Psychologist Anders Ericsson on The Science of Expertise

Anders Ericsson (0:02)

Thanks for.

Michael Gervais (0:09)

All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And the idea behind this conversation is to sit down with people who are on the path of mastery and to understand what they're searching for, to understand their psychological framework and the mental skills that they use along the path to refine their craft. I wanna take a minute here to announce a really exciting event that we have coming up. As you continue to navigate the challenges and opportunities of 2024, I wanna pose a question. What are you doing right now to be great with stress? How are you working with stress on your pursuit towards your most important ambitions and goals? And I just wanna get right to the heart of the key elements, one in particular, for what it takes to excel in today's high heat, high stakes world. Because stress is not the problem that we think it is. Stress is a synonym for change. And our ability to be agile with change, that is the real opportunity at hand. So if you're wanting to unlock extraordinary results and sustainable performance in your life, it's not about avoiding or reducing stress. And as simple as that sounds, it's very tricky to do, but it is about fundamentally changing your relationship with it.

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Okay, so that being said, this conversation is with Anders Ericsson. And Anders is flat out one of the most influential people in the space of researching expertise. And his original research captivated me a long time ago and he was the primer, if you will, for the very popular Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour coined phrase. We get into that, we talk about that. We talk about much more in this conversation about the applied structures and ways to think about getting better in the most accelerated way. So his recent book is called Peak Secrets from the New Science of Expertise and he wrote that with Robert Poole. And really what, if you're unfamiliar with Anders' work, is that he's fascinated with the acquisition and expert performance of deliberate practice. So this is where the 10,000 hours all started.

And I hope you enjoy this conversation. He's a rich thinker, he's a systems thinker and he really is revealing the way that he's come to understand how the best in the world work. Okay, so looking forward to hearing your feedback on this conversation, hit us up on social and I hope you have a fantastic day. With that, let's jump right into this conversation with Anders Ericsson.

Anders, how are you?

Anders Ericsson (5:14)

I'm doing really well. I'm sitting here in my office and I'm really looking forward to this chance to talk to you.