Ep. #290: Anders Ericsson on The Truth About the “10,000 Hour Rule”

Anders: Kind of charting an actual recording in some way, I think is actually quite motivating because it allows you now to have a realistic plan for what you need to invest in order to reach, the target performance that you ultimately want to reach.

Mike: Why can some people do things so much better than others? What makes one person good at something? Another one, bad, and someone else so good that we simply can’t even wrap our heads around it. Is it mostly just hard work, talent, a bit of both, some other x factor or factors? Today’s guest, Dr. Anders Erikson, has spent most of his professional Life researching these questions.

In fact, it was his seminal research on talent and skill that gave us the now famous and generally misunderstood 10, 000 hour rule that was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book outliers. And in case you haven’t heard of it, the 10, 000 hour rule states that if you want to be great, truly great at something, you need to put in at least 10, 000 hours of practice.

This, not just any kind of practice, but focused, structured, productive practice. And to put that in perspective, that’s about five years of deliberate practice, as Dr. Erickson calls it per day for about four years. That’s the idea, at least as you will learn in this podcast. The 10,000 hour rule is more fiction.

In fact, the reality is far more nuanced and encouraging because it’s actually accessible to all of us. We can use Dr. Erickson’s research and advice to learn and improve at new things faster and easier, and ultimately it will be up to us to decide how far we want to go. Here’s a bit of what you are going to learn in this episode.

The most effective way to practice any skill or activity so you actually get better, how to stay motivated to keep going for as long as it takes to develop real skills and abilities, the importance of enjoyment, relaxation, and recovery in self development, and more. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in, so Instead, I’m just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger.

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Professor Erikson. Thanks for coming on the show. I’m excited to talk to you because I’m a fan of yours. I’m a fan of your work and particularly your newest book, which you coauthored with Robert Poole, Peak Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. And of course, people listening, if you’re not familiar with Professor Erikson, you probably are familiar with the 10, 000 hour rule.

Which has been, which we’re going to get it. We’ve, I’ve actually spoken about this now about a couple of people on the show professor to, to speak about this. So we don’t have to go into necessarily all the details of yeah, that was a bit misconstrued because obviously in outliers, Gladwell popularized it.

And then it came back to your research. So a lot of people found you that way. So what I wanted to do with you is talk about some things that are in your new book, and also I was just curious as, because you really are the pioneer. Of this research, just some questions that I’ve had, cause I’ve read not just your stuff, but I’ve read Jeff Colvin’s work and I’ve read Steve Magnus and Brad Stoltberg, I believe they’re their latest books.

I’ve read, I wouldn’t say widely in this space, but it’s just something I’ve been interested in. So I’m excited to have you on the show and pick your brain on this. 

Anders: I love to talk to you. I’m looking forward to this. Cool. 

Mike: So Where I thought we could start is with deliberate practice in particular.

This is, again, I’ve now spoken about this in a couple of episodes. We don’t have to go into too much detail. Anybody listening that wants to learn more about that, for example, just go listen to the interview I did with Jeff and you can get an overview of what deliberate practice is. My question was, so for people listening, okay, so they learn about What it is and in its different components, how do you implement that?

What are some practical ways that you might implement that in different endeavors or undertakings? And those could range from physical things to okay, you want to learn an instrument to maybe more abstract things. Like you want to learn how to write or speak better. How? Does deliberate practice fit into that for just, your everyday person?

Anders: Basically what we argue is that this is like an approach and deliberate practice can only be seen here in the context of applying this approach. So let’s assume now that you want to be a musician that can actually play music in a way that. audiences enjoy, that would be now a target performance that basically we can now start reverse engineering.

And I think that’s what most of the classical music education is all about, is how do we reverse engineer, basically high levels of musical performance. And basically over centuries, there’s evolved kind of a curriculum where you start out Producing music, simple pieces of music, and then there is a path where you actually acquire more and more complex techniques.

And over time, people have figured out what are the most effective training activities that would allow you now to go beyond your current, Performance and acquire now the specific techniques on this curriculum. Now, pretty much takes about 12 years to complete until you get to the expert level, and I would argue that there’s a lot of domains, especially professional domains where people are now starting to ask these questions.

So if you’re interested in improving. your surgery of a particular technique? Then, basically observe and study what it is that those surgeons who have the better patient outcomes, what is it that they might be doing differently and what did they do in order to actually get to that point?

Once you ask that question, what are the training techniques that will actually be the most effective for you to improve a particular aspect that will get you one step higher on this skill acquisition staircase? That’s deliberate practice. And what is key is that you’re actually now identifying some specific thing that you can’t do as well as you want.

And then you have a training activity that will actually allow you to stretch and eventually reach that goal that your teacher set up using that technique that often the teacher knows has been the most effective for people to make that, complete that step. So that cycle of being able not to try and then refine gradually and improve some aspect of your performance.

And once you’ve done that aspect then you go back to the teacher and actually now focus in on some other aspect You 

Mike: know, I liked a few things that you said. One is starting with a specific goal in mind, and I think that applies to, again, people listening, yeah, so maybe they’re not interested in playing an instrument, but whatever they’re interested in doing, like a random thing that I’m doing is I’m learning German.

My wife is German. I figured language learning is it’s just an interesting hobby, and it’s something that is good for your mind, and I enjoy it. So why not? It’s starting with that with a clear outcome in mind. And like you said, reverse engineering, and I’ve gone through now quite a few different language learning systems.

Because to the point that you’re making is I wanted to see what other what was out there in terms of, and looking specifically for that deliberate practice, what are the best types of deliberate practice that are going to allow me to continue to stretch myself and anybody listening. That’s really the key is where you’re, you feel like you are.

Still in your domain of competence, you’re not completely just adrift and confused. I don’t know what it’s up and down, but you’re, you have one foot out into the kind of the chaos and you’re trying to figure out something that you’re trying to master some new element of something. I think that’s a, just a good tip for anything that you’re getting into as opposed to getting into something.

With no idea of where you’re going, having a specific concept of this is what I’m trying to achieve. And then looking, what have other people that, have achieved this. And this is very easy to do with the internet these days, especially with websites like Quora and Reddit. You can get a lot of information from people who have already achieved exactly you want to achieve and then be able to look at What did they do?

How did they get there? And this is, I’ve found this with various little hobbies and things that I’ve done and even professional things that there rarely is just a one size fits all up here’s the easy little program. Just do this. And it’s going to have everything that you need. You, at least for me, whether it’s language learning or.

Golf or even work related things, writing, I’ve found that I’ve had to go, I’ve had to read a lot of different things and pick and choose things that have worked specifically for me. So yeah, I just wanted to share my, just for anybody listening, share my experience with that. And I just think it’s very much in line with what you’re saying.

Anders: And I think it’s really interesting now talking about language that has turned out to be pretty difficult to measure objectively, but if you actually constrain now the way you’re going to be using the language so you know more exactly what kind of goals and what kind of vocabulary that you would need in order to communicate, that seems to be really key in order to now achieve those goals.

So if you’re going to a country with. A particular activity that you want to engage in, then you can make much more progress than this abstract goal of learning the language and learning the culture and those things that are very hard to objectively measure. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s very true. Actually, I’ve had experience with that.

So I started with Pimsleur and they have. For levels of four German courses that you just listen along and you speak along, it was very much that approach of the more general. You’re just going to learn the language. And, fluency is the big, that’s the big marketing button that they push.

I don’t know about, I don’t remember Pimsleur’s marketing in particular, but in the language learning space, it’s a lot of. Over promising, become fluent in three months and to the point of, the 12 years to become a master type of that, that information or that, that observation very much applies to fluency, in my opinion, just in my experience now.

It’s, it takes hundreds and hundreds of hours, probably a thousand plus hours of work to get to what you would, anybody would consider fluent and you’re not doing that in three months unless you are, I don’t know, learning, unless you’re doing language learning 15 hours a day, seven days a week, it’s just not going to happen.

And that’s one of the, actually though, to your point, that’s one of the things that like one of the little lessons I’ve. Or helpful tips that I’ve picked up along the way is just that, that a more general, Oh, I’m just going to learn the language approach. I just did it because I don’t mind go grinding through things and seeing how it goes.

But after going through a couple hundred hours of Pimsleur, I didn’t have a vocabulary that meant anything to me, so I couldn’t speak about any of the things that I wanted to speak about because those courses were geared more toward tourists. And two, I didn’t have an understanding of the language and understanding of the grammar, which is much different than English.

And it was productive, but it wasn’t very productive. What has been a lot more productive, though, is building my vocabulary. Myself using SRS flashcards and I’ve started with just a frequency. I’ve built a vocabulary of about a thousand to maybe 1200 of the most frequently used words in the language.

I figured that’s a good place to start just so you can get up to speed. But then from there you can Branch out to what specifically do you care about? What do you want to know about what kind of conversations do you want to have? Also at the same time, working on actually learning the grammar and understanding how these sentences are constructed and how it differs from English, that.

Ladder approach has been a lot more productive and I can actually see it now. I can see okay, I think by the end of the year I have limited time for this. So by the end of the year, I should be able to be functioning, functionally fluent in my own I’ll be able to have conversations with my wife that I would want to have and not just asking her where the toilet is.

And if the restaurant’s good. 

Anders: And I think that’s really interesting, that issue here. And I think in some domains, where there is better feedback. For example, in many sports and music, dance, and even as it comes to medicine, where you actually have outcome information, I think there is a better understanding here of how you actually need to build skill and basically how a teacher can actually take a look at what it is that you’re thinking when you’re doing the activity.

And whether, in fact, that really is building something that is consistent with the ultimate kind of mastery that you want to achieve. Because I think that’s one of the things that, at least to me, is really very important. Is that idea that the way that the expert thinks about what they’re doing is so fundamentally different from what the beginner is thinking about.

So understanding that discrepancy, and as you get more skilled, what the remaining discrepancy is that the expert is actually monitoring things at a much more sophisticated, refined level than a less skilled individual, and that basically that’s key, that mental representation of what it is you’re trying to achieve and what you’re currently doing.

When you have increased the refinement of those descriptions, that is necessary for you to reach these levels. So if you can’t even sense a difference between certain ways in which a performance is generated, it’s going to be awfully hard for you then to be able to achieve that level.

Mike: Yeah, that’s an interesting point. I can relate to it in terms of sports games in general growing up. I never really got much into video games, but I played a lot of sports and whatever. I just bored games and stuff where that point of understanding how the high level. Performer thinks is an important part of getting better at the game.

And that’s not obvious. Obviously when you’re seeing someone just good at a sport, you just think you can just, look at their physical prowess, but what you don’t understand also is that there’s a psychological prowess as well. And here in terms of how they’re processing information, how many different things they’re paying attention to, how they make their decisions, how many different decisions they’re making and how quickly they’re making them.

Yeah, that’s an interesting point. That is, is very true. I think. 

Anders: And one thing that I think is interesting when you’re actually talking to really good teachers is that they have a much better idea of what’s really the most effective. I guess one example that I think is interesting, and you’re probably familiar with it, so if you want to increase your ability to dunk a basketball, what most kids would do is just to try to jump.

Repeatedly as a way here of improving that jump height, but I think science have really shown here that more effective ways is either using weightlifting where you can now actually induce so much more stimulus on your legs. If you really want to change now the strength of your legs, lifting weights is a much more effective way of imposing that stimulus on your muscles.

The other thing that is more effective than jumping is actually jumping down from a height where When you absorb your own body weight, when you land, that basically is that stimulus to your leg muscles that allows them now to gain strength and eventually increase now your jumping height. 

Mike: Yeah, it’s the, that eccentric portion of the movement, right?

Yeah. So how does motivation factor into high performance? What is your research uncovered about how experts or how people have stayed motivated to do the hard work it takes to become expert? 

Anders: And I think that’s really the key, especially once you realize that, you might spend 10 15 20 and if you become a professional musician, entire life doing music.

And I think that’s where these representations come in. Mhm. So if it’s just viewed here as a secretarial task of just basically delivering notes to an audience without you actually gaining something very directly here from the process of being better, I think that’s, going to be awfully difficult.

But what I find with very sort of promising music students is that they’re actually listening to the music that they’re producing. And one simple test is that young musicians can sit down for a couple of hours playing at the piano as a way of exploring now musical experiences that they have. And the same thing with any kind of musician, when they’re actually practicing, they can now more or less, push a little bit further and get to a point that they haven’t really experienced.

And then obviously they can produce that performance again and actually give now a whole audience a new experience of a particular music piece. 

Mike: Are there any practical tips we can take away for anybody listening on just anybody has probably experienced this in the beginning. It’s never fun when you suck at something, right?

So it’s all well and good when you see someone who’s already very good at something and, what did it take to get there? And again, the reason why I’m just sticking on this point is. Particularly in the fitness space. Motivation is a big thing, right? Staying motivated to keep showing up every day and putting in the work, knowing that it’s going to take quite a bit of time for the average person, what they want to do at least the average person that is in my orbit, what they want to do with their bodies is going to take anywhere from, let’s say six months on the short end to maybe a few years, you’re not necessarily going to see changes or see improvements every single day.

You can see maybe slight improvements on a monthly basis. But. I was just curious, is there anything else in, in regards to motivation in particular, whether it’s, extrinsic versus intrinsic factors or anything else that just might lend some insight as to or maybe even the point that motivation isn’t as important as many people think.

Anders: I think there are two things. When I’ve been talking to people who are exercising, they find that, the. Energy that they have to invest here, if they’re going to go out running or something like that. And typically what they have is this inner dialogue about whether they should do it today or maybe tomorrow.

And when they do it, they spend a lot of time thinking about how long they’re going to be doing it. What I find that the more successful individuals do. Is basically be more on a habitual level where you actually commit to doing it three times a week on particular times, and now you structure the rest of your life a little bit around those constraints, and then when you exercise.

You’re going to be much more focused here on the process of just being engaged and maybe attuned to your body. And once you’re done with your exercise, that’s the time to relax and reflect on some Improvements that you made over the last month or so. And I think charting and actual recording in some way, I think it’s actually quite motivating because it allows you now to have a realistic plan for what you need to invest.

In order to reach, the target performance that you ultimately want to reach. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I think tracking results and you can do it in a few different ways. You can use pictures, you can use some simple body measurements, whether it’s like a waist measurement, or you could do a caliber measurement.

Some people like to go all in and measure even individual muscle groups. And while that stuff might seem superfluous and just I don’t know, a waste of time. It’s actually can be very motivating because again, when you see how much energy you have to invest in it, if you’re not tracking it, chances are you’re not going to see as much of a change in the mirror, just alone, looking at yourself every day, then you maybe wanted to going in because you look at yourself every day and you don’t see as much of a difference.

But. When you are chronicling your your journey and taking different measurements and looking at more than just maybe your weight or what in the mirror, a clear picture begins to emerge. Really, I’d say, if you know what you’re doing, it only takes maybe, I’d say within your first four to six weeks, real results.

So you don’t need that much motivation. Then, like you said if you can just make it a habit and be very specific and say every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this time, I’m going to do this. And I’m going to stick to this for 60 days. I don’t know, who knows, maybe it’s going to be a waste of time.

You don’t have to even get I don’t think you need that much optimism because I’m just going to do that. And then make sure you get that feedback. Yes. That’s a great way to motivate yourself. And then it obviously becomes like a. Positive self reinforce reinforcing cycle at that point, because once you see that the results you’re motivated to you want more, you got your award, 

Anders: right?

Actually, anyone who I’m talking to, recommending that the document and maybe sometimes with videos or pictures or measurement that you were talking about. Because I think, the more individuals that can document their journey, that in some ways has all sorts of benefits for those people who now want to start the journey to have realistic expectations here about what they’re getting.

But also, in some ways, now really see here, these multiple examples of individuals who were able to achieve, maybe after a year or two, the type of result that they are aspiring to. And I don’t know if you know of people Who actually have posted videos or other kinds of information so you could really track how they improve, say over the first year or so.

Mike: Yeah, I actually, I have a lot of success stories on my website of people that have used my programs and my advice and it’s questionnaire that people fill out. So they share a little bit of their story and then we have pictures that show, here’s where they started. Here’s three months progress.

In some cases, that’s all it is. It’s a three month success story or it’s a six month or a nine month. And that’s one of the reasons why I like to put them up. Obviously there’s a marketing value, but also like you said, it gives realistic expectations and it allows people to find people that, cause I’ve.

I have men and women of all ages and circumstances. And also they have different goals and obviously different training histories and just different experiences on the whole. And so it allows you to find a few, I have hundreds and hundreds of now on the website. So a lot of people, that’s what they’ll do is they’ll find a few that.

where the person reminds them most of them. Like here’s that, that, that’s pretty much where I’m at in terms of my body. And that’s pretty much where I’m at in terms of my lifestyle, my schedule, whatever. And Hey, if this person can do it and they seem very similar to me why can’t I do it?

Anders: So let me ask you also try to pair up individuals on your website who may actually be training. So they would actually start at the same point. And could now actually talk to each other about the progress they’ve been making this week or maybe if they’re living in the same area, they might even decide to train together.

Being more focused on how your fellow individual who basically started out at the same point, how they’re improving, maybe the better perspective. And then at times you can take the bigger view here and look at, where you really ultimately want to end up. 

Mike: Yeah, no, I don’t right now, but where, what I’m going to be doing for that is starting a Facebook group.

I actually have a Facebook group for my sports nutrition, my supplement company, but I don’t have one for muscle for life, which is more of the education. Right now, it’s honestly a glorified blog. It’s a popular website. It gets a lot of traffic. But it’s really just write post articles and success stories.

And so we’re overhauling muscle for life and putting a store in place and really establishing it as its own business. And one of the things we’re going to do with that is because I don’t want to have a Facebook group up that I want to make sure that I have some people that can be involved on my team that can be involved in there and not just moderate it, but also help foster community.

And we’ve done that with the sports nutrition company, but not yet with muscle for life. But that’s the plan is to have a Facebook group where everybody. That can go as it won’t just be for people that have read my books per se. It’s just anybody who comes to the website. Hey, if you want to join the group here, come join the group and it’ll help facilitate that.

Ultimately. Yeah. It’d be great to have a fancier, more, software based solution for that, but. We can start with what’s easily available, which is setting up a Facebook group and people are on Facebook a lot. So that also it’s easy for them then to start participating. 

Anders: And I’ve basically seen a couple of other companies that apparently allow coaches on the internet.

So you actually send them videos of basically your training or whatever. And my feeling is that often a coach may be. More valuable in holding back individuals who tend to want to improve too fast and in the process end up injuring themselves or burning themselves out. So basically having that kind of access to a teacher that, Has seen enough people who succeeded and also some people who failed that would be able to convince individuals here of keeping that optimal stress level and not really, going beyond that and actually having the risk here for injury and other negative consequences.

Mike: Yeah, definitely. I actually have a coaching service. I have a number of coaches and we’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of people. And that is one of the big benefits. There’s accountability, but then there also is, yeah, making sure they’re in that sweet spot of pushing themselves enough to make progress, but not so much that they risk getting hurt or like you said, overtraining or burning out.

It doesn’t need to be as hard as many people think. It is getting into great shape. Yeah, it takes a lot of work and it’s maybe a bit harder than some people think. But I think also, I think in my experience in the fitness space is a lot of people think it’s actually a lot more difficult than it is.

They think that you have to be a lot more restrictive in your dieting. You have to eat a lot less food than you actually have to. And they think that you have to do workouts That you hate basically because they’re long drawn out grueling affairs and you have to take a ton of supplements and you have to, make your entire life revolve around it.

And really none of that’s true. Sure. If you have hours and hours to dedicate to your body every week, you’re going to get into shape faster than the average person. If you don’t have that time, that’s totally fine. It may take a little bit longer, but you can be in great shape and still, Be a very active in your life and have all kinds of responsibilities and, work a full time job and have a family and stuff.

So that’s a big thing. That’s a big part of my message and brand, 

Anders: and I think one of the things that I’ve found when I talk to people are successful is that they have a much better sense here. This idea, no pain, no gain, but obviously it doesn’t work. The more pain you have, the more gain, basically that there are different kinds of, Sort of pain or adversive sort of senses that are good But then there are basically other types of sensations that are really warning signals that you should definitely avoid 

Mike: Yeah, and you know to that point that you have that in fitness and just athletics in general And I guess there is something to be said I mean I can say for sure in the world of weightlifting and strength training You know The more pain you can take, the better you are going to be.

And some people’s bodies are just seem to be particularly good at taking a lot of abuse. And even if you take the drug use out of it, there’s evidence of this in quite a few weight lifting studies out there that some people. Their bodies just respond really well to weightlifting and strength training and they recover very well.

And so those people subsequently can subject themselves to more pain. So yeah, it’s one of those things where yes, with no context, like no pain, no gain. Yes, that’s fine. But without context, that’s not a very helpful bit of advice. And I think that applies to, I can say as an entrepreneur building A business over the last, whatever, five years, I’ve built a few businesses and have done pretty well.

And I would attribute a big part of that to maybe my willingness to be uncomfortable in terms of work. And, I’ve worked, I don’t know, 80 plus hour weeks for months on end. And I never really got burned out. Why? I don’t know. I don’t have a great explanation. I don’t have a great explanation for that.

But I just know that I’ve been able to take maybe a bit more pain than the average person in that regard. And so I’ve been able to build my businesses a bit quicker. But I think that’s the, it’s highly individualized. You have to yourself know that yes, you need to be stretching yourself. You need to be pushing yourself into that zone of discomfort.

And I would say ideally you’re probably pushing yourself as far as you can go before you fall off the edge. And that the in falling down means different things, depending on what you’re doing. If it’s in the gym, like you said, it’s getting hurt or just running yourself into the ground where you’re having a hard time just.

Even getting into the gym and getting through your workouts, or if it’s in a, a career endeavor where you just can’t stand the thought of doing the work anymore. I’ve seen quite a few instances of that with professional athletes, and I’m sure you’ve seen a bit of that. I actually be curious.

What’s your experience with that? With high level performers who push themselves to the point where they just, they don’t want to do it anymore. Did you do, have you come across that? 

Anders: I’ve talked to individuals. What I find interesting though is, and I kind of view motivation as actually at the core.

So basically that’s the, your primary kind of commitment to, and basically when it comes to actually trying to achieve certain goals, as long as you’re able to, and especially in the long term, to kinda get the rest and recuperate. Because I know that if I can’t get enough sleep, it’s everything falls apart because I can’t live up to the kind of concentration and quality that I think I need in order to feel good about what I’m doing.

So it’s almost like finding that life kind of space where you actually are able to sustain without actually totally depleting yourself. Your ability to concentrate is now dramatically reduced. And I would assume here that any person who is pushing themselves to the limits, they really need to have that concentration level, or else they wouldn’t be able to get to that point.

Mike: Yeah, no, I agree. How do you think fun plays into all of this? Either whether it’s intentionally injecting, to make something make things more fun, or I’m just curious as to your thoughts on that. Cause again, that’s something that I’ve seen, particularly with higher level athletes where They got to a point where they felt like they just weren’t having fun with it anymore.

And then on the flip side, that was a big thing that it was a breakthrough for them where they’re actually having fun playing their sport again. 

Anders: I think if you’re actually, trying to refine what you’re doing, I think that actually creates now a space here of new, exciting developments.

And I think people who are at the very top, who pretty much are at, better than anyone else. They need to start challenging themselves now to go beyond what their current level is. And I think that should be an exciting path. Unless you get to a point here now where anxiety of performing and other kinds of things, Are really starting to interfere now with your ability here to focus in on just doing your best and exploring ways That you would be able to go a little bit further But I agree that individuals should get almost to this more automatic way where they only view That they’re doing it for other people’s reasons as opposed to having this commitment to themselves and in some ways Having that interesting challenge of breaking through and being able to do things that they haven’t done before.

Mike: Yeah. As opposed to coming back to that performance anxiety point for sure, especially if that’s how you make your living. And so if you’re out there in a thin, if you’re struggling in that regard, it’s, it can be, I could see, I could be a breakthrough to like, what, why did you get into this in the first place?

It wasn’t to try to be famous or make a bunch of money. You got into it because you liked it because you thought it was fun. And so coming back to that can be cathartic, in some ways. 

Anders: Yeah. And I think sometimes the anxiety may take the pathway here of interfering now with your ability to rest and in some ways really recuperate.

So next time you go in to, to either perform or to practice, that you have that freshness of being able now to really concentrate. Anyway, to me I’ve seen that cycle where anxiety is starting to interfere now with the ability here to really be fully committed to what you’re doing.

And then basically more anxiety increased, decreases your ability here to really perform in the way that you are conceivably able to. And that sort of is a very negative spiral that sometimes obviously It’s cut short here when you are no longer able to make a living out of what you’re doing.

Mike: And to that point of rest and relaxation, and I guess you could say overtraining or overstimulation. What are some of the things that work well for you and what are some of the things that work well with a lot of the people you’ve worked with to help them just in health and in your case, just to help you rejuvenate and continue to be able to, to output at a high level.

Anders: One thing that we observed was the seeming limit of four or five hours a day that even if you didn’t have any other responsibilities that are basically focusing, at a very high level concentration level. There seems to be a limited amount of time that people can do it. And I guess we talked about the authors, the professional authors that go away and just write on their book, they don’t write for 12 hours, they seem to be writing for about four hours.

And then the rest of the day is pretty much kind of recuperate. So next morning you will actually be able to put in that. Fully concentrated effort of writing. And it’s interesting. I read a couple of biographies of authors who tried to, when they were having deadlines and stuff like that, to work more in the afternoon.

And they basically found that the extra work that they have to put in on rewriting what they did in the afternoon, more or less was not making it worthwhile for them to do it. So basically finding that optimal level and then actually allowing yourself to really relax and monitoring your ability to sleep, in a way that, what we found interesting was that many of the expert musicians and athletes, they were taking naps after they had engaged in training.

And I think that was an interesting barometer. If you can actually take a nap. It really means that you’re able to really relax so your body can start recuperating, you can actually get that complete rest. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s interesting. I guess that is probably the most relaxing thing you can do, right?

Is take a nap. 

Anders: If you can do that, then it seems Basically that you have that control over your thinking and anxiety. And it’s hard to see how you would be able to save more energy than actually taking a nap. 

Mike: Yeah. Any other activities? Obviously these days, like you have this kind of pop meditation, breathing exercises or I don’t know, going for walks in nature or any other things that kind of stood out to you as either just as striking examples that.

Or just common denominators. 

Anders: Looking at basically the writers, I thought it was really interesting that they went for walks and it may be, that you can get the same kind of outcome and depending on your ability here to relax, maybe there are other methods that are going to be more helpful to you than go for a walk, but if you can actually pretty much shut down so you can actually start relaxing and then basically start.

100 percent here when you wake up in the morning and then basically get involved here and trying to do your challenging work and then basically find the rest of the day as in a more relaxing, social, interactive mode. 

Mike: It’s interesting you say ability to relax as in, this is something that you can be good at or not good at.

Anders: I’ve talked to. Several musicians who told me that basically being able to fall asleep and you know within five minutes Is really a skill that you know, basically they worked on and were able to improve now Can anyone do that? I don’t know but I think it’s really an interesting question that How might 

Mike: you deliberately practice that?

Anders: to me really the my work is such That basically I spend most of the day here at my office and basically people don’t particularly see positively if you have a bed in your office where you would take your nap. So that’s a little bit out of my option space, except maybe weekends.

But I think also that a lot of the work that I’m doing, I really tried to start out with a more challenging writing projects that I have. And then, I probably would need to spend less than four or five hours on that, so I would have, the ability here of interacting with people that I have meetings with and other obligations, you have to look at your professional environment and family environment, if you’re a parent.

And now try to design the best possible life situation that would allow you that those bursts of energy that basically would allow you to produce important things and improve your skills. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And the social activities there’s, I’ve read a bit of research on that just, and that’s one of the things that’s, that is a reliable it just improves our health in many ways and a reliable relaxer is spending time with people that you like.

Again, there’s walking walking in nature, that’s another one. And. I still that point of though, learning how to relax. For me, I don’t know if you’ve, I’m sure you’ve run into this at some point in your career where sometimes it can be hard simply because of the sheer amount of things that are in motion and that are not getting done when you’re not working on them.

You know what I mean? 

Anders: Yeah, and I think, you could try, but most people I know, they will always fall into a situation where for whatever reason, that there’s more demands on their time that they have available now, obviously, if you try to plan such that you would set aside time.

Like I would say that most musicians and athletes do where you basically have this time that’s Dedicated here to your own training and kind of continued mastery and I guess you know, you just like in most cases have to do your best to handle those situations Outside of your plan, but if you have a little bit of margins, and I guess I remember something that I been reminded of when I was a kid, I was working for a moving company and one of the older guys came up to me and said, you’re crazy.

You’re basically lifting and working as hard as you can. When you’re walking the stairs, you need to have 30 percent extra sort of power in case somebody missteps or something happens. And I thought that was an interesting idea that Only in a training environment that’s safe. Can you really be approaching your boundaries?

But in a real world situation, it’s really important to have that little extra margin that would actually allow you now to have something to draw on when something unexpected happens. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I like that analogy. I can relate to that in business for sure. Cause where you have yourself loaded up to the hill, it’s everything’s fine.

So long as you can keep moving at a thousand miles an hour, but if you can’t, then things quickly, you have a pile up. 

Anders: And I think the more that one would be able to learn from individuals, and in some ways, maybe be able to anticipate situations here that could potentially be avoidable for individuals are coming after you, if you could share some of the insights.

That there isn’t enough sharing of that type of information or at least I think it could be done More effectively than it is now And what do you mean by that? You know imagine if you had a library where you would basically be able to learn now How to handle certain kinds of situations where somebody where it’s the first experience that you have Of this type, but then you would be able to actually access information here from 10, 50 people who had gone through this themselves and in some ways now learn certain things that if they had known that in advance.

Might have possibly saved them some complication. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That’s one of the reasons why I like to read biographies because I find that’s you find a lot of that information in biographies because it’s raw, unprocessed as opposed to if it’s a highly polished, highly marketed. Book, let’s say of whether it’s a business book or a self development kind of self help book, like you said that I do quite a few books in those genres, but there again, they’re more about telling a specific story and you don’t, not all the information is in there and there are certain things that are left out simply because they’re unpalatable or maybe they don’t exactly jive with the kind of it.

Yeah. Core marketing message of the book, whereas with a good biography, everything is there that could be dug up and it’s up to you to draw lessons from it. 

Anders: I really enjoyed reading biographies. I found actually that sometimes autobiographies. Seems to be written more, with somebody concerned that are basically leaving a an image of what they accomplished.

Yeah. Some of the academic boundaries, are really going and finding letters and really doing a detective job of really trying to describe now how somebody was able to do certain things. And I’ve had periods when I’ve been Reading many biographies, and I guess what I took away from those biographies was that individuals have encountered much more problems than I guess you would assume here with a conventional idea here of successful people and that.

That actually seeing how they handle these situations, I thought was not just motivating, but also really instructive. 

Mike: I agree. Are there any biographies that stand out in your mind as you’re some of your favorites? 

Anders: The one that kind of comes to mind is my mentor, Herbert Simon. He wrote a biography that I thought was, he made an effort here to describe basically what happened in his kind of more complete life.

So that was an autobiography. That was an autobiography. And given that I knew him, it was particularly interesting to read that. So I could compare with my own experience, but I think finding people that you have a lot of common with or that you aspire to be more like would obviously be one good reason here for selecting biographies, because that’s going to increase now the chances.

That they’re going to be situations and issues that would be more directly relevant to your own development. 

Mike: Or people that have achieved similar things to what you want to achieve, right? Exactly. Awesome. Those are all the questions that I had. Is there anything else that you want to share in particular with everybody listening, anything that we didn’t touch on enough that you think should be said?

Anders: I think basically that kind of idea of sharing. basically information about your own process, both in terms of successes and ways in which you cope with motivation. The more individuals who would be willing to share that. I was struck Charles Darwin wrote an autobiography and that was basically written by him to share Not for the general public, but for his children.

And I think the more that people would actually be writing descriptions here that would be directed to the children, where you are really now interested in helping them being more successful than you were in your efforts and in the process. Maybe making that path a little bit easier. 

Mike: I like that. Maybe something similar to what Ray Dalio has done with principles or Jordan Peterson has done with his 12 rules for living or for life.

Anders: But having it being a little bit more specific, I think very often when people generalize. These general principles, it makes it difficult for people now to basically apply it to specific situations. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Anders: So the more that you would actually have descriptions of actual lived situations, I think that has some real attraction to me.

Mike: Yeah, no I agree with that. And I think also if people were doing that, even if it were just in the form of journaling there’s a lot of benefits that, I tried journaling a bit and I honestly, I didn’t really feel like I got anything out of it. So I stopped, but I know that quite a few people find that they personally benefit a lot from journaling to get a better idea, really crystallize their thoughts.

It’s like a reflective time where they sit down and really think about what they’re doing, where they’re going. And cause it’s easy when you’re in the trenches to, Be in the trenches for a long time and then pop your head up and have no idea where you are and where you get stuck in the machine of things without really thinking about designing the machine or you get stuck in the day to day of life without designing life.

So I think there’s probably something to be said there. In terms of just the personal value of taking regular time to reflect on your life, on your situations, how are things affecting you? What might you do about things? 

Anders: But I also wonder if it wouldn’t be interesting. Let’s assume here that we had journals from people like Albert Einstein and whoever else, wouldn’t that be interesting to be able to in some ways getting that immediate.

And if somebody indexed it, you might be able to even access now selectively situations of a given type and then basically how individuals perceived it and how they basically cope with it and whatever. And basically just getting that sharing of people who ultimately became successful and maybe even people who weren’t successful who would actually be able now to share and actually in some ways provide useful information to people.

Who are trying to have a similar path. 

Mike: Yeah, there’s a book idea. You should add it to your list. But no, I agree actually that’s because again, because the journal, because it’d be so personal and it’s something that I think conversations like this or many other podcasts that were, they interview successful people and they try to.

Get to what makes them tick are all well and good, but it’s different when you have somebody sitting down just to themselves, or if it’s, whether it’s going to be given to their children or whatever, and being like you said, just day by day, specifically, what are they running into? How do they think about it?

What are they, how does it make them feel? That’s much more intimate and much more comprehensive. And it’s unfiltered. 

Anders: Yeah. So if somebody would be interested in just collecting that eventually, I think now with development here and basically data processing, that would be a database that potentially would now allow individuals to be much more selective and gaining access to situations that are similar to what they perceive them confronting.

Mike: Yeah. That’s an interesting idea. I would I would sign up. 

Anders: Anyway, it was I really enjoyed talking to you and it seems to me that you’re doing just a really important job. 

Mike: Thank you. Thank you. And I really appreciate you taking the time professor. And before we sign off here, where can people find you and find your work?

Are there any projects that you’re working on that you want to mention right now? Or if you can’t say anything, I understand. And obviously I, I mentioned earlier your most recent book, right? It with Robert pool is peak and for anybody interested in all this stuff on the science or performance, it’s a great book.

I highly recommend it. But is there anything else you have? Is there a website or social media or this is, 

Anders: to be honest here, I struggled to keep up with my email here. So I understand the low. Profile, but Robert pool, my coauthor, he has a couple of websites, peak, the book. com where he’s sharing some ideas here of people who’ve engaged and try to design, deliver practice in different domains.

So that might be something that people would be interested in looking up. 

Mike: That’s great. Peak, the book. com. I just pulled it up. I’m gonna check it out myself. 

Anders: I’m so glad here that we got a chance to complete this. It looked pretty grim here in the beginning, but I guess we’re. Both pretty stubborn here. So Skype, 

Mike: Skype 

Anders: saves the day.

Mike: No again, thank you, professor. I really appreciate it. 

Anders: I certainly enjoyed it very much. 

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