The Expert Mind

[Remiel]

A friend of mine gave me this article the other day (Law of Attraction at work!) and I just googled it this morning and found it online. So I thought I'd share it with my fellow forum friends.

The Expert Mind: Scientific American


The basic Idea is that all of life is a matter of processing information. When we want to learn a new skill we have to learn it one peice at a time (pun intended ). Once we learn the basics we can start "Chunking" information into slightly larger blocks. In chess this would be like going from knowing how peices themselves move to whole openings or how to checkmate with only a king and a rook, etc.

Once you can chunk those together you start building your bank of experience and start chunking more and more things together into a single chunk. This allows for fast and rapid processing of information.

The biggest problem I have with the article? This means I have to make sure to start with the small chunks. I already knew this but it does give it alot more validity.


Actually I find the concept freeing. I don't have to worry about thinking like a grandmaster to start. I simply have to work on the small chunks I can manage and learn those well. Then as time goes on I'll naturally get more and more adept at it.

What do you guys think about the article?

[Dreamline]

I always wondered where the idea came from that experts were born?

Of course they are made. It's just that, when accounting for the sheer level of averageness that people in general display, someone that becomes expert either quickly, or at a shockingly young age, is so abnormal a creature to our society that it is assumed they must have possessed some genetic predisposition or somehow miraculously been born with the skill.

Whatever their skill, it was simply learned with expert levels of rapidity.

Jennifer

[CoolBee]

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book has some interesting discussions on this point about experts.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and the Real Reason You Are a Successful Writer | I'd Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

He argues that those we consider natural geniuses have had some early-life advantage that we are not generally made aware of when reading popular magazine articles etc on them. He claims experts are made not born and 10000 hours seems to be a bit of a magic number!

[emeadow]

This sentence from the article:

"Thus, motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise"

probably is the strongest for me. Anyone to me has the ability to be an expert in whatever they choose, but it takes motivation to get them there for the long haul. Anyone can excel in the beginning of a new skill, but the difference between the average joe and the expert later on is truly just staying motivated to continue to grow and progress. I also agreed with the comments in the end, that based on this theory, the spotlight is on the schools in finding the right motivation to create experts since everyone is capable in theory (although I believe this responsibility is split between schools and parents alike.....but my confidence in schools figureing this out, has me likely to homeschool if we have children).

I am currently working on that life purpose career alignment sort of hubbub, and the direction I feel myself heading at the moment is very complex, and FAR from my current expertise. I have broken it out into smaller and smaller 'chunks', and have determined that even though I am far from an expert in the goal I have laid out, I can easily become one over time as I put together the pieces. I CAN be an expert in whatever, and if my motivation and purpose are aligned correctly as I believe they are right now, it is 100% achievable.

As a side note though, I sometimes wonder if it took me so long to find true direction and purpose, just because I was not ready to tackle all the 'components' to becoming an expert in a new direction. Several years ago, had someone showed me this path, I would have laughed and said that was too hard to imagine. Now, I have spent several years changing habits, building discipline, learning to achieve small to large goals, and in general laid a strong foundation. Now that my path is becoming more clear, I still see it as complicated, but by no means out of reach. Just a set of tasks I need to break down into small chunks and work my way up.

10,000 hours here I come

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by CoolBee

He claims experts are made not born and 10000 hours seems to be a bit of a magic number!

Wow, 10000 hours is a daunting number. The other article also mentioned 10 years. 10000 hours would be 2.73 hours each day for 10 years. Or I suppose you could go the other way and practice 10 hours a day for 2.73 years. Either way, that's a lot of practice!

[Dreamline]

Being an expert is a daunting task too. It's reserved for the elite in any field. So you just don't find true experts that often.

Jennifer

[Remiel]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

Being an expert is a daunting task too. It's reserved for the elite in any field. So you just don't find true experts that often.

Jennifer

Do you think it is because people just don't bother putting in the time and energy to become experts?