book review of peak

C.A. Hughes Book Reviews

The literary journeys of a 20-something, bilingual, elementary school teacher.

Book Review: “Peak” by Roland Smith

What’s the most random job you’ve ever had?

One of the most random jobs I’ve had is working as a belayer at children’s parties. A belayer is someone who is there for safety while another person is rock-climbing; the rope runs through their belay device and they make sure everything is secure and safe for the person up in the air. I’m terribly afraid of heights and don’t enjoy rock climbing myself, so this was definitely a strange job for me to have. That being said, I think it’s fascinating to learn about people who do it professionally! And I wish I weren’t so afraid of it.

While mountaineering and rock climbing certainly aren’t the same thing, there are definitely some similarities. I was worried when I started reading Peak that I wouldn’t have too much interest in it. I’m afraid of heights, don’t have much knowledge of climbing of any kind, and don’t typically read books of the adventure genre. However, this book was such a pleasant surprise! I learned so much about mountaineering, and found the story really uplifting as well.

Spoiler-Free Review: “Peak” is an adventurous middle grade novel about a young boy named Peak who joins his father in an attempt to climb Mount Everest. Supporting details about mountaineering are naturally and seamlessly embedded throughout the novel, making it easy for children (and adults without mountaineering expertise!) to follow along and be engaged with what’s happening. While the mountaineering aspect of the novel was exciting and fascinating, Peak’s personal growth and family relationships were what truly shined in this story. I loved the portrayal of his family dynamic, especially regarding his step father and his biological father, and how his perspectives on these relationships change throughout. Peak is an uplifting, informative, and exciting adventure novel full of heart and mountaineering! I’d recommend it for children and adults alike.

Below you will find a more thorough review containing my thoughts about the book. If you’re wanting to avoid any spoilers, you are welcome to jump to the TL;DR summary at the bottom of the page if you’d prefer!

“Peak” by Roland Smith

• Year of Publication: 2007
• Genre: Adventure (Middle Grade)

The only thing you’ll find on the summit of Mount Everest is a divine view. The things that really matter lie far below. – Peak Marcello

After fourteen-year-old Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he’s left with two choices: wither away in Juvenile Detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand. But Peak quickly learns that his father’s renewed interest in him has strings attached.  Big  strings. As owner of Peak Expeditions, he wants his son to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit–and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. But it’s also one that could cost him his life.

Roland Smith has created an action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family, and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk. The story of Peak’s dangerous ascent—told in his own words—is suspenseful, immediate, and impossible to put down.

Format:  Paperback

Themes/Main Ideas:  Family is everything. Don’t let your passions become obsessions. True friends are worth sacrificing for. You can’t change other people. We’re capable of more than we know.

Character Development:  I thought the character development in this story was really well done. Peak (the main character) grows a lot throughout the story, and I felt like this development happened at a realistic pace. It builds slowly as he experiences different things and develops his relationships with other characters, which I really appreciated. One character that didn’t grow too much until the very end of the story (and even then only a little bit), was Peak’s biological father. However, I actually really like that this was the case. Peak has to learn that, sometimes, the people you care about the most aren’t going to treat you how you deserve to be treated, and you can’t change who they are. He discovers that he doesn’t have to be okay with this treatment, but he can accept who his father is and prioritize his relationships with people who will give him the love and attention that he deserves. Once he’s able to make this decision for himself, we start to see a small change in his father, which is great! I believe this is a series, so I hope the development of this character continues in later books.

Plot/Pacing:  The pacing of this book was great! The short chapters make it really hard to put down. Also, it easily could have gotten repetitive when going through the acclimatization process at Everest, but the author managed to keep things engaging all throughout the story.

Writing Style:  I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. It’s written from the first person point of view of Peak, and it’s structured like his journal. I loved how self-aware the narrator was. He had such a strong voice and, since the journal was being written as an assignment for school, he even refers to certain writing techniques that he’s learned as he uses them. That makes this a great expert model to use in a classroom!

“Bingeability”:  High. It’s exciting and intense, and the short chapters make it easy to read large portions at a time.

Emotional Investment:  High. I found myself really rooting for him to make it to the top of Everest! The minor characters were also really likeable and easy to connect with.

Windows and Mirrors:  Mountaineering. Step-parents. Youths getting in trouble with the law. Everest. Privilege.

Overall Thoughts:  I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would. There were very few things I didn’t like! In the beginning, Peak climbs a skyscraper and tags it with graffiti, which lands him in a juvenile detention center. His family immediately gets him a lawyer and is working to get him out of facing any severe consequences. It doesn’t seem like too big of a deal, but after another child tries to copy his stunt and dies, it becomes clear why they’re trying to make an example of his case. However, his family pulls some strings, and they end up sneaking Peak out of the country so that the media frenzy can die down. There’s also a fine, but the judge states that they’ll get the money back after a certain amount of time assuming Peak stays out of trouble. The intense privilege of the situation just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It made me think of Punching the Air (review HERE ), in which a young black boy was falsely accused of a crime and ended up stuck in a juvenile detention facility for an extended period of time. And yet Peak actually broke the law and didn’t end up having to face any terrible consequences. It’s not surprising that it happened, but it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

My only other small gripe was just how petty Peak was at times. He sometimes would even wish sickness or other misfortunes on his friend just because they were both trying to break the world record for the youngest person to summit Everest. He definitely grows out of this later in the story, but it just seemed a little over the top to me.

That being said, part of the reason I rated this as high as I did is because of the ending. It actually managed to surprise me! I enjoy reading middle grade books, but I often find them predictable (since they’re written for a much younger target audience). However, this ending actually truly caught me off guard in the best way.

Recommendation: Yes, I absolutely recommend this book for children and adults alike. It’s an exciting story that’s sure to hook young readers (especially resistant readers), and it does a great job exploring a topic (mountaineering) that is likely unfamiliar to many young readers. This would be a great choice for a book club/novel study/literature circle. It would also be a great expert model for narrative writing since the narrator is so self-aware. Additionally, it would be a great expert model for how authors use context clues to help readers figure out unfamiliar words (especially in the first couple chapters). Much of the vocabulary surrounding mountaineering is very content-specific, and the author does a great job incorporating context clues to help readers figure it out without taking away from the story.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

TL;DR: Year of Publication: 2007 Genre: Adventure (Middle Grade) Summary: Young boy climbs Mount Everest! Will he make it to the summit? Themes/Main Ideas: Family. Friendship. Passion. Sacrifice. Change. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Character Development: Fantastic! Plot/Pacing: Exciting throughout with short chapters that make it hard to put down. “Bingeability”: High. Emotional Investment: High. Windows and Mirrors: Mountaineering. Step-parents. Youths getting in trouble with the law. Everest. Privilege. Overall Thoughts: Surprisingly good! A couple minor gripes with portrayal of privilege in the justice system (though accurate, the privilege goes unacknowledged) and some petty behavior, but a great story with an ending that is not predictable. Recommendation: Yes Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you for reading my review! Leave a comment letting me know if you’ve read this one or have any questions about it, and keep an eye out for my next review!

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What's .css-1msjh1x{font-style:italic;} peak about.

In this unputdownable, spine-tingling adventure of a lifetime called “a winner at every level,” fourteen-year-old Peak Marcello attempts to be the youngest climber to summit Mount Everest. After Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he’s left with two choices: wither away in juvenile detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs an overseas climbing company.But Peak quickly learns that his father’s renewed interest in him has strings attached. Big strings. As owner of Peak Expeditions, he wants his son to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit–and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. It’s also one that could cost him his life.This thrilling teen climbing adventure is “the perfect antidote for kids who think books are boring” (Publishers Weekly starred review).Roland Smith’s Peak Marcello’s Adventures are: PeakThe EdgeAscentDescentBooklist, starred review

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Roland Smith, . . Harcourt, $17 (246pp) ISBN 978-0-15-202417-8

Reviewed on: 06/04/2007

Genre: Children's

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Book Review-Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Home Book Review Professional Book Review-Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

• July 11, 2016
• No Comments
• Robert Bogue
• Book Review , Professional

How is it that some people just seem to get better and better at what they do? Whether it’s a ballerina, a musician, or a doctor, they just seem to get better with every day of practice. At the same time, how is it possible that most ballerinas, musicians, and doctors don’t improve with practice? They just practice? The answer may be in the idea of “intentional practice” as Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise  reveals.

Ericsson’s work wasn’t first publicized in his book. It first hit the market as a part of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers . In this book, he sensationalizes the need for 10,000 hours of practice in order to gain mastery of something. It was effective at galvanizing ideas around the “10,000 hours” number. It was successful enough that it was satirized in a Dilbert cartoon, where Dogbert said, “I would think a willingness to practice the same thing for ten thousand hours is a mental disorder.” I suppose if the practice were all dreary repetition that would be true – it could be characterized as a mental disorder.

The problem is that Gladwell didn’t get the answer precisely right. It’s not 10,000 hours as a specific number that matters. It’s not a magic number where at 9,999 hours you’re awful, and at the 10,000 th hour you’re miraculously transformed into the next king of rock and roll. Instead, it’s the momentum built by 10,000 hours (or substantially less) of purposeful practice. Each hour of work trying to get better adds a new skill, technique or understanding. This gets momentum building until, eventually, a person’s velocity appears to be magical.

Purposeful Practice…

Purposeful practice is the kind of practice where you’re a bit outside of your comfort zone, and you’re trying to learn one thing – sometimes one very small thing – with the practice that you’re performing. It means staying engaged and really trying towards a specific goal.

Many years ago I purchased a Dr. Who pinball game. A few years ago I had it converted over to all LED lighting and completely refurbished from the ground up. The game has an upper loop common in pinball games. They’re hard to hit but they generally give very large rewards. Hitting the loop in this game is a playfield multiplier. If you do it as a part of a larger sequence, it will give you an extra ball.

I had played for hours before I made a specific decision. I wanted to improve my technique for getting into – and staying in the upper loop. I did this by ignoring everything else on the board for hours. I’d play just to get to the upper loop and stay there. My one game record is 28 loops. When I finished this skill I worked on another skill. While I never completed all of the skills that I would need to be really good at the game, I could tell that my game improved when I specifically targeted a specific skill.

This was purposeful practice in its most precise sense. I had a very specific goal and I had immediate feedback about how well I was doing for that goal. What would have been more ideal would have been to have a teacher – but that isn’t a requirement for purposeful practice, it just makes it easier.

Purposeful practice has a deep similarity to flow – and I’d go so far as to say a dependence on flow. Both purposeful practice and flow require a challenge that just slightly exceeds one’s skills. Both flow and purposeful practice increase one’s skills, increasing the need to up the challenge. Both require immediate feedback to be the most effective. Both require a clear goal. In short, they match 1-for-1 on the requirements.

More interestingly, purposeful practice needs to occur over a long period of time. Practice is – for most folks – not the most fun thing in the world. There has to be a motivation for practice to be continued. Ericsson notes that Bloom (yes, the same Benjamin Bloom responsible for Bloom’s Taxonomy ) noticed that, after a few years of practice, the students began to identify themselves with the skill they were learning rather than other things. Identification with the skill is a motivator; however, it’s the same intrinsic motivation that drives flow. We get into flow because getting into flow (and the resulting skill development) is fundamentally something that is rewarding to us.

Mental Models

So what is it about top performers that’s different? It turns out, it’s how they see the world. Top gymnasts have a better model of gymnastics than those who aren’t at the top of their field. Chess masters have a better mental representation of the game than the novice. As Josh Waitzkin explained in The Art of Learning , at some level it’s no longer about the memorized openings. At some point, chess – like life – is understanding how the game is played – better than anyone else.

Gary Klein applied mental models to the fire commanders who he studied and wrote about in Sources of Power . They were simulating the fires and attempting to find a set of variables that could explain all of their observations. Efficiency in Learning uses schemas to describe the critical mental models that students must build in order to learn.

By focusing on a small part of the activity, it’s possible to swap out a less effective mental model of an aspect of the overall goal, much like you would swap out components in a desktop computer. You don’t have to replace the whole thing to upgrade a part of the experience.

Models are recursive. I have a model for creating content. This includes a model for creating an outline. It includes a model for doing research. It includes a model for typing. I can upgrade my typing skills by taking a class, using a program, or focusing on the effectiveness of my typing abilities – all without disturbing the other models for creating content.

The top performers in any given area are focused on swapping out the little component models which aren’t working as well as they would like with newer, more effective models.

Peak Performance and Innovation

Peak performers are always looking for a better option – and therefore they’re more likely to generate innovations. Peak performers aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They’re not OK with just good enough. Gary Klein speaks of what insights are in his book Seeing What Others Don’t . Insights are a different way of seeing the world. Insights are upgraded models of viewing the world. These updated insights lead to different views of the problem, and therefore the ability to solve the problem in ways that others can’t even imagine.

Informed Practice

What’s even better than deliberate or purposeful practice? Informed practice. Informed practice is when you have a teacher, a guide who can help you to learn through practice how to improve your skills quickly, using the standardized teaching techniques that the field has developed over time.

Informed practice is an accelerated kind of purposeful practice.

Differentiating Between Performance and Practice

So if I’ve got 10,000 or 100,000 hours of work in a field, does that necessarily mean that my mental representation of my field is better than or at an expert level? In a word, No. If I’ve been constantly performing trying to optimize my results with each engagement, then I’m necessarily not allowing for failure, or focusing on how to improve one aspect of my work. As a result, I may – or may not – perform better than when I started.

I remember one time when I was very young we had a large snow. We decided to build a snow fort in the front yard. If you’ve never had to build up a snow fort, then you won’t know that the first step is to pile all of the snow that you have into the place where you’re going to create the fort. I started with a snow shovel and I’d carry the shovel back and forth. I then tried a variety of techniques to improve the efficiency of the operation until I settled on using a trash can. I could slide it across the lawn, scooping the snow, then take it over to the snow fort and dump it on. I remember this because by the time I had fully refined my process, I had consumed all the snow in the rather tiny yard. I spent all my time trying to optimize the process – so much, that I failed to realize when the actual task was done.

I mention this story because for me I entered into a state where I wanted to try to make things better (in this case, more efficient) and I was willing to make significant investments in trying different strategies. I was, in effect, practicing to find the best way to move snow. Today it seems silly to think about a child of about 8 years of age doing process optimization work, but that’s what I was doing. (I still don’t know if my mother was more impressed or concerned about these activities.)

Safe to Fail

Inherent in the notion of practice, like the notion of play (See Play for more), is the idea that it’s relatively safe. That means even if I mess up, even if I make a mistake or don’t perform as well as I normally do, that it will be OK. There are no looming consequences which are going to threaten my survival.

I mentioned in Trust => Vulnerability => Intimacy that safety is an important part of growth. As strange as it sounds, even the extreme athletes discussed in The Rise of Superman believe that what they’re doing is safe. That may be because their brain has shut down their inner critic or they’ve rationalized the safety issues away, but they feel relatively safe. It is this relative feeling of safety that enables normal learning.

Dealing with Discouragement

If you’ve worked at anything for a length of time you’re undoubtedly going to encounter some discouragement, some setbacks, frustration, and you’ll want to quit. The difference between peak performers and the rest of us is, when this time came, they kept with it. They kept practicing and trying to get better. They found a way to work past the discouragement.

In The Psychology of Hope , we learned about the components of hope, including willpower and way power, and how they together help us to move through discouraging situations. By developing these skills – these mental processes – we can cope with more discouragement and regain our belief that we can be the best in the world someday.

Paul Tough in How Children Succeed calls this persistence or grit. It’s this grit that can carry you through the trough of despair as you believe you’re not making progress – or not making enough progress.

Artificial Barriers

The funny thing about our performance is that it’s very much about our belief about the maximum that we can do. If we believe that we can’t run faster than a four-minute mile, then no one will – until the first person does. When the belief is broken, suddenly everyone could run faster than the four-minute mile. The belief evaporated and then so did the limit.

Peak performers have faced many of these false beliefs about their limits and have overcome them. Whether you’re running a mile or you’re trying to be the best swimmer in the world, you’ll have to get rid of your fears and your belief systems that raise artificial barriers. It’s only by confronting these barriers that you can become the Peak of your field.

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SECRETS FROM THE NEW SCIENCE OF EXPERTISE

by Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2016

Especially informative for parents and educators in preparing children for the challenges ahead.

Challenging the notion that talent is innate.

“The most important gifts we can give our children are confidence in their ability to remake themselves again and again and the tools with which to do that job,” writes Ericsson (Psychology/Florida State Univ.; editor:  The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expertise Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports and Games , 2014, etc.), assisted in this book by science writer Pool ( Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology , 1999, etc.). The plasticity of the human brain, coupled with directed training and practice, is the key. Ericsson joins an increasing number of educators who focus on the importance of what he calls “deliberate practice” in achieving expertise in fields such as music and sports. This practice is best begun at an early age, so children can hone specific skills and also gain the ability to “remake themselves again and again,” as circumstances change. This is a matter of practical training, not just the assimilation of abstract knowledge. It demands embarking on a realistic path to achieving a specific goal by achieving mastery of successively more difficult specific skills, and it involves a combination of mental and physical training. The idea that individual differences in ability are not genetically determined or hard-wired into the human brain has only been widely accepted in this century. Previously, talent was thought to be genetically determined so that “learning was just a way of fulfilling one's genetic potential.” Ericsson gives intriguing examples of how the visual cortex in the brain of a blind person as he or she learns Braille develops connections to the fingertips and how Mozart's achievements as a child prodigy were cultivated by his father's intensive training. The author makes a strong case that success in today's world requires a focus on practical performance, not just the accumulation of information.

Pub Date: April 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-544-45623-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016

SPORTS & RECREATION | PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | PSYCHOLOGY

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Peak Summary

1-Sentence-Summary:   Peak accumulates everything the pioneer researcher on deliberate practice has learned about expert performance through decades of exploration and analysis of what separates those, who are average, from those, who are world-class at what they do.

Favorite quote from the author:

Audio Summary

Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:

If you’ve spent a little bit of time on this site, you’ll likely have come across a phrase that’s dropped often in popular science: deliberate practice. This idea represents an alternative to the long-prevailing notion that world-class performance is the result of mere talent and innate ability. Bounce , Deep Work and The Art of Learning are just a few of numerous bestsellers discussing this topic you’ll find on Four Minute Books.

What we haven’t done so far is trace this powerful concept back to its humble beginnings.  Anders Ericsson is the true pioneer in this field. It’s his research that the 10,0000-hour rule is based on and he’s been investigating peak performance for decades. Only in 2016 did he finally wrap everything he’s learned so far into this book, called  Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise .

Here are my 3 favorite lessons about how the idea has developed and transformed over the years and why it puts an end to the talent vs. skill debate:

• The path professionals take is called ‘purposeful practice’ and it consists of four parts.
• When you practice in a mature field of expertise and have someone to guide you, purposeful practice becomes deliberate.
• True genius isn’t an innate talent – but the mere result of years of deliberate practice.

Are you sick and tired of believing you can’t become who you want because you weren’t built to? Then this is for you.

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Lesson 1: Professionals practice with purpose, which is a 4-part approach.

Way back in the 1970s, Anders Ericsson did a study with one of his undergraduate students, named Steve. The goal was to see if Steve could significantly improve his ability to remember a sequence of numbers. When they began working together, Steve could remember the average length most people have no trouble with – seven digits in a row. Steve hadn’t had any memory training before and he wasn’t particularly good with numbers either.

At the end of the study, several months later, Steve could remember number sequences up to 82 digits long .

What happened in between? Four things, specifically, which shaped Steve’s practice environment:

• He had a clear, specific goal: memorize more numbers.
• Steve was focused during practice . A researcher recited the numbers to him in one-second intervals. There were no distractions.
• Ericsson constantly pushed him to achieve more . When he pulled off 32 numbers, they’d start again with 32 the next session, then shoot for 33.
• Lastly, Steve received feedback after every attempt , telling him exactly how he had done.

These four things combined create a training environment Ericsson calls purposeful practice . However, purposeful practice is just a stepping stone. For the real deal, two more things must happen.

Lesson 2: Purposeful practice becomes deliberate when it’s guided and within a well-developed field.

Going from an average to a world-class performer is like climbing a ladder with an infinite number of rungs. The difference between good and great  is in how fast you can get to the next rung, including how many you can skip altogether.

This happens when your practice turns from purposeful to deliberate, for which two elements must come together:

• Your practice must take place in a field that’s well-established . The longer it’s been around and the more seasoned experts you can potentially access, the better. If there’s a clear gap in performance between beginners and pros, that’s a good sign.
• Your practice must be guided by a trainer, coach or mentor , who can instruct you in the activities necessary to improve.

Take music, for example. It’s been around forever and hundreds of training techniques for all kinds of instruments have been refined and crafted until today. By having a violin teacher, who shows you how to play scales the best way, you skip a lot of steps and frustrating attempts.

Leveraging the guidance of someone with access to a big share of the resources and strategies in your field takes your practice from purposeful to informed – and that’s what makes it deliberate.

Lesson 3: Even the world’s greatest talents are really the result of years of deliberate practice.

But what about child prodigies Nik? When did  they practice?

Ericsson argues there is no evidence to prove something such as innate talent exists and that even the most gifted among us are the result of lots and lots of deliberate practice.

Even Mozart was trained , not just talented. He just happened to receive excellent training, particularly from his father, starting before he was four years old. Contrary to popular belief, Mozart likely only started composing “proper” music in his teenage years – by when he had put in a decade’s worth of deliberate practice already.

Plus, even if you consider others to be “more of a natural” than you, it wouldn’t change the fact that you too can become world-class, thanks to deliberate practice. Whether our starting points differ or not becomes moot: he who practices the most and does so deliberately, wins.

So get off the complain train and start calling potential mentors!

Peak Review

Given Anders Ericsson’s background and his pioneer status when it comes to human performance, it’d be foolish to skip  Peak  for other books about the subject.  Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise  should be your number one, go-to book about deliberate practice. If you’re interested in learning about this topic, make it your first stop, not your last.

Who would I recommend the Peak summary to?

The 13 year old, who’s really tired of piano practice, but has a chance of being great if she continues, the 29 year old writer, who’s seen some success, but feels like he’s now hitting a wall and might need a mentor, and anyone who thinks they’re “just not talented enough.”

Last Updated on August 6, 2022

Niklas Göke

Niklas Göke is an author and writer whose work has attracted tens of millions of readers to date. He is also the founder and CEO of Four Minute Books, a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries teaching readers 3 valuable lessons in just 4 minutes each. Born and raised in Germany, Nik also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration & Engineering from KIT Karlsruhe and a Master’s Degree in Management & Technology from the Technical University of Munich. He lives in Munich and enjoys a great slice of salami pizza almost as much as reading — or writing — the next book — or book summary, of course!

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Book Review: “Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise”

Book: Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool Reviewer: Bobby Powers

My Thoughts: 9  of 10 Ever heard of the 10,000-hour rule? It was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book  Outliers . Gladwell based that rule on the research of Anders Ericsson, who just released his own book that sets the record straight on what exactly is required to become an expert in a given field. The 10,000-hour rule isn't quite true (read Peak to find out why), but it does get a few things right—namely that talent is overrated and hard work rules the day. Ericsson shares research conducted on chess grandmasters, violinists, musicians, ballerinas, and others at the top of the world in their craft. The research conclusively shows that deliberate practice trumps innate talent in the battle for the podium in any given area of expertise. Peak is an amazing book that has practical implications spanning education, sports, and personal drive to be the best in whatever you love to do.

Takeaways from the Book

Expertise takes hard work.

• “We now understand that there’s no such thing as a predefined ability. The brain is adaptable, and training can create skills that did not exist before...Learning isn’t a way of reaching one’s potential but rather a way of developing it. We can create our own potential.”
• “I can report with confidence that I have never found a convincing case for anyone developing extraordinary abilities without intense, extended practice.”
• “When people say God blessed me with a beautiful jump shot it really pisses me off. I tell those people, ‘Don’t undermine the work I’ve put in every day.’ Not some days. Every day. Ask anyone who has been on a team with me who shoots the most. Go back to Seattle and Milwaukee, and ask them. The answer is me.” -Ray Allen, 10-time NBA all-star and greatest three-point shooter in the history of the league
• “People do not stop learning and improving because they have reached some innate limits on their performance; they stop learning and improving because, for whatever reasons, they stopped practicing—or never started. There is no evidence that any otherwise normal people are born without the innate talent to sing or do math or perform any other skill. ”

Mental Representations

• A mental representation is a brain schema/shortcut developed through deep experience and practice. “Any relatively complicated activity requires holding more information in our heads than short-term memory allows, so we are always building mental representations of one sort or another without even being aware of it.”
• “The thing all mental representations have in common is that they make it possible to process large amounts of information quickly, despite the limitations of short-term memory.”
• “The main thing that sets experts apart from the rest of us is that their years of practice have changed the neural circuitry in their brains to produce highly specialized mental representations, which in turn make possible the incredible memory, pattern recognition, problem solving, and other sorts of advanced abilities needed to excel in their particular specialties.”
• “The main purpose of deliberate practice is to develop effective mental representations.”
• “In any area, not just musical performance, the relationship between skill and mental representations is a virtuous circle: the more skilled you become, the better your mental representations are, and the better your mental representations are, the more effectively you can practice to hone your skill.”

Deliberate Practice

• “Deliberate practice is purposeful practice that knows where it is going and how to get there.”
• “Deliberate practice takes place outside one’s comfort zone and requires a student to constantly try things that are just beyond his or her current abilities. Thus it demands near-maximal effort, which is generally not enjoyable.”
• “Doing the same thing over and over again in exactly the same way is not a recipe for improvement; it is a recipe for stagnation and gradual decline.”
• Requires a teacher who can provide specific practice activities
• Involves well-defined, specific goals (not aimed at some vague overall improvement)
• Requires a person’s full attention and conscious actions
• Involves feedback and modification of efforts in response to that feedback
• Produces and depends upon effective mental representations
• Systematically works to improve micro-aspects of each skill
• “Remember: if your mind is wandering or you’re relaxed and just having fun, you probably won’t improve.”
• “The hallmark of purposeful or deliberate practice is that you try to do something you cannot do—that takes you out of your comfort zone—and that you practice it over and over again, focusing on exactly how you are doing it, where you are falling short, and how you can get better.”

Other Insights

• “When people assume that talent plays a major, even determining, role in how accomplished a person can become, that assumption points one toward certain decisions and actions. If you assume that people who are not innately gifted are never going to be good at something, then the children who don’t excel at something right away are encouraged to try something else...The prophecy becomes self-fulfilling.”
• “Since the 1990s brain researchers have come to realize that the brain—even the adult brain—is far more adaptable than anyone ever imagined, and this gives us a tremendous amount of control over what our brains are able to do."
• “This is how the body’s desire for homeostasis can be harnessed to drive changes: push it hard enough and for long enough, and it will respond by changing in ways that make that push easier to do.”
• “Once you have identified an expert, identify what this person does differently from others that could explain the superior performance.”
• “To date, we have found no limitations to the improvements that can be made with particular types of practice.”
• “The creative, the restless, and the driven are not content with the status quo, and they look for ways to move forward, to do things that others have not. And once a pathfinder shows how something can be done, others can learn the technique and follow. Even if the pathfinder doesn’t share the particular technique...simply knowing that something is possible drives others to figure it out.”
• “I suspect that such genetic differences—if they exist—are most likely to manifest themselves through the necessary practice and efforts that go into developing a skill. Perhaps, for example, some children are born with a suite of genes that cause them to get more pleasure from drawing or from making music. Then those children will be more likely to draw or to make music than other children. If they’re put in art classes or music classes, they’re likely to spend more time practicing because it is more fun for them. They carry their sketchpads or guitars with them wherever they go. And over time these children will become better artists or better musicians than their peers--not because they are innately more talented in the sense that they have some genes for musical or artistic ability, but because something—perhaps genetic—pushed them to practice and thus develop their skills to a greater degree than their peers."

Think you’d like this book?

Other books you may enjoy:.

• Mindset by Carol Dweck
• Grit by Angela Duckworth
• The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
• Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin

Other notable books by the authors:

• Toward a General Theory of Expertise   edited by Anders Ericsson and Jacqui Smith
• Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology by Robert Pool

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Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise Paperback – April 11, 2017

• Print length 336 pages
• Language English
• Publisher HarperOne
• Publication date April 11, 2017
• Dimensions 5.31 x 0.81 x 8 inches
• ISBN-10 0544947223
• ISBN-13 978-0544947221
• See all details

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Editorial reviews.

 “This book is a breakthrough, a lyrical, powerful, science-based narrative that actually shows us how to get better (much better) at the things we care about.” — Seth Godin , author of Linchpin   “Most ‘important’ books aren’t much fun to read. Most fun books aren’t very important. But with Peak, Anders Ericsson (with great work from Robert Pool) has hit the daily double. After all, who among us doesn’t want to learn how to get better at life? A remarkable distillation of a remarkable lifetime of work.” — Stephen J. Dubner , coauthor of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics   “Ericsson’s research has revolutionized how we think about human achievement. He has found that what separates the best of us from the rest is not innate talent but simply the right kind of training and practice. If everyone would take the lessons of this book to heart, it could truly change the world.” — Joshua Foer , author of Moonwalking with Einstein   “The science of excellence can be divided into two eras: before Ericsson and after Ericsson. His groundbreaking work, captured in this brilliantly useful book, provides us with a blueprint for achieving the most important and life-changing work possible: to become a little bit better each day.” — Dan Coyle , author of The Talent Code   “Wonderful. I can’t think of a better book for a popular audience written on any topic in psychology.” — Daniel Willigham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of Why Don’t Students Like School? “[ Peak ] offers an optimistic anti-determinism that ought to influence how people educate children, manage employees, and spend their time. The good news is that to excel one need only look within.” – The Economist “All good leaders want to get better, and anyone who wants to get better at anything should read [ Peak ]. Rest assured that the book is not mere theory. Ericsson’s research focuses on the real world, and he explains in detail, with examples, how all of us can apply the principles of great performance in our work or in any other part of our lives.” – Fortune “This is an empowering, encouraging work that will challenge readers to reach for excellence.” — Publishers Weekly   “[Ericsson] makes a strong case that success in today’s world requires a focus on practical performance, not just the accumulation of information. Especially informative for parents and educators in preparing children for the challenges ahead.” — Kirkus Reviews   —

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne; Reprint edition (April 11, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0544947223
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0544947221
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.81 x 8 inches
• #23 in Job Hunting & Career Guides
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About the authors

Robert pool.

ROBERT POOL, Ph.D. -- a world-renowned author, consultant, and speaker whose areas of expertise include deliberate practice, deliberate practice training and education, and multiple areas of science, technology, and medicine -- combined his history, physics, and mathematics degrees with his love of writing to successfully transition from researcher and mathematics professor to an internationally published author and successful consultant and speaker. He has taught science writing at Johns Hopkins University and has worked as a writer and editor at the world's two most prestigious science publications -- Science and Nature -- and hundreds of his works have been published in the top publications in a variety of fields, publications that include Discover, New Scientist, Science, Nature, Technology Review, Forbes ASAP, Think Research, The Washington Post, FSU Research in Review, MIT Technology Review, and so on.

Dr. Pool co-authored his latest general audience book -- Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) -- with Anders Ericsson, Ph.D., the world's reigning authority on expertise. Since Peak was released less than two years ago more than two dozen countries have purchased publishing rights, Peak has been translated into dozens of languages, and Dr. Pool has done numerous podcasts and interviews and been hired as a deliberate practice consultant and speaker by companies and groups around the world. His passion for deliberate practice and belief that it can change and better life as we know it has lead to his creation of various Peak Deliberate Practice social media (facebook, twitter, tumblr, pinterest, etc.) as well as a web site -- peakdeliberatepractice.com -- which he is designing to become an interactive community and forum for everyone interested in creating potential through deliberate practice.

Dr. Pool transitioned from academia and working as a professor to entering the field of writing in the newspaper industry, where his work as a business writer and science columnist earned him a number of awards. His work was so impressive, in fact, that it earned him international positions at the two most prestigious science magazines in the world. First he worked at Science, where he served as a research news writer and contributing correspondent. Then he served as news editor at Nature -- during which time he also served as a science writing instructor at Johns Hopkins University -- before becoming a freelance author.

For many years Dr. Pool has provided writing and consulting services for such prestigious groups as the National Academies -- comprising the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) -- which serve (collectively) as the scientific national academy for the United States. He has written hundreds of important books and reports for the academies -- many of them published by the National Academies Press -- covering such topics as homeland security, intelligence and counterintelligence, vaccine safety, transportation safety, pollinator collapse, the obesity epidemic, forensics in the courtroom, literacy and education, etc. These works have made a profound impact on and substantial contribution to the world. (National Academies books and reports influence policy decisions and laws; are instrumental in enabling new research programs; provide independent program reviews; etc.) In addition to books and reports, Dr. Pool has participated in and served as rapporteur/author for numerous national and international think tank and problem-solving workshops and committees and written extensive workshop summary booklets for the Institute of Medicine, the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education at the National Academies, the National Research Council Committee on Long-Run Macro-Economic Effects of the Aging U.S. Population, the National Research Council Committee on Understanding International Health Differences in High-Income Countries, the National Research Council Committee on Population/Panel on Understanding Divergent Trends in Longevity in High-Income Countries, the National Academy of Engineering Committee on K-12 Engineering Education, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for “Technical Revision of Congressional Budget Narrative” for nuclear physics section of the Department of Energy, the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Evaluation of NIOSH's Anthropometric Survey, the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Assessing Technological Literacy, and the National Academy of Engineering Committee for Making the Case for Technological Literacy, among many others. Dr. Pool also provides writing and consulting services for various private sector clients as well as such groups as the Military Suicide Research Consortium, funded by the Department of Defense.

In addition to Peak, Dr. Pool has written many other successful books -- four for a general audience -- including Eve's Rib: Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences (Crown, 1994) -- still relevant to discussions of gender and gender issues two decades after its first release, often quoted/referenced in current publications, and referred to as an important contribution and invaluable resource in our understanding of gender and sex differences in the human brain -- and Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology (Oxford University Press, 1997) -- which has remained on university required reading lists for more than two decades.

Although Dr. Pool specializes in deliberate practice, deliberate practice training and education, and various areas of science, technology, and medicine, his ability to write in all genres and all fields is proven by the breadth of his work. For example, Dr. Pool has written sections for junior high and high school texts, ghostwritten various articles and books across a wide variety of fields, served as a writing and content consultant for industry newsletters, and written for annual reports, corporate communications, and public relations campaigns. On a fun note, he has even written and published in the field of creative writing, including short stories, poems, and songs.

The following is an abbreviated list -- many clients and projects cannot be included due to trade secrets and confidentiality agreements and most recent works and Peak Deliberate Practice work/engagements have yet to be added -- that includes some of Dr. Pool's consulting jobs and publications, including works for the National Academies:

EDUCATION & ACADEMIA:

--Graduated magna cum laude from Rice University with a B.A. in physics, mathematics, and history

--As graduate student spent year at Princeton with dissertation advisor

--Earned Ph.D. in mathematics from Rice University

--Instructor at Rice University

--Assistant professor at Texas A&M University

DOCTORATE THESIS PUBLICATION:

"Some applications of complex geometry to mathematical physics" -- included in Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society and referenced in dozens of major mathematical and scientific papers and publications.

GENERAL AUDIENCE BOOKS:

(1) Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2016 (with Anders Ericsson).

(2) Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001.

(3) Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology, Oxford University Press, New York, 1997. Paperbound version released in 1999.

(4) Eve's Rib: Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences, Crown Publishing, New York, 1994.

MAGAZINE, NEWSPAPER, AND INTERNET ARTICLES:

Well over 200 articles in Discover, New Scientist, Science, Nature, Technology Review, Forbes ASAP, Think Research, The Washington Post, FSU Research in Review, MIT Technology Review, and other publications as well as hundreds more in newspaper and internet articles.

BOOKS/BOOKLETS SUMMARIZING NATIONAL ACADEMIES-SPONSORED WORKSHOPS:

(1) The Interplay Between Environmental Exposures and Obesity, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2016.

(2) Principles and Obstacles for Sharing Data from Environmental Health Research, The National Academies Press, 2016.

(3) Identifying and Reducing Environmental Health Risks of Chemicals in Our Society, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2014.

(4) Bringing Public Health into Urban Revitalization, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2014.

(5) Nexus of Biofuels Energy, Climate Change, and Health, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2014.

(6) Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule: Perspectives of Social and Behavioral Scientists, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2013.

(7) New Directions in Assessing Performance of Individuals and Groups, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2013.

(8) Sociocultural Data to Accomplish Department of Defense Missions: Toward a Unified Framework, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2011.

(9) Field Evaluation in the Intelligence and Counterintelligence Context, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2011.

(10) Emerging Safety Science: The Biology of Adverse Events, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008.

(11) Assessing the Medical Risks of Oocyte Donation for Stem Cell Research, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2007.

(12) Nutrigenomics and Beyond: Informing the Future, National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2007.

(13) Contributions of Land Remote Sensing for Decisions About Food Security and Human Health, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2007.

(14) Environmental Contamination, Biotechnology, and the Law: The Impact of Emerging Genomic Information, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2001.

(15) Ecological Monitoring of Genetically Engineered Crops, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2001.

(16) Bioinformatics: Converting Data to Knowledge, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000.

(17) Finding The Path: Issues of Access to Research Resources, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1999.

(18) Privacy Issues in Biomedical and Clinical Research, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1998.

(19) Intellectual Property Rights and Plant Biotechnology, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1997.

(20) The Dynamic Brain, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1994.

NATIONAL ACADEMIES-SPONSORED REPORTS (WRITING/EDITING/CONSULTANT):

(1) Making Value for America: Embracing the Future of Manufacturing, Technology, and Work, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2015.

(2) Messaging for Engineering: From Research to Action, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2013.

(3) U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2013.

(4) Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2011.

(5) Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2011.

(6) International Differences in Mortality at Older Ages: Dimensions and Sources, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2011.

(7) Conducting Biosocial Surveys: Collecting, Storing, Accessing, and Protecting Biospecimens and Biodata. Committee on National Statistics, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2010.

(8) Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2006.

(9) Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More about Technology, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2002.

(10) Exploring Horizons for Domestic Animal Genomics (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2002).

(11) Bioinformatics: Converting Data to Knowledge (Commission on Life Sciences, 2000).

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRY:

“The Internet and World Wide Web,” for the Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Quote from Robert Pool regarding nature versus nurture in explaining differences in human behavior in The Columbia World of Quotations (1996) on Bartleby.com

(1) Research and writing grant for book on the unknown, Sloan Foundation, $125,000, March 2001.

(2) Making the Case for Technological Literacy, National Science Foundation, $59,800, September 2000.

(3) "The Importance of Technological Literacy for Policy Making," National Science Foundation, $59,880.00, September 2000.

(4) Research and writing grant for book on obesity, Sloan Foundation, $126,000, December 1996.

(5) Research and writing grant for book on nuclear power, Sloan Foundation, $125,000, March 1992.

CONSULTING, ETC.:

(1) Consultant/writer/editor for the Military Suicide Research Consortium (funded by the Department of Defense), December 2010 – present.

(2) Consultant/copy editor for the Institute of Medicine, January 2007 – present.

(3) Consultant/copy editor for the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education at the National Academies, March 2011 – February 2014.

(4) Consultant/writer/editor for the National Research Council Committee on Long-Run Macro-Economic Effects of the Aging U.S. Population, December 2010 – March 2012.

(5) Consultant/writer/editor for the National Research Council Committee on Understanding International Health Differences in High-Income Countries, March 2011 – February 2012.

(6) Consultant/writer/editor for the National Research Council Committee on Population/Panel on Understanding Divergent Trends in Longevity in High-Income Countries, July 2009 – August 2010.

(7) Consultant/writer/editor for the National Academy of Engineering Committee on K-12 Engineering Education, February 2008 – January 2009.

(8) Consultant/writer for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for “Technical Revision of Congressional Budget Narrative” for nuclear physics section of Department of Energy budget request, July – October 2008.

(9) Consultant/writer/editor for Institute of Medicine Committee on the Evaluation of NIOSH's Anthropometric Survey, June – December 2006.

(10) Consultant/writer/editor for the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Assessing Technological Literacy, September 2004-January 2005.

(11) Consultant/writer/editor for National Academy of Engineering Committee for Making the Case for Technological Literacy, April 2000 - July 2002.

(12) Consultant/writer/editor for Standards for Technological Literacy, developed by the International Technology Education Association with support from the National Science Foundation and NASA, October 1998-January 2000.

(13) Consultant on technological innovation for CENTRA Technology, Inc. (under contract from the Central Intelligence Agency), December 1999.

(14) Consulting editor on Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine by Jon Cohen, 1998-1999.

(15) Writing and content consultant for three newsletters, Food Chemical News, Food Labeling & Nutrition News, and Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News, 1996.

DELIBERATE PRACTICE CONSULTANT, WRITING, & EDITING:

Numerous consultant/writing/editing engagements and contracts *(many more details to follow)*, including:

(1) Peaksware (peaksware.com)

(2) Rehearsal (rehearsal.com)

(3) Consultant/writer for Craemer Consulting (Workplace Communication, Organization Development & Leadership Coaching), 2016

PODCASTS/INTERVIEWS/SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS:

Numerous podcasts, interviews, and speaking engagements *(many more details to follow)*, including:

(1) Windcastle Venture Consulting, Startup Geometry Podcast: August 30, 2016: http://bottlerocketscience.blogspot.com/2016/08/robert-pool-is-mathematician-science.html

(2) Speed Secrets Podcast (Calls "Peak" "one of the three most important books ever written.") -- July 27, 2017: https://podtail.com/podcast/speed-secrets-podcast/032-robert-pool-how-to-practice-to-drive-faster/

(3) The Remarkable Leadership Podcast: June 14, 2017: http://remarkablepodcast.com/power-deliberate-practice-robert-pool-53/

(4) Education Week Teacher--April 13, 2016: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2016/04/peak_an_interview_with_anders_ericsson_robert_pool.html

MORE INFO & SITES TO VISIT/FOLLOW:

(The following sites were all created and are managed by Robert Pool, Ph.D. and his wife/collaborator and business partner/Marketing Director, Deanne Laura Pool)

Follow Our "Robert Pool, Ph.D." Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/RobertPoolPhD/

Follow Our "Peak Deliberate Practice" Facebook Page (primarily focusing on deliberate practice in general -- from the only deliberate practice expert who has spent two decades learning from and collaborating with K. Anders Ericsson, the scientist who discovered and coined the phrase deliberate practice -- with some discussion of Peak): www.facebook.com/PeakDeliberatePractice

Join Our "Peak Deliberate Practice" Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeakDeliberatePractice/

Follow Our "Peak the Book" Facebook Page (primarily focusing on "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise") : www.facebook.com/deliberatepractice

Visit & Join Our Regularly-Updated Website: www.peakdeliberatepractice.com. This web site -- published so far in beta form, without any focus yet on design aspects, so that everything can be tweaked and recommendations considered -- is a growing major website devoted to all aspects of deliberate practice, with detailed advice about ways to improve in various areas, reporting on advances in the field, interviews with expert performers, personal stories of individuals who have successfully applied deliberate practice in their own lives, videos, and more.

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Anders Ericsson

ANDERS ERICSSON, PhD, is Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University.  He studies expert performance in domains, such as music, chess, medicine, and sports, and how expert performers attain their superior performance by acquiring complex cognitive mechanisms through extended deliberate practice.  He has edited “Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance” (2006) and “The Development of Professional Expertise” (2009).In the book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell based his “10,000 hour rule” on Ericsson and colleagues’s research on musicians.

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Customers find the book a great read. They appreciate the clear, readable prose and concise method for developing new skills. Readers also say the book is well organized and well-executed. However, some find the content outstanding, illuminating, and inspiring, while others say it's repetitive and awkwardly written.

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Customers find the book a great, fantastic, and long-awaited compilation of Mr. Ericsson's widely acclaimed research. They also say the author has done amazing work.

"...This book is worth buying and reading , more than once, as you apply the lessons of purposeful practice to your own life, work, and career." Read more

" This books was a good read . Many people wonder how others become great and what it takes...." Read more

"...Otherwise, this is an amazing book ...." Read more

" The book is good it goes into a lot of stories and research. I was looking for a how to and a step by step on developing your own practice methods." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the readability of the book. Some find the prose clear and readable, the book well thought out and organized, and easy to understand the basic concepts. They also say the intentions of the authors are good, and the book is a very quick read. However, other customers find the book repetitive, tedious to read on some parts, and awkwardly written.

"...The message is clear . Despite what you may have learned growing up (as I did), abilities and talents are not generally fixed at birth...." Read more

"...would do well in refraining from tipping their hats to such an awkwardly written , condescending, and joke of a book as this one was...." Read more

"...No, really.In clear and readable prose , and using lots of case studies, the authors set out to prove that pretty much anyone can become..." Read more

"...This isn't a huge issue since the book is well written in general , but I had a bit of a harder time getting through it than I might have expected...." Read more

Customers are mixed about the content. Some find the book illuminating and inspiring, while others say it's redundant and repetitive.

"...However, around the 40% mark, this book becomes redundant beyond reinforcing the concepts and truths...." Read more

"I wish I could've read this at a much younger age. The book throws huge amount of lights on exactly how to improve and the sample step by step..." Read more

"...With this being said, it felt a little redundant . The core ideas could have probably been captured in a short essay style format...." Read more

"Some good ideas but horribly long and meandering - way too much spent on trivial and repetitive...." Read more

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Book Review: Peak — Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Peak — Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 216 307 pages My Rating: 4/5

How does one become an expert mathematician? How does one become one of the best mathematician’s in the world?

In 2008, New Yorker magazine science writer Malcolm Gladwell popularized an answer in his bestseller Outliers : ten-thousand hours of a special kind of practice called “deliberate practice.” Gladwell, whose father is a mathematics professor, attributed success in essentially all fields to this seemingly simple rule, citing examples including Bill Gates, the Beatles, and theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer amongst others.

Malcolm Gladwell speaks at PopTech! 2008 conference.

Both in the book and in his book promotion presentations, several of which are available on YouTube , Gladwell cited the research of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson on expert and peak performance. Ericsson coined or at least heavily promoted the phrase “deliberate practice” in academic research. Ericsson indeed attributes expert and peak performance largely to many hours of “deliberate practice,” although not specifically ten-thousand hours. Ericsson and his collaborators have written many scientific research papers and scholarly books on deliberate practice. His work was little known to the general public prior to the publication of Outliers .

Peak — Secrets from the New Science of Expertise is a popular version of Ericsson’s work written with veteran science writer Robert Pool. It is written in a more accessible, lighter, less dry style than Ericsson’s scholarly books and research articles. It discusses his major research projects and results without the extensive, sometimes mind-numbing detail of a scholarly book or research paper. In a number of respects, this is a “self-help” book although the scholarship and level of technical detail is much higher than many self help books.

The Good Points

Peak is clear, well-written, and easy to read. It is an accessible overview of Ericsson’s research and his theories of expert and peak performance with citations to scholarly papers and sources in the detailed end notes. It is an easier read than his scholarly papers and books and probably a better place to start. Peak gives the reader Ericsson’s actual data and opinions direct from the horse’s mouth. He spells out the differences between his actual work and Gladwell’s interpretation in the subsection “No, the Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule isn’t Really a Rule” in Chapter Four: The Gold Standard (pages 109-114 in my copy).

The book and Ericsson’s work in general makes a great case for the critical role of some sort of practice in nearly all cases of expert or best performance. In general, it takes several thousand hours of some sort of practice to reach expert or best performance levels.

A specific kind of practice — heavy practice and drilling of relatively rare moves or situations such as the back-hand in tennis (a favorite example of Ericsson) — appears to be necessary and perhaps the only real requirement for expert or peak performance in some fields such as tennis. At times this fairly specific type of practice appears to be what Ericsson means by deliberate practice.

What is Deliberate Practice?

The major weakness of the book and Ericsson’s work in general is the vague, shifting definition of “deliberate practice.” Ericsson unintentionally gives an example of this problem on page 75 of the book:

For example, when we presented our initial [book] proposal to our agent Elyse Cheney, she and her colleagues had trouble understanding deliberate practice clearly. In particular, they didn’t get what separates deliberate practice from other forms of practice, other than that it is more effective.

Peak takes over three chapters and ninety-six pages to work its way up to actually defining deliberate practice in the subsection “The Principles of Deliberate Practice” in Chapter Four: The Gold Standard (pages 97-100 in my copy). Deliberate practice actually appears to be defined in seven lengthy bullet points on pages 99 (all of the page) and 100 (about half the page).

Many of the bullet points in the definition are quite vague and even don’t always seem to match the examples given in the book. For example, Ericsson emphasizes solitary practice as a characteristic of deliberate practice, but then cites a new freshman physics education program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) that emphasizes breaking the students into collaborative groups as an example of deliberate practice in action.

The vague definition of deliberate practice makes it difficult and perhaps impossible to disprove — falsify in the language of Karl Popper — the thesis that expert performance is a direct, presumably monotonically increasing function of the quantity of deliberate practice, most often measured by hours of practice.

For example, Peak discusses a study that Ericsson and his collaborators did of top violin students at the elite Berlin University of Arts (Universitat der Kunste Berlin). This study divided the students into three groups: ten “good” students, ten “better” students, and ten “best” students as rated by professors at the University. Perhaps not surprisingly, on average the “best” students had more lifetime hours of practice than the “better” who in turn had more lifetime hours of practice than the merely “good” students.

According to Ericsson, Malcolm Gladwell pulled his ten-thousand hour number from this study. On average twenty year old students at the school had ten-thousand hours of “deliberate practice” — Ericsson defined the violin practice as deliberate practice. Note that twenty year old violin students are not professional or world champion violinists yet. In fact, Ericsson notes that professional expert violinists typically have more like twenty-thousand hours of practice under their belt. Ericsson also notes that ten-thousand hours is an average for the twenty year old students; there was significant variation from student to student.

The big problem is that these numbers are averages. Some of the “best” violinists had significantly fewer hours of practice than other of the “best” violinists. Could this in fact be due to some innate aptitude for violin, a concept Ericsson rejects vehemently? Certainly!

In “The Role of Deliberate Practice in Chess Expertise” by Neil Charness, Michael Tuffiash, Ralfe Krampe (one of Ericsson’s collaborators in the violin study), Eyal Reingold, and Ekaterina Vayukova ( Applied Cognitive Psychology , Volume 19, pages 151-165 (2005)) the authors find that only forty percent (40 %) of the variance in chess skill ratings, less than half, can be explained by a multivariate linear regression model using hours of practice as one of the variables. It is true that practice is the single largest explanatory variable, but a lot remains unexplained. As I will discuss below, studies of chess play an outsized role in Ericsson and his collaborators research — and in Peak .

Both everyday experience, anecdotal data, and research studies often show substantial unexplained variation in the amount of practice associated with expert or peak performance. This could easily indicate the contribution of innate aptitude, possibly genetic in nature, or some other entirely unidentified factor or factors.

How does Ericsson get around this? It is here that the vague, shifting, plastic definition of deliberate practice comes into play. Perhaps the practice was not all of the same quality. Five thousand hours with a very good teacher or coach might beat seven thousand hours of practice with a merely good teacher or coach. Perhaps the students who needed more practice weren’t always focusing on their practice, a requirement that Ericsson includes in his lengthy definition of deliberate practice:

Deliberate practice is deliberate, that is, it requires a person’s full attention and conscious actions. It isn’t enough to simply follow a teacher’s or coach’s directions. The student must concentrate on the specific goal for his or her practice activity so that adjustments can be made to control practice.

Absent telepathy or a mind-reading machine, there is simply no way to be sure if a person was applying “full attention” to practice. What exactly is the definition of full attention?

Since expert or peak performance in field after field after field is highly correlated with substantial amounts of study and practice — a position very few contest — it is extremely difficult to rule out the deliberate practice theory given the vague definition of the term. One needs to find very rare, very unusual examples of people who perform at an expert or peak level with essentially no or minimal practice, perhaps a few hundred hours of practice at most. The high jumper Donald Thomas from David Epstein’s book The Sports Gene which Ericsson attempts to debunk in Chapter Eight: What about Natural Talent? may be such a rare example. In practice, rare examples can easily be dismissed as flukes or frauds.

Methodological Weaknesses

The research cited in Peak has a number of methodological weaknesses. Like much research into human beings, it relies heavily on “convenience samples,” in other words people who are easy to recruit into studies, generally undergraduate and graduate students at universities where the researchers live and work. These samples are generally small. Many of the studies cited in the book involve less than one-hundred subjects. The digit memorization study that Ericsson and his collaborators conducted at Carnegie Mellon University involved only three students according to the book: Steve Faloon, Renee Elio, and Dario Donatelli.

Small samples have large statistical errors and are more susceptible to biased sampling, although bias can be a major problem in huge studies with millions of subjects or data points. Students from often elite colleges and universities like Carnegie Mellon are obviously a highly biased sample to start with.

As an aside, the performance of the three subjects in the digit memorization study varied substantially. Steve Faloon and Dario Donatelli performed much better than Renee Elio according to the book, although all three improved with practice. Renee was the only woman in the study and many standardized tests such as the math SAT in the United States and other forms of measurement continue to show that on average women are perform poorer on mathematical tasks than men. Again, the difference in performance between Renee and the two men is inconsistent with the simple deliberate practice theory.

Nearly all the research involves specialized competitive activities such as sports, music and other performing arts, and games such as chess. Chess plays an especially important role in the research which grew out of Ericsson’s mentor Herbert Simon’s research into human cognition through the detailed study of chess.

All of these fields involve short, generally timed or time limited contests or performances. All involve large amounts of time devoted to practice in preparation for these short contests or performances. All of these fields have many decades, even centuries of development. In most cases, the rules and equipment have changed little over the decades or centuries. Many of these fields, notably chess which has played a central role in the research, are heavily male dominated, with few women participating even today.

Although Ericsson is careful to qualify a number of his statements, Ericsson like Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers still endeavors to extrapolate the results of his research on these fields to professions such as medicine and more general business activities.

Deliberate Practice and Mathematics

Cognition and expert/peak performance in chess has been studied extensively by psychologists and others including Adriaan de Groot (a former champion chess player), Ericsson’s mentor Herbert Simon and his collaborator Alan Newell, and many others. Chess is often seen as a highly intellectual activity in which peak performance reflects high intelligence. Thus it has been heavily investigated as a model for other presumably intellectual activities such as scientific research and mathematics. There is much more data and research on chess than on the practice of mathematics.

As Ericsson discusses, this intellectual image of chess is part of our shared popular culture. Movies, television shows, and other art forms often use chess or playing chess to show the deep intellect of characters. The recent movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows features a chess game between the hero Sherlock Holmes and his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Moriarty is described as a brilliant mathematician in “The Final Problem” by Arthur Conan Doyle). Chess and chess playing computers play a central role in the short lived science fiction series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles with the hero John Connor depicted as a chess player and strong hints his ultimate enemy the Skynet supercomputer is derived from a chess-playing computer prototype that appears in the first season. The romantic comedy Penelope goes against the male chess stereotype portraying the eponymous heroine as a chess player easily defeating her suitor in a match.

For those of us interested in mathematics and other quantitative professions, the question has two parts. First, how accurate is the deliberate practice theory of chess? As the article cited above “The Role of Deliberate Practice in Chess Expertise” illustrates, with only forty percent of the variance in chess scores explained by all variables including practice, it is far from clear that deliberate practice provides an adequate theory of performance in chess.

Second, can one extrapolate from studies of chess to mathematics? Chess has a number of similarities to competitive math activities at the high school and college level. According to James Gleick’s biography Genius the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman competed in New York City regional algebra and math contests, winning the city wide contest. He subsequently took the early Putnam Exam in mathematics at MIT, scoring the best of all takers that year.

Fields Medal winning research mathematician Terrence Tao competed in the International Math Olympiad in 1986, 1987, and 1988, winning a bronze, silver, and gold medal. He remains the youngest winner of each of the three medals in the Olympiad’s history, winning the gold medal shortly after his thirteenth birthday. Thus, competitive math activities that resemble chess in a number of ways can clearly be part of the training of a successful research mathematician.

The problem is that research in mathematics, whether basic or applied, differs substantially from short timed contests generally covering known knowledge or methods. The goal of research, including highly applied research for product development, is to come up with something new and generally takes months if not years of effort. Empirically, this effort often involves large amounts of frustrating trial and error. Major discoveries frequently involve mysterious flashes of insight, the “Eureka” or “aha” moment, something that is especially difficult to explain or understand at present.

Some inventors and discoverers like Albert Einstein and his collaborator Marcel Grossman were not as technically proficient in mathematics (or physics) as one might think. Einstein was unable to get into the top physics graduate schools in Europe and ended up getting his Ph.D. at night at the University of Zurich while working as a patent clerk. One of his professors at ETH in Switzerland, Hermann Minkowski, infamously referred to Einstein as “that lazy dog.” David Hilbert easily figured out the equation for General Relativity once Einstein explained the concept to him, whereas Einstein and Grossman struggled with finding the equation, leading to the notorious priority dispute with Hilbert over General Relativity.

One sometimes hears the phrase “it is not a sprint, it is a marathon” to describe some activities. But marathons are only 26.2 miles in length, taking an accomplished runner just a few hours. The current world record time for a marathon, held by Dennis Kimetto of Kenya, is two hours, two seconds, and fifty-seven hundredths of a second (2:02:57).

Research projects, especially major ones, are to short math contests NOT as a sprint to a marathon, but as Lewis and Clark’s Expedition (1804-1806) was to a sprint or a marathon. Not only longer but without a map, with many surprises and unexpected developments along the way, requiring many hard to define skills that a champion sprinter or marathon runner generally lacks.

Valuable time spent drilling and practicing known skills and studying known knowledge may detract from the time needed to explore new ideas and new methods. Some daydreaming and “laziness” may be needed, especially for radically new ideas.

I rated Peak four out of five, primarily because of the vague, shifting definition of deliberate practice in both the book and Ericsson’s scholarly work. The book is good and well worth reading. The book will give many readers insights and good ideas for practicing to improve their skills in math or many other fields. However, the complete theory of deliberate practice seems like a sweeping generalization from studies of a few highly specialized fields such as chess and violin to expertise and peak performance in many quite different fields such as mathematics, particularly applied and basic research mathematics.

The picture of science writer Malcolm Gladwell is from Wikimedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons 2.0 license. The original author of the image is Kris Krug.

© 2017 John F. McGowan

About the Author

John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He can be reached at [email protected] .

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John F. McGowan, Ph.D.

John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He can be reached at [email protected] . This article is copyright © of John F. McGowan, Ph.D.

So I don’t need to read the book then.

It depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for the magic answer to expert or peak performance, there probably is no book at present with THE answer. It can be helpful to see the best ideas that we presently have on the causes.

Thank you for the thorough and unbiased review, adding it to my reading list for the 2017 as it sounds like a nice read!

A recent critical article on the “10,000 hour rule,”

The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth by David Z. Hambrick, Fernanda Ferreira, and John M. Henderson

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-10000-hour-rule-is-wrong-and-perpetuates-a-cruel-myth-2017-3

This article has a strong emphasis on a genetic explanation for variations in performance rather than other environmental factors or as yet unidentified none-of-the-above factors distinct from “deliberate practice.”

Regarding twin studies, twins raised in the same household are clearly not independent. Identical twins may be treated differently than fraternal twins because they are visibly identical, resulting in a higher correlation between identical twins than fraternal twins. For example, parents may in fact mistake one twin for the other, ensuring very similar treatment.

In studies of twins separated at birth, it remains unclear how strong environmental effects remain in an adoption situation. A significant number of adoptions are not “blind,” in a scientific sense, where the birth parents may even have met or even know the adopting parents well. Ethnic, class, and other social factors almost certainly play a substantial role in adoptions. Many adoptions are arranged through churches and other social organizations, for example: https://catholicadoptiononline.com/

There are folk traditions that identical twins often have a psychic link. If there is any truth to this for whatever reason, then studies of identical twins compared to fraternal twins could be highly misleading with regard to the effect of genetics. Of course, this is far outside modern mainstream science, but science has been wrong before and almost certainly will be found wrong again.

Maybe I took it wrong, but for me it looks like authors mixed up terms – ‘practice’ with ‘deliberate practice’, and just called it ‘deliberate practice’ everywhere in the text. While I do believe in people with some genetic aptitude to a specific form of activity, and that if we assume that a gifted person in for e.g. Math and a not a particularly gifted person have spent the same amount of time to deliberate practice, there is a great chance a gifted person will be way ahead. However, this is just an assumption of mine, how I perceive it.

Again thanks a lot for a great article and follow up!

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4 Review: A Stomach-Churning TV Blockbuster

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The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4, which premiered Sunday, July 7 on HBO.

Every episode of House of the Dragon has one line that perfectly encapsulates the story. In Season 2, Episode 4, there are two: Alicent Hightower's "Indulgence was my sin," and Lord Darklyn's "Yours will come in kind," the latter of which he tells Ser Criston Cole before being beheaded. The game of power is fickle, with a karmic punishment. In a spectacularly executed battle sequence, the Greens and Blacks lose valuable members of their teams to dragons and self-gratification. And all people can say to them is, "Well, what did you think was going to happen?"

In Season 2's midseason finale, Rhaenyra Targaryen finally returns to Dragonstone after a failed attempt to find peace with Alicent Hightower . Criston and his new companion, Ser Gwayne Hightower, are cutting off Dragonstone by land as they take more castles in the Crownlands. With no word from Daemon Targaryen -- who's off on a hallucinatory trip in Harrenhal -- Rhaenyra accepts that the Blacks can no longer hide in their castle. As she sends Rhaenys Targaryen on Meleys to Rook's Rest, Aemond Targaryen and Criston's stealthy plan to lure the Blacks backfires when an unexpected member of the Greens shows up. The first dragon-on-dragon battle in the Dance of the Dragons surpasses expectations in a stomach-churning example of blockbuster television.

The Battle at Rook's Rest Shows House of the Dragon's Boldness

Filmmaking reaches its peak in a skirmish between rhaenys, aemond and aegon.

10 Fights House Of The Dragon Fans Want To See In Season 2

House of the Dragon Season 1 was filled with tension, especially between the Targaryens. There are some fights fans can't wait to see in Season 2.

Both the Greens and Blacks are surprised to learn that Criston aims to take the "pathetic prize" over the largest castle in Westeros: Harrenhal. In secret, which terrifyingly unfolds in the battle, Criston plans to lure at least one member of Team Black on their dragon to surprise them with Aemond on Vhagar. Only, it's not just Rhaenys on Meleys -- a pretty fierce but significantly smaller dragon -- that shows up. Aegon II Targaryen is tired of being eclipsed by his little brother and overlooked by his own small council. He's got Aegon the Conquerer's crown and armor, but not his venom. Against his mother's advice to do nothing, Aegon ruins Criston and Aemond's plan by arriving at Rook's Rest to smear himself in glory.

The last 10–15 minutes of the episode are the most beautiful work in House of the Dragon . All three dragons clashing in the sky make for a chaotic assortment, but very easy to follow in broad daylight -- unlike Game of Thrones ' darkened fight between Viserion and Rhaegal. Every second of the sequence is better than the previous as dragons claw at each other's abdomen, breathe fire at one another and drop gallons of blood on helpless soldiers on the ground. The special effects, stunt work, cinematography and Ramin Djawadi's score bounce off each other to create a breathless overflow of spectacle. A slow-motion shot of Criston touching a suit of armor, only for it to be a burnt person's ashes disintegrating, is one of the most striking moments of the episode. At that moment, Criston becomes just a little bit human when he looks upon the destruction and realizes he's way in over his head.

House of the Dragon's Changes From the Book Pay Off

The tv series sets itself apart from fire & blood.

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HBO's House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood. While it builds on Westeros' history it also makes significant changes.

Just as Rhaenyra and Alicent's tumultuous relationship heightens the emotional stakes of the war, so does Aemond turning his back on Aegon. The sibling rivalry between Aegon and Aemond is utterly delicious. Whether it's the height difference or pure confidence, Ewan Mitchell's Aemond stands miles taller than Tom Glynn-Carney's Aegon. The pair's standoff in High Valyrian -- which Aemond excels at and Aegon doesn't -- is more tense than any bloodthirsty dragon fight. Aemond taking advantage of the battle to seemingly assassinate his own brother for the throne doesn't happen in the book, but it's a stirring turn of events that keeps TV viewers on their toes.

House of the Dragon takes other adaptation changes into consideration in Season 2, Episode 4. The setup of Alyn and Addam being Corlys Velaryon's bastards has been a bit drawn out for four episodes, but it finally gets somewhere. The reveal entices a marital conflict between Corlys and Rhaenys, which will imbue him with regret after her death. Rhaenyra tells her son Jacaerys Velaryon about the prophecy, giving him the acceptance he wanted as heir. Finally, the writers make a small, but hilarious accomodation by combining two Tullys into one child named Oscar -- because all of them in the book are named after Muppets. Sure, it would've been funny to have characters named Grover, Elmo, Kermit and Oscar, but it also would've sucked viewers out of the fantasy experience.

While these changes may seem minute and inessential on the surface, they set up greater risks in the future. Rhaenyra is implicitly accepting that she may die in war by telling Jace the prophecy. Jace now has a more worldly reason to defend his mother's cause, but it may also light his fuse, which is already pretty short. Oscar being a child unwilling to speed along his inheritance creates a roadblock for Daemon. There have been many complaints about House of the Dragon 's "disobedience" to the book. But taken as a separate canon universe, these changes claim a new direction for the story that is provocatively resonating.

House of the Dragon's Plot Finally Moves in the Right Direction

No scene or character is wasted in the midseason finale.

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Episode 4 changes the course of House of the Dragon Season 2 by finally moving the plot out of its stagnant place in every single scene. Rhaenyra is no longer passive; she takes charge while raising new ideas about female leadership. Meanwhile, Alicent meanders down a path of regret as she faces the consequences of her sins. Even the dull small council scenes have meaning now. There's a sense of urgency among the Black council, who feel the threat of nuclear war. The Green council is starting to feel the pain of war on a trivial level, with a money issue. This will come into play down the line, so these little details are important to pay attention to.

At Harrenhal, Daemon's personal battle with his conscience is the smartest way to go about his storyline. He typically uses actions instead of words to express himself, so the hallucinations of the women he's loved, but wronged in this life -- teenage Rhaenyra and adult Laena Velaryon -- visually represent his demons in a lonesome place. Matt Smith is isolated from his usual co-stars this season, but his interactions with Gayle Rankin (as Alys Rivers) and Simon Russell Beale (as Ser Simon Strong) are chilling. Alys, an apparent witch, reads Daemon like a book when she fearlessly says he's still bitter about his lost inheritance. That and Daemon's vision of himself dressed as Aemond reiterates that he's a guy to keep at arm's length.

There was no beating around the bush this episode. No more characters lingering around, wondering if the ink of the past is still wet enough to change. History is an overarching theme of House of the Dragon , evident in the gorgeous opening credits -- and it's time to make history. It feels a little jarring to have already lost the sorely underused Eve Best as Rhaenys. Tom Glynn-Carney will probably still be around as Aegon, but he won't be as fun anymore. This is a fast-moving war that symbolizes Rhaenyra and Aegon's desperation to win the throne. Yet the MVPs who made this happen are director Alan Taylor, cinematographer P.J. Dillon, writer Ryan Condal and everyone behind-the-scenes. What could've easily been a disaster if not handled with care, they turned into a breathtaking hour that feels like classic George R. R. Martin. There's sleazy politics, a personal betrayal and a monumental battle that all finish the first half of Season 2 on a high note.

New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on HBO.

House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4

Two centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. 

• The Battle at Rook's Rest is one of the greatest fight scenes in television history.
• Every scene leading up to the battle still has a purpose in moving the plot forward.
• The rivalry between Aegon and Aemond pays off with a nasty betrayal.
• It's a shame to lose Eve Best as Rhaenys Targaryen and supposedly Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon II Targaryen.

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Business presenter Ian King answered your questions on what a Labour government means for your personal finances, here in the Money blog.

Monday 8 July 2024 18:35, UK

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Ask a question or make a comment

Thanks for all your questions  - and for following Ian King's responses on the likely changes we can expect under the new Labour government.

If you could not join us in time, do not worry - you can scroll through the answers below at your leisure.

Dad of Swifties:

Why don't the government remove VAT on concert tickets like in other countries and announce stronger regulation on sites like Ticketmaster? Prices are a joke

Here's what  Ian King , our business presenter, says on this one...

Labour promised not to increase the rate of VAT during the election campaign. 

That is very different from cutting it or making some products and services tax free. 

I'd be surprised if it happened. The government needs to raise money, not give it away. 

That said, I note that US Congress has recently been talking about tougher regulation of businesses like Ticketmaster, so doubtless parliamentarians on this side of the Atlantic will be watching closely.

May I ask who is likely to be eligible for the proposed new housing as outlined today? I have a son of 43 and his wife living with us as they can't afford a mortgage, and aren't eligible for social housing. Not everyone in Britain wants the responsibility of owning a house.

Ian King , Sky News business presenter, says...

Labour is aiming for increasing housing availability across the board with a mix of both public/social housing and also private sector accommodation – while also looking to stimulate the "build to rent" sector. 

It's not a case of eligibility, as such. 

They're seeking to increase supply in the first instance – get that right and demand will be met.

Haven't we heard all this before with housebuilding targets - what's different this time?

Good question – which reminds me that one of the most dangerous phrases in investment and business is "it's different this time". 

What genuinely appears to be different is that Labour seem totally committed to sweeping away the planning rules and regulations that stand in the way of more homes being built. 

If they can pull this off then, all other things being equal, they will have a fighting chance of completing 1.5 million new homes over the life of this parliament.

The other thing I would say is that this is a hugely ambitious target and so Labour, by making it public, have confidence it can be done. 

You can rest assured that Labour will be asked about it a lot towards the next general election. 

The political graveyards are littered with those politicians – Harold Macmillan, Conservative prime minister from 1957-1963, is a good example – who made promises on housebuilding they failed to keep.

The last government promised an end to no-fault evictions... is this legislation still alive?

Another short answer from our business presenter  Ian King ...

The legislation died with the last government but, yes, the expectation is that Labour will abolish no-fault evictions.

What will Labour do with dividend tax? And what about corporation tax?

Rachel Reeves is already committed to keeping corporation tax unchanged for the life of this parliament. 

But no such commitments have been forthcoming on the taxation of dividends. 

And some people fear the worst because Labour has form here - Gordon Brown took away tax relief on the dividends that pension funds received on their investments in 1997 - which contributed to the near extinction of gold-plated "defined benefit" or "final salary" pension schemes in the private sector.

In fairness, Labour can point out that the Conservatives also stripped away protections enjoyed by savers on their dividends. 

You can now only receive dividends of £500 on shares or investment funds held outside an ISA. The allowance stood at 10 times that just seven years ago.

The moral of the story is clear – if you hold shares or investment funds which pay dividends, protect them in an ISA, which ensures the payouts will be tax-free.

If memory serves me correctly weren't the railways an unmitigated disaster last time they were in public ownership? How is renationalising meant to help anyone?

Here's what  Ian King , our business presenter, says to this...

Labour argues that, in state ownership, the rail network can be more coherent with one "fat controller" type figure in charge to oversee timetables and ticketing. 

Bear in mind most of the railways more or less have been renationalised already – the exception being the rolling stock companies, which will remain privately owned. 

You are right to point out the shortcomings of the nationalised model – as I did in this article for Sky News back in 2017 .

The nationalised model is not a silver bullet – as English and Scottish football supporters to have used Germany's nationalised rail service during the Euros will testify.

We heard nothing in the campaign about how growth would be achieved - how much convincing detail did we get from Reeves?

The UK's sclerotic planning rules have been a major drag on growth over the last decade. 

If Labour has found a way of obviating those rules then it should generate growth. But bear in mind this is going to cause huge rows as Whitehall orders local planning managers what to do and rides roughshod over them when they don't co-operate. 

Not everyone will like it and especially those who find their views interrupted by, for example, new homes. The same applies to tearing up the rules banning more onshore wind farms. 

All other things being equal, it should also be positive for growth, but those who have views of open countryside blighted by new wind turbines may disagree.

Croydon Ajay:

Can anything be done to scrap the disparities in stamp duty which means young buyers in London have to pay when the same people in the North East don't pay a penny?

Stamp duty is a rotten tax and, if you want to promote growth, scrapping it would certainly be a good way of doing so. But given that Stamp Duty Land Tax brought in £11.6bn in the last financial year, the government is likely to want to keep it in place. 

The differing tax takes to which you refer reflect the fact that house prices are cheaper in the North East than in London. 

SDLT is very much a London tax – the capital accounted for 36% of all SDLT paid in 2021-22, the latest year for which figures are available. 

Homebuyers in the London borough of Westminster alone paid more SDLT than the whole of the North West of England. I doubt those disparities to which you refer will change unless house prices in London collapse and house prices rocket elsewhere. 

You are right to point out the pernicious effects of this. 

In some London boroughs, primary schools are starting to close, because parents find they cannot live in the capital and raise a family. They're moving out – reducing demand for London school places in some areas.

Disgruntled:

Ian can you give us an idea of how much scrapping the two-child benefit cap would cost and why is this not achievable with a windfall tax on oil and gas companies raking it in? Starmer is a Tory with a red rosette

The Resolution Foundation has estimated that the two-child benefit cap will save the government £2.5bn during the current financial year – which would rise to £3.6bn if applied to all families claiming universal credit.

Labour is committed to raising the levy on North Sea oil and gas producers from the current 75% to 78% - and has earmarked the money raised will go towards funding its wider plans for energy and, in particular, decarbonisation. 

It would be ill-advised to raise taxes further. The decisions it has made have already had an impact on investment in the North Sea, as I report here . 

And don't forget, the cap is not just about saving money. It's also about avoiding awkward newspaper headlines and stories about big families being paid a small fortune in benefits of the kind that embarrassed the last Labour government and angered so many of its traditional working-class supporters in particular.

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