PEAK: SECRETS FROM THE NEW SCIENCE OF EXPERTISE

The world's reigning expert on expertise -- K. Anders Ericsson, Ph.D. -- and world-renowned science and technology writer -- Robert Pool, Ph.D. -- team up to present a powerful new approach to mastering almost any skill. Have you ever wanted to learn a language or pick up an instrument, only to become daunted by the task at hand? Expert performance guru Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise," the first collaboration between Ericsson and Pool, condenses three decades of original research to introduce an incredibly powerful approach to learning that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring a skill. Ericsson’s findings have been lauded and debated but never properly explained. The idea of expertise still intimidates us — we believe we need innate talent to excel, or think excelling seems prohibitively difficult. "Peak" belies both of these notions, proving that almost all of us have the seeds of excellence within us — it’s just a question of nurturing them by reducing expertise to a discrete series of attainable practices. "Peak" offers invaluable, often counterintuitive, advice on setting goals, getting feedback, identifying patterns, and motivating yourself. Whether you want to stand out at work, or help your child achieve academic goals, Ericsson’s revolutionary methods will show you how to master nearly anything. "Peak" -- which is being described by reviewers and experts in a wide variety of fields as "an empowering, encouraging work that will challenge readers to reach for excellence," "the most important book you will read this year," "the book of a lifetime," and "a real game changer" -- already has 15 contracts, and counting, for books in 12 languages and over 20 countries. Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 336pp. Publication Date: April 5, 2016.

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PEAK by Anders Ericsson , Robert Pool | Kirkus Reviews

Challenging the notion that talent is innate.

Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly are the two key book review sites. Peak has been reviewed on both. Check out this review on Kirkus Reviews, which touts Peak as being "Especially informative for parents and educators in preparing children for the challenges ahead."

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Psychologist Ericsson (The Road to Excellence) and science writer Pool (Beyond Engineering) skillfully examine the eternal debate of nature vs. nurture with this thoughtful treatise

Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews are the two key book review sites. Peak has been reviewed on both. Check out this glowing review by Publishers Weekly, which heralds Peak as being "an empowering, encouraging work that will challenge readers to reach for excellence."

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Not All Practice Makes Perfect - Issue 35: Boundaries - Nautilus

In just our fourth session together, Steve was already beginning to sound discouraged. It was Thursday of the first week of an experiment…

A long excerpt of Peak was published in Nautilus Magazine, with permission from our publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Nautilus is an extremely popular publication that describes itself as "a different kind of science magazine. We are science, philosophy, and culture connected, offering a new perspective on human uniqueness and our universe — all beautifully illustrated. Each month, we explore a single topic from various scientific disciplines, pairing award-winning journalists with illustrators to create features that are unlike any other science journalism — fascinating, inspired, and innovative. Nautilus publishes online and print long-form features, as well as a blog."

The Peak excerpt printed by Nautilus has proven so popular that it has been linked to numerous blogs, publications, and web sites and has been shared and re-shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. One such site -- The Net Economy -- found Peak so relevant to so many fields that their Peak excerpt entry was posted in "Broadband, Business, Economic development, Economy, Education, How to, Leadership, Net and tagged Business improvement, Industrial economy, Internet, Jobs, Leadership, Organization, Productivity, and Skill."

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Episode 89: The Power of Deliberate Practice - Interview with Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool - DIY MFA

Gabriela interviews Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool about the art of deliberate practice and their new book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.

Peak co-authors Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool were interviewed by Gabriela Pereira for a podcast on her website DIY MFA, which is devoted to helping writers improve their craft. View the podcast for more details.

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Behavioral Science Books to Look Out for in the First Half of 2016 - The Psych Report

Check out these behavioral science books set to be released in the first half of 2016

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise is a game changing book that is a must-read for people from all walks of life and with virtually any career or aspiration – psychology and behavioral science, sports, business, education, etc. – so it’s no surprise that Peak is being talked about, reviewed, and included on recommended reading lists in such a wide variety of fields.  Here, thepsychreport.com includes Peak on its list of “Behavioral Science Books to Look Out for in the First Half of 2016.”

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Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released our book -- Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise -- on April 5, 2016. Peak is the most recent collaboration between K. Anders Ericsson, Ph.D. – the world’s reigning expert on expertise, who coined the phrase deliberate practice and has researched the field for more than three decades – and Robert Pool, Ph.D., world-renowned science and technology writer. This image shows the cover for the United States release. As of April 29, 2016, Peak has 15 contracts for books in 12 languages and over 20 countries, with more to come.

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Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong: Our research was key to the 10,000-hour rule, but here’s what got oversimplified

Yes, it takes effort to be an expert. But Gladwell based 10,000-hour rule in part on our work, and misunderstood

​Our adapted excerpt from our book – Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise – was published in the popular online magazine Salon, and it quickly became one of the magazine’s most read articles. Read this for valuable insights into deliberate practice and to see the ways in which Gladwell misunderstood and misrepresented our work when he came up with his so-called 10,000 hour rule. In other words, his rule is not really a rule. In fact, it’s wrong.

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More words of wisdom from Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool, co-authors of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. – Images from Education Week, which published an extended interview with both authors, with Peak prominently featured.

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Power Sheet - April 4, 2016

Fortune loves Peak! In their Power Sheet Lessons for Leaders in the Week Ahead, Fortune highly recommends Peak, stressing: "All good leaders want to get better, and anyone who wants to get better at anything should read a new book...called Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool." The review concludes with with one of Peak's uplifting takeaway messages -- that “people in every area of human endeavor are constantly finding ways to get better, to raise the bar on what was thought to be possible, and there is no sign that this will stop. The horizons of human potential are expanding with each new generation.”

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How to Become Great at Just About Anything - Freakonomics

What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson, who has been studying the science of expertise for decades. He tells us everything he’s learned.

Stephen J. Dubner, famous as the writer half of the duo that produced "Freakonomics" (along with economist Steven Levitt), has just published a wonderful podcast on freakonomics.com about the power of deliberate practice. The podcast mentions and relies heavily on ideas and quotes from "Peak" and includes an extensive interview with "Peak" co-author Anders Ericsson. Visit the site to listen to the podcast or read an abbreviated transcript.

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Getting the most out of one’s self

White-collar improvement

​The influential magazine The Economist has a nice review of Peak. In particular, it says that the book offers “an optimistic anti-determinism that ought to influence how people educate children, manage employees and spend their time.”

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What Is Inspiration?

One of the most satisfying mentions of our book was in The New York Times by that paper’s influential columnist David Brooks. He described Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise as “an informative new book” and aptly summarized our message as “downplay[ing] the importance of native-born genius (even in people like Mozart) and emphasiz[ing] the importance of deliberate practice—painstaking exercises to perfect some skill.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/opinion/what-is-inspiration.html

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Words of wisdom from Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool, Peak Deliberate Practice collaborators and co-authors of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. -- Image from Education Week, which published an extended interview with both authors, with Peak prominently featured.

#PeakTheBook #PeakDeliberatePractice #DeliberatePractice #Expertise #ExpertPerformers #AndersEricsson #RobertPool