is wrapped around each neuron, the more efficiently electrical signals are carried.
Practice creates myelin sheath. When you practice and fire neural pathways in your brain, your neurons wrap more myelin around themselves. And with greater insulation, comes greater transmission speed.
Principle 4: You Probably Have Never Heard of Mental Models, but You Should Have
We’ve all seen videos of chess masters simultaneously playing 20+ games at a time. The easy conclusion is that the world’s greatest chess masters must have better memories than the rest of us, right? Wrong.
Numerous studies have shown that chess masters do not have better memories than us non-chess masters. What they do have however, is what psychologists refer to as highly developed mental models (or mental representations).
Mental models are your brains cognitive representations of complex ideas, subjects, and the physical world around you. Developing deep and nuanced understandings of a given subject in the form of mental models is critical to skill acquisition
The mental models that chess master’s have with regard to chess are so highly and efficiently developed in their brains, that what appears like amazingly good memories to us, is just a byproduct of their highly refined knowledge of chess and the efficient encoding of knowledge in their brains.
I like to illustrate mental models with an example of pilots. If you want to be amongst the world’s best pilots you not only have to log hours of flight time via the techniques outlined in Principle #2, you must make a dedicated effort to develop your mental model of flying. A highly developed mental model of a pilot would include a deep academic understanding of physics, aerodynamics, meteorology, and fluid dynamics. A thorough understanding of your given aircraft’s mechanics, control board, air traffic control, and aviation administration is also crucial if you want to be an expert. Moreover, the ability apply different approaches, techniques, and strategies to a given flight situation differentiates expert pilots from novice pilots.
Research shows elite performers of any given skill possess more highly refined mental models when compared to those of lower expertise. Ultimately, this shouldn’t be all that surprising, but the idea of optimizing mental models is often unheard of and ignored when it comes to skill acquisition. Nevertheless, a focus on developing mental models is a very important component to consider and incorporate into practice.
Principle 4: You Must Learn How To Learn
Of course, building expertise requires learning. If you want to be an efficient learner, and hence maximize your potential, you must employ the most effective learning techniques. The ability to recall and apply your knowledge in an efficient manner is a staple characteristic of experts, and there are certain techniques to integrate into your practice regimen that facilitates this ability. Utilizing proven learning techniques helps your brain codify knowledge in long-term memory, making it readily available when you need it most.
?One example of effective learning techniques is spacing. Spacing is purposely scheduling practice sessions separated by periods of time, as opposed to marathon practice sessions. Spacing improves learning and retention and this phenomenon is commonly referred to as “The Spacing Effect.” The spacing effect has been demonstrated to substantially improve student performance in exams – studying throughout the semester in shorter chunks, separated by periods of time in which some initial forgetting has already set in as opposed to engaging in marathon study sessions right before an exam, resulted in more dynamic learning with substantially less probability of forgetting the information long after the class is over.
?In addition to Spacing, I outline 5 of the other most effective learning techniques in my book.
Principle 5: Your Destiny is Up to You
Your progress in life is predominantly driven by the decisions you make and the effort you put in. My goal is to bring the science of expertise to the masses and spread the message that your destiny lies largely in your hands, and practice is one substantial avenue to reach your goals.
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The mission of Power of Practice is to bring to market products, content, and tools that facilitate skill acquisition, learning, fulfillment, and personal growth.