0
SPEAKER_00
This is the art of charm.
0
SPEAKER_00
Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today we re talking with Dr. Anders Ericsson, also a prof at Florida State University, about his book Peak, co-authored with Robert Poole.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is a really interesting book.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is a really interesting set of concepts.
0
SPEAKER_00
Innate talent is not real, or at least it s not what people think it is and may not exist at all.
0
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna talk about the concept of deliberate practice and how we can become amazing at just about any skill and how to set up a deliberate practice regimen to become more effective at anything that we do.
0
SPEAKER_00
This episode is a must for anyone who practices any craft or art and wants to get better at it.
0
SPEAKER_00
And with that, welcome to The Art of Charm.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
0
SPEAKER_00
The Art of Charm brings together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and our toolbox, where we discuss things like body language, nonverbal communication, networking, persuasion, and everything else we teach here at AOC.
0
SPEAKER_00
Just text charmed to 33444, or go to theartofcharm.com.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444, or hit the website at theartofcharm.com.
0
SPEAKER_00
We might not have all the answers, but we definitely have some of the questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
Alright, here s Dr. Anders Erikson.
0
SPEAKER_00
Tell us what you do in one sentence.
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, I ve always been very interested in trying to understand how people are very successful, how they re thinking and how that s different from less accomplished individuals are able to do.
0
SPEAKER_00
So let s talk about what that means.
0
SPEAKER_00
I d like to define expert first because I think nowadays you can just tell yourself or tell other people on the internet that you re an expert and technically now you are, but that s not what you mean, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
No, in fact, I think that s one of the key points in our research is that for a long time people were, you know, looking for experts and they had this idea of somebody who had been doing something for years and decades and somebody who had a long education.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I think that created some problems because once you started testing these individuals using kind of objective tests on their performance, you kind of surprisingly found that additional years or decades of experience really didn t improve their ability to kind of perform at a higher level.
0
SPEAKER_01
So if we re talking about psychotherapists, for example,
0
SPEAKER_01
having 20 years of experience treating patients is not a predictor that your patients will be having better outcomes than a colleague with much less experience.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes, exactly.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I think that s important.
0
SPEAKER_00
So you had to kind of codify this.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I want to step back and talk about perfect pitch, because I thought this was a great example of innate talent or the fallacy of innate talent.
0
SPEAKER_00
Can you tell us what this discovery meant and what this was?
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
People for a very long time were looking for these kinds of abilities that could possibly explain now why some people are more outstanding musicians than other people.
0
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things, you know, looking in particular at Mozart, which is, I think, the prototypical prodigy of somebody who performed at a very high level at a young age.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he had this ability that s referred to as perfect pitch.
0
SPEAKER_01
So you can actually play a tone in isolation.
0
SPEAKER_01
And one way of thinking about this test is that you re basically your eyes closed and somebody s hitting a key on the piano.
0
SPEAKER_01
Somebody with perfect pitch would be able to tell you exactly which of the keys that somebody hit.
0
SPEAKER_01
That ability is intriguing because when adult musicians tried to acquire this ability, they found that it was almost impossible for them to do.
0
SPEAKER_01
Here we have something that Mozart exhibited as a kid that other musicians, when they tried to acquire that ability in adulthood, are pretty much not able to do it.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
So that would seem to be something that some people are born with and other people just don t have the genes to support that.
0
SPEAKER_01
Genetic or innate talent, essentially.
0
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
0
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things that people found out that maybe, you know, modifies the importance here of perfect pitch is that several famous musicians who were very successful did not have it.
0
SPEAKER_01
So it s not like you can t be a very famous musician without having it.
0
SPEAKER_01
But more recent research has really looked at it.
0
SPEAKER_01
and tried to understand now, at what age does this develop?
0
SPEAKER_01
And what they found was that, in fact, when you re young, between three and five, this is now something that s quite easy to develop.
0
SPEAKER_01
In fact, there s a recent study by a Japanese researcher who took average kids and basically gave them training, these young kids, and were able to all give them basically the performance of perfect pitch.
0
SPEAKER_01
So now I guess, and this is consistent with some ideas that we proposed a long time ago, namely that maybe it s the early training in music that actually provides this kind of training that allows children to acquire this ability.
0
SPEAKER_01
And what s intriguing is as the brain grows when you re five or six,
0
SPEAKER_01
It seems that now it s developing in a different path if you haven t already acquired this ability.
0
SPEAKER_01
So basically it s going to now be impossible for you to acquire it in the same way and very difficult to acquire it using other different methods.
0
SPEAKER_00
The researchers ended up being able to teach people perfect pitch, which is something that heretofore was considered something that you had to be born with.
0
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
0
SPEAKER_01
And these kids were now between three and five, which is a very young age to teach kids just about anything.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it s also related to the fact that some languages like Mandarin are tonal languages.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, don t I know it.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
And in those languages, you really do have to be able to make that kind of pitch distinction in order to be able to understand the words.
0
SPEAKER_01
And in those cultures, individuals who start training music early on almost always have perfect pitch.
0
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
0
SPEAKER_01
it seems that the brain is actually susceptible to certain kinds of encodings.
0
SPEAKER_01
And if you get the training, now you will actually put the brain on a different path.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it turns out that you can actually see brain differences in those people who have perfect pitch from those who have not.
0
SPEAKER_01
That ability influences now the development of the brain.
0
SPEAKER_00
So tell me this, I don t know if this makes any sense with your research, but when I was a kid, I decided to learn to play the flute, which was like a terrible decision socially, because a boy who plays the flute, I didn t see this coming, which shows you where I was in my social development as a kid.
0
SPEAKER_00
I just thought, hey, it s really light and I don t have to carry it around.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was the only guy who did it.
0
SPEAKER_00
we got a chance to perform our own music, whatever we wanted to perform on Fridays.
0
SPEAKER_00
And most people would go to the music store and buy some sort of like TV themes book or whatever, but they were all songs for girls, especially with the flute, because they assumed that s who was playing it.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I had to write my own, because I wanted to play the A team.
0
SPEAKER_00
not the theme song from Hello Kitty or whatever it was.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I would sit there and watch things like Cheers and A-Team, and I would memorize the song in my head, which was something that easily gets stuck in your head, and I would simply write down the notes, and then I would go in and play it, and I didn t need to necessarily read the notes.
0
SPEAKER_00
I would just play the instrument from memory.
0
SPEAKER_00
And now I can speak Chinese, by the way.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m learning it, and I have no problem with the tones whatsoever.
0
SPEAKER_00
Is there a linkage there?
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s quite possible here that because I know that some people really do have difficulty with Chinese with respect to that, learning the difference of the tones.
0
SPEAKER_01
And in a sense here, I guess perfect pitch, when you can actually distinguish, you know, almost like 100 tones, that is obviously a slightly different skill than being able to recognize different tones within sort of a more normal range.
0
SPEAKER_01
And people have told me here that there are certain kinds of things.
0
SPEAKER_01
So when you recognize, it used to be that car horns were actually in a particular tone.
0
SPEAKER_01
And people would say that you kind of hear that this was a car horn, which implies here that they were able to make some kind of distinction here about the tone level.
0
SPEAKER_01
So there may be a much more range of ability.
0
SPEAKER_01
when it comes to making those distinctions than where perfect pitch is not an extreme case here of somebody who can distinguish close to a hundred different tones, whereas other activities maybe require discriminating, you know, four or five.
0
SPEAKER_00
Okay, this makes sense.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was just curious.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to say like, oh, I m a musical prodigy.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m definitely far from anything like that, and I certainly can t speak Chinese fluently and flawlessly, but I can certainly hear the difference between the tones, and I just thought maybe those things were linked when I was reading the book.
0
SPEAKER_00
So essentially, by teaching perfect
1
SPEAKER_00
researches have shown that extraordinary skills are learnable and teachable, not just something you re born with.
1
SPEAKER_00
By the way, the book is called Peak, for those of you who missed the title the first time.
1
SPEAKER_00
You also mentioned later on that savants and people who are quote unquote prodigies,
1
SPEAKER_00
show no difference in their ability to learn things just in the amount of practice.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we can touch on the practice concept later on, but I can just hear people saying, but what about prodigies, what about savants, people who are autistic but can play the piano perfectly after hearing a song one time.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re saying that there s not necessarily anything genetic going on there or anything innate going on there, it s something else and it just happens to be a matter of obsessive practice?
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think the key idea here is when we ve looked at these exceptional performances, and especially when they are done here by young kids, you know, most people would say, wow, they must have been born with it.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you actually try to describe
1
SPEAKER_01
the detail environment of many of these individuals, you find that they engaged in a lot of sort of guided practice where an adult was actually helping them develop these skills, especially when it comes to music performance.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re simply arguing here that if you look at the amount and the quality of the training that preceded their ability to perform, we don t see any evidence here that basically there s something innate or special about these individuals.
1
SPEAKER_01
And one example, coming back now to Mozart, you know, he was able to perform at a very young age.
1
SPEAKER_01
What most people don t recognize is that Mozart s father
1
SPEAKER_01
was actually a pioneer when it came to training children and thinking up ways in which you could actually design training activities for children so they would be able to master a musical instrument at a very young age.
1
SPEAKER_01
And there is a
1
SPEAKER_01
development in that most people have heard about with the Suzuki method for playing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the Suzuki method is basically based on the assumption here that, you know, every child learns to speak the language.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if you look at the kind of activities that the child engages in in order to learn how to speak, you know, the native language, you can apply the same methods for them to learn how to sing and how to play an instrument.
1
SPEAKER_01
When you look at individuals now that have been trained with the Suzuki method and compare them with what Mozart was able to do at young ages, you find that so-called average children actually were able to acquire the same level of ability of playing instruments if they actually had this early training.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is super interesting because basically we re saying not only is innate talent not necessarily real, but people used to think no amount of practice would help if you didn t have the right genes, and now we re saying, look, you ve got the right genes because you have genes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just to be really careful here as a scientist, what I would say is, reviewing all the evidence, I have found no evidence that you have to be born with certain genes to be able to achieve these performances.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, I can t prove that that s the case and that future science won t basically uncover something.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if you accept now one thing, which is height and body size, we know that height and body size is not something that you can train.
1
SPEAKER_01
When it comes to virtually everything else, there is known training methods by which you can actually improve these abilities.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that then raises the question here, is there enough flexibility and plasticity and normal people that
1
SPEAKER_01
with training they would be able to reach these high levels of performance.
1
SPEAKER_01
And again, here we have to sometimes assume that some changes can only happen when you re actually training, when you re in development.
1
SPEAKER_01
So for example, ballet dancers can turn out their feet more than normal people.
1
SPEAKER_01
That seems to be something that you have to actually acquire through training between nine and 11.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because as you get older, the bones calcify, so then the joints are going to be fixed.
1
SPEAKER_01
You can t actually then change that.
1
SPEAKER_01
But when you re young, you know, then the bones are not fixed.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then actually through training, you can actually make adjustments in the joints that will actually then, you know, make a big difference when you re an adult.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this makes sense.
1
SPEAKER_00
So what elements of talent then are genetic?
1
SPEAKER_00
Things like joints and maybe neuroplasticity?
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s all we ve seen so far?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, to be honest here, I think when it comes to, you know, the height, which is sort of useful in basketball and other sports, you know, to be tall, turns out that the reverse is true for artistic gymnastics, where being short is really a major advantage in order to be competitive in gymnastics.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, I think when it comes to facial features, you re not really doing anything to modify your face here.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m kind of excluding plastic surgery.
1
SPEAKER_01
But basically, you know, normally, nobody is really trying to change their facial structure.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if we re looking at muscles in your arms and legs, everyone knows that
1
SPEAKER_01
Training can actually dramatically modify the size and the strength and all sorts of characteristics of the muscles.
1
SPEAKER_01
And our point is that that s true for so many aspects of your body.
1
SPEAKER_01
And one example that I think is interesting is if you donate one of your kidneys to somebody who desperately needs a kidney,
1
SPEAKER_01
What s interesting is that the body within the next three weeks after you ve donated that kidney, the remaining kidney will actually grow about 70% in size to kind of absorb, you know, basically the demand here for activities of the kidneys.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the body is incredibly modifiable in a way that if we understand how we can actually design training that will sort of stimulate the body in certain directions, we can get amazing changes even in sort of the biology and physiology of the body.
1
SPEAKER_00
The science in the book is exciting, especially because it seems like anybody can do this.
1
SPEAKER_00
It suggests that we have far more power than we ever really realized to take control of our own lives and our performance.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the old view was that everybody s born with a certain potential for math and music and sports, or even business.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the new view seems to be that the brain is adaptable, the body and brain are adaptable, to the point that
1
SPEAKER_00
we now see that there is no such thing as a predefined potential or ability.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this is a game changer because learning now becomes a way of creating abilities rather than bringing people to the point where they meet some sort of innate potential.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right, and I guess one of the key ideas that I always have told my students about is that many of them go around looking for their innate talent and gifts.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s almost, you know, you go sniff around here to kind of find what you really were innately predestined to succeed at.
1
SPEAKER_01
And our view is you re actually creating your own abilities.
1
SPEAKER_01
So by actually making an early decision here about something that you want to create, you re going to actually be on the path here of developing something.
1
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, you can always change to something else if that looks more attractive or some opportunity arises.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the idea that you actively have to create yourself is something that I think is a really key new idea that will make a big difference to people.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, the reason I picked up the book was because I saw that it was about the right sort of practice, deliberate practice.
1
SPEAKER_00
The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leading to improvement.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not natural talent and not certain types of just keep doing it and it ll work.
1
SPEAKER_00
You mention in the book that human potential, or maybe potential s not the right word given what we just discussed, but in the last hundred years or so, human achievement, things that people can do individually in sports or whatever, seems to have increased dramatically in pretty much every field.
1
SPEAKER_00
To what do you attribute that change?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, we kind of argue that if you try not to find the type of practice activities that s really effective, and the best way I guess to do that is to find a teacher who would be able to actually guide you to assess where you re at,
1
SPEAKER_01
In a sense, you re building something like a house.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, you re going to do better here if you get the foundation right, because if you mess up here in the beginning, you re going to acquire all sorts of habits that later on will actually make it more difficult for you to continue.
1
SPEAKER_01
These historical changes, we find, are closely related now to insights about effective practice.
1
SPEAKER_01
For example, I guess, when it comes to long-distance running, the speed by which you can run long distances fast, people realize, could actually be improved
2
SPEAKER_00
here by interval training.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, interval training, you re actually pushing the limits for maybe 100 yards, and then you basically are exhausted, so now you walk a little bit, and then you push yourself for another 100 yards.
2
SPEAKER_00
That kind of training will actually stimulate now the physiological structure, so you will be able to have more capillaries that will give your muscles blood,
2
SPEAKER_00
And it will even change the diameter of our arteries and change the structure of the heart to maximize your ability to actually pump blood so the muscles can now actually perform at a more effective and enduring level.
2
SPEAKER_02
All right, when we get back, I wanna hear about applying the principles of deliberate practice and how to design practice methods in any area.
2
SPEAKER_02
In other words, why should the teaching techniques used to turn aspiring musicians into concert pianists have anything to do with becoming a prima ballerina or a chess grandmaster?
2
SPEAKER_02
This is The Art of Charm.
2
SPEAKER_01
Over the last 17 years, we have launched our fair share of online courses, coaching programs, and finding the right platform has always been a challenge.
2
SPEAKER_03
They say if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.
2
SPEAKER_03
But if you re an entrepreneur, you know the hard work that comes with it.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s why you need Kajabi.
2
SPEAKER_03
Kajabi makes it easy to run your entire online business from one platform so you can focus on what you love.
2
SPEAKER_03
Creating.
2
SPEAKER_01
Kajabi is the ultimate all-in-one platform that helps creators and entrepreneurs build successful online businesses by unlocking predictable recurring revenue.
2
SPEAKER_03
No matter your niche, Kajabi makes it easy to turn your skills, passions, and experiences into enriching online courses, exclusive membership sites, subscription podcasts, thriving communities, personalized coaching, and more.
2
SPEAKER_01
The best part?
2
SPEAKER_01
Kajabi doesn t cut into your revenue because everything is owned and controlled by you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So keep 100% of what you earn.
2
SPEAKER_03
And with Kajabi, you also get robust analytics, easy payment options, email marketing tools, and customizable website templates, all built in.
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t even need a huge audience to make sustainable income.
2
SPEAKER_01
There are thousands of creators on Kajabi making six and seven figures with less than 50,000 followers.
2
SPEAKER_03
Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to kajabi.com slash charm.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s K-A-J-A-B-I dot com slash charm.
2
SPEAKER_01
Go to Kajabi.com slash charm and join the creators and entrepreneurs who have made over seven billion dollars.
2
SPEAKER_03
Hey Art of Charm listeners, I m excited to share a new podcast I ve been absolutely binging.
2
SPEAKER_03
Winning is an everyday mindset and Craig Robinson and John Calipari are here to help.
2
SPEAKER_03
On Ways to Win podcast, Craig and Coach Cal use their on-court wisdom to solve your off-court problems.
2
SPEAKER_03
Whether it s trouble at home or a workplace dilemma, the coaches will help you find a winning formula for success.
2
SPEAKER_03
You ll hear from prominent athletes, business leaders, and celebrities who reveal insights that made them into the leaders they are today.
2
SPEAKER_03
And don t miss President Obama sharing how he deals with pressure by projecting confidence, believing in your team, and taking criticism.
2
SPEAKER_03
Listen to Ways to Win wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_02
All right, we re back with Dr. Anders Erikson.
2
SPEAKER_02
I d love to hear more about deliberate practice.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, human potential, or at least human achievement, has increased so much over the past century, in part or in large part, to what we consider deliberate practice or different training methods.
2
SPEAKER_02
What do these training methods have in common, and how can we start to harness these for ourselves?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because I think everybody listening is thinking, all right, I m writing down deliberate practice because I want to be better at anything from writing to running.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we kind of make distinctions between different kinds of practice.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think what a lot of people, professionals in particular, you know, argue is practice.
2
SPEAKER_00
A doctor sees patients, tries to diagnose them and recommend treatment.
2
SPEAKER_00
Somebody else is doing their job and they re just doing essentially more of the same
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, they may encounter different patients or different projects, but they basically are not asking the question here, you know, how could I basically do this better?
2
SPEAKER_00
And I guess that is kind of the starting point for what we call purposeful practice.
2
SPEAKER_00
So once you identify something that you want to improve, now you can actually come up with training activities, which would allow you now to repeatedly try to refine
2
SPEAKER_00
one aspect of what you re doing and then eventually you would now bring that back into your regular training and maybe sort of my favorite example is when you play doubles tennis and then you say you miss a backhand volley
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, the game, if you re just playing with friends, is just going to continue.
2
SPEAKER_00
So maybe an hour later, you get into the same situation, you re not going to be able to do any better at that time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Contrast that now with basically finding a tennis coach.
2
SPEAKER_00
who will basically allow you to kind of be ready for the backhand volley and start out with simple ones and then basically give you harder ones and then you have to run up to the net and increase the difficulty once you have acquired the basic skills to do the task.
2
SPEAKER_00
And our claim is that within one hour or two hours working with a tennis coach, you will have improved your backhand volley performance by much more than you probably would in years of just playing recreational tennis.
2
SPEAKER_02
Sure, I mean, the best way to get past any barrier is to come at things from different directions and having teachers and coaches, someone who is already familiar with the sorts of obstacles that you re likely to encounter, can always suggest and drill ways to overcome them.
2
SPEAKER_02
And this is what we do at the Art of Charm, essentially.
2
SPEAKER_02
A lot of people think, oh, I can learn the skills of persuasion and
2
SPEAKER_02
influence and charisma on my own, and the answer is sure, you totally can.
2
SPEAKER_02
It might take you 15 years, but you can definitely do it.
2
SPEAKER_02
People come to us or to any coach because they want to learn things quickly and efficiently.
2
SPEAKER_02
One thing I thought was super interesting, speaking of coaching or lack of coaching, is that a lot of people
2
SPEAKER_02
find that they get to a certain level of performance where things become automated, and they hit this weird plateau.
2
SPEAKER_02
Even doctors, unfortunately, like driving s the example you gave, but doctors and pie baking, you stop improving.
2
SPEAKER_02
You just go, eh, I can do this good enough, and your brain doesn t challenge itself anymore.
2
SPEAKER_02
You don t challenge yourself.
2
SPEAKER_02
you re just kind of existing in this weird field of performance where some days are better than others, but you re not really growing, yet as people, as performers or experts in any field, we kind of delude ourselves into thinking, well, I m practicing, so I should technically be getting better, and this just isn t the case.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, and I think that you re describing what, you know, a lot of people go through is it just gets easier to do what they used to be able to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what the key is to purposeful practice is essentially identifying now things that you could do better.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one way to do it, you know, like in sports would be to videotape yourself and basically take a very close
2
SPEAKER_00
look at the products that you re doing and comparing them now with people that are kind of at the top of their field and you can now start seeing things that are actually not as good with your product and that will actually now be a stimulus for you to do better.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think medicine is a great example because we re all probably patients at some point in time
2
SPEAKER_00
And we would like to have a doctor that basically will diagnose us correctly so we will be able to get the best treatment immediately.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now we know that doctors and some doctors are better than others, but essentially there is going to be mistakes.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the problem is that a doctor, when they re doing their best to diagnose somebody to give them treatment, and they make a mistake, they won t get feedback on that.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s very hard for them to actually improve.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what we ve suggested here that if you have videotapes of patients, and then you wait until they actually get their final diagnosis,
2
SPEAKER_00
You can now give that sort of interview tape to a lot of doctors who will then make their diagnosis.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then once they ve committed to a diagnosis, you can give them immediately the feedback about which one is correct.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we argue that that type of libraries of experiences where you can get that immediate feedback, learning laboratories that would allow people to develop if they were motivated.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is excellent.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s funny you should mention videotaping as well, because at AOC Bootcamp, the live training that we run here in L.A., we do a lot of videotaping of people in social interactions, which is one area where you will literally never see yourself
2
SPEAKER_02
from any sort of removed stance because nobody films themselves interacting socially and acts naturally.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s almost impossible.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so breaking this down, we can do a lot of purposeful or deliberate practice.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s focused, it has well-defined goals, it involves feedback, and of course, being on camera and being in social situations where we throw you into requires getting out of your comfort zone.
2
SPEAKER_02
And these are some of the factors that you ve mentioned in the book, that purposeful practice has well-defined goals, is focused, involves
3
SPEAKER_00
feedback and requires being outside of your comfort zone in order to best practice and learn.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, so the idea is that if you re going to improve, you need to find something that you can t do.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if you just keep doing what you already know how to do, then it s unclear how you can improve.
3
SPEAKER_01
By setting a goal that is reachable from your current level of performance, so you can now refine and actually by repetition now find ways to approach this task differently so you can reach that higher level.
3
SPEAKER_01
That is kind of the key here to improvement.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think you could find anybody doing almost anything that, especially if you have a teacher looking at that individual, they would be able to help, you know, what it is that they should be paying attention to, that they may not.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we also try to emphasize
3
SPEAKER_01
this idea of the mental representation, what is actually going on in the head of the person performing?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because that is kind of a key.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the more that you re aware of what you re doing, if you now make a mistake, you re going to be in a much better position here to make adjustments and corrections than if you re just relying on your intuition.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because if you just did something and it turns out to be incorrect, what is it that you should be doing differently if you encounter a similar situation in the future?
3
SPEAKER_00
So purposeful practice in a nutshell, it sounds like get outside your comfort zone, do it in a focused way, have clear goals and a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to essentially monitor your progress.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then of course, last but not least, stay motivated.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I would love to talk a little bit about motivation because I feel like that s something we hear about a lot from people who are high performers and low performers.
3
SPEAKER_00
Lazy people or people who seem to be lazy lack motivation.
3
SPEAKER_00
But even high performers, entrepreneurs and things like that,
3
SPEAKER_00
often can lack motivation, at least in the beginning, because things are tough.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s linked up here with this idea here that if you really experience every situation as a new situation with new potential challenges, then I think you will enjoy that a whole lot more, and would also sensitize you to things that you need to be kind of paying attention to,
3
SPEAKER_01
And if the outcome is not the one that you wanted, it will now provide you with sort of an idea here about something that you may be able to work out, not by interacting with new and other customers, but basically by finding a training environment that allows you now to kind of repeat and refine what you re doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now we know about concepts such as neuroplasticity with London cabbies and your study with them with the parts that required a lot of memorization, things like that were actually growing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we also know through MRI with blind people that they use the visual parts of their cortex to adapt to disability.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is it possible then to shape the brain, my brain, your brain, whatever, in ways that we want to through the training?
3
SPEAKER_00
Can we actually modify the structure of our brain?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think that all the research that I ve seen with experts seems to suggest here that the training that you engage in will actually reshape the structure and the myelinization of the brain to actually allow you now to develop the control that I think is a key to expert performance.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not the automaticity, but it s really the ability here to control your performance that I associate with a high level of performance.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is it safe to say that we can rewire our brains to become more talented according to kind of our nontraditional definition?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, talent often describes very generalizable abilities.
3
SPEAKER_01
What we find here when we analyze high level performers is that they ve developed very specialized abilities that are adapted now to the particular kind of demands and constraints of the tasks that they re involved in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s actually one of the reasons why we would argue that the idea here that innate talent really plays a role when you re really skilled is really not well supported because we do find that when you start out with a domain like music or chess or something like that, then your performance and IQ test is actually correlated with how well you do in the beginning.
3
SPEAKER_01
as we re now looking at people who train and acquire now these tailor-made mechanisms for dealing with a task that they re trying to improve, then the correlations with these general ability disappears.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think basically the idea of talent, it s almost like you have to assume that it s something general,
3
SPEAKER_01
Because how likely is it that being a violinist would be something that you re innately programmed for during the hundred thousands of years that humans were engaged in hunter gathering activities?
3
SPEAKER_00
Of course, people didn t necessarily evolve to play the guitar really well, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t make sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s very hard to believe.
3
SPEAKER_01
And combined with this fact that when you look at people as they get better and better pianists or playing any other instrument, it seems that now the general abilities are no longer related to the individual differences in their ability to perform.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it makes more sense to assume now that any individual differences in the performance among experts
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not reflecting the structure of the skill that they acquired rather than anything that they actually started out with.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do we have to maintain the brain gains that we get from training and practice?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do we have to do something special in order to keep them there?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or are we then able to get to a certain high level and then go back into autopilot mode?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think, unfortunately, there are experts who seem to have reached a high level and then go off on automatic pilot mode.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what we see is that those individuals
3
SPEAKER_01
especially if they don t practice, they will actually get worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I guess in the book we talk a little bit about examples from medicine.
3
SPEAKER_01
So when it comes to diagnosing heart sounds, you know, that there s something wrong with the heart when you listen to it, we find actually that the performance of general practitioners
3
SPEAKER_01
gets worse with the number of years since they graduated.
3
SPEAKER_01
The positive here is that a weekend of actually being trained now so you listen to heart sounds and get immediate feedback, you can actually get back to the level that you had when you ended your medical training.
3
SPEAKER_01
A lot of these activities
3
SPEAKER_01
require sustained training and activation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And just listening to patients that you basically diagnose without now knowing if you actually are accurate in your assessment of the heart sounds, you know, it s basically not any activity here that allows you to maintain your skills.
3
SPEAKER_01
doing this activity.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s true.
3
SPEAKER_01
Everyone probably knows here that if you haven t done something for a long time, your ability to do it decreases, whether it s speaking a foreign language or playing some kind of sport.
3
SPEAKER_01
So what we find here is with professionals, those professionals who are able to sustain their high level of performance in their 60s,
3
SPEAKER_01
Those are the ones who actually set aside 10, 15 hours a week where they re doing nothing but practicing and trying to refine, or maybe in some cases, still improving their ability when it comes to music performance.
3
SPEAKER_00
When we get back, I want to talk about mental representations.
3
SPEAKER_00
In other words, the almost different brain language that super high performers use to become and maintain themselves as high performers.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is the Art of Charm.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re back with Dr. Anders Ericsson.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m very interested in, of course, brain training and high performance.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, heck, that s basically what the entire show is about every single time we do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d love to hear more about mental representations.
3
SPEAKER_00
This was something that was very new to me, and I m trying to think of what mine are.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just think this concept, it s almost like a different language that you speak inside your own brain when you re really, really good at something.
3
SPEAKER_01
What is fascinating when you talk to experts who are really high performers, they actually have a very good memory of what has happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
And some of the early work that established this, you know, basically showed chess positions to people differing in chess skill.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they found that the world-class chess players, after just seeing a position for five seconds, they were able to reproduce the entire position.
3
SPEAKER_01
So somehow, when they saw something, they were able to kind of see the relationship between all the pieces, such that they would be able to kind of image that in their mind.
3
SPEAKER_01
That kind of general finding we find with soccer players and basketball players and other competitive athletes, that if you were to kind of eliminate any visual input, they would actually know where various
3
SPEAKER_01
people were on the court.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if they were to get the ball at one point, they would actually have a good idea about
4
SPEAKER_01
what they should be doing with that ball, because knowing where their own teammates are and defenders, and especially being able to extract maybe a second in the future of what they were gonna be doing, you will actually be able to make a really great decisions here about what to do.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that ability of actually having a mental image in your head, that allows you now to sort of think about the current situation
4
SPEAKER_01
And often when it comes to ball sports, you know, you don t have eyes in your back.
4
SPEAKER_01
So by actually monitoring, moving your head around, you can actually now form kind of a complete picture of what everyone is doing around you, even if you can t see them at the time when you have to make a decision.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think this is important.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wanna sort of define this a little bit more clearly for people like me who might not be able to follow some of the complexity.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s talk about chess, for example, something I know nothing about.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can look at a chessboard and you can memorize where all of the pieces are, but if you re really, really damn good at chess,
4
SPEAKER_00
you don t just memorize where the pieces are.
4
SPEAKER_00
You look at things that you term in the book lines of force, power, and things like that where you know, okay, this is the way that these pieces can work on this side of the board, and given where the pieces that you have are and where mine are, I ve got these different options.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not just memorizing where the pieces are and where they can move.
4
SPEAKER_00
You ve got different mental representations
4
SPEAKER_00
of what can be done, what s possible, what s impossible, what s on the table, and what s not for winning the game or proceeding in the game.
4
SPEAKER_00
This, in turn, illustrates a really crucial fact about expert performance in general, which is, according to your work, there s no such thing as developing a general skill.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t train memory, you don t train sports.
4
SPEAKER_00
You train your memory for strings of digits that are really long, or for collections of words, or for people s faces, or whatever it is that you re memorizing, not just memory in general, which might explain why people who are really good at remembering really complex things forget their keys all the time, or forget people s names.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, and I think pointing out here that it s not like they have a photographic memory where basically they can just reproduce the details.
4
SPEAKER_01
In fact, you can actually disprove that it has anything to do with photographic memory, because if you just rearrange the locations of the pieces so they re now randomly distributed on the board,
4
SPEAKER_01
now there s hardly a benefit of being a chess master.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they re really kind of seeing the meaningful relationships between the pieces.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I often point to when you re reading a sentence, most people are able not to reproduce that sentence word by word.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you scramble the words, so there s now a random order of the same words, then people can only reproduce maybe four or five of the words.
4
SPEAKER_01
So being able now to kind of understand the sentence gives you sort of a mental representation.
4
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes you hear people even have an image of what the sentence describes that somehow captures the meaning that then allows you to actually reproduce the words.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s not, you know, that kind of photographic reproduction that has
4
SPEAKER_01
is really very local, it s this higher level understanding that somehow allows you to reproduce the details.
4
SPEAKER_01
What we find is that that is sort of something that develops along with the performance.
4
SPEAKER_01
So as you get better, you can kind of see a little bit sort of the consequences.
4
SPEAKER_01
Say if you re playing tennis, you can actually sort of perceive what s going to happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
in the very near future, or if you re in basketball, the idea here is that you get more skilled, you re actually able to represent now more things and being able to represent what is actually about to happen as opposed to what you can actually see at the moment when you re looking at it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And in chess,
4
SPEAKER_01
There s some really good evidence, and this is really where I kind of started.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was interested in studying people s thinking.
4
SPEAKER_01
So one way you can actually get at what s going on in the head of a chess player is just to ask them to think.
4
SPEAKER_01
You give them a chess position and ask them to pick the best move.
4
SPEAKER_01
and then you can actually hear the thoughts that they generate en route of actually picking the best move.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what you find is that the better chess players, they re actually able to kind of explore it deeper, and they re also more able, because of their meaningful analysis, to pick the kind of more promising directions where they should focus their analysis.
4
SPEAKER_01
A beginning chess player, maybe they re looking for ways to mate your opponent,
4
SPEAKER_01
But basically, as you get more skilled, you know, acquire this ability to maybe think a couple of moves ahead.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then with even more skill, you can now basically think maybe 15, 20 moves ahead.
4
SPEAKER_00
So basically, it seems like a hallmark of expert performance is maybe the ability to see patterns or
4
SPEAKER_00
things that would be random or confusing or all over the place to somebody who s not an expert, you can see them in these mental representations.
4
SPEAKER_00
They kind of bring order to chaos, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
As you say in the book, in other words, experts see the forest when everyone else only sees trees.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you actually have that overview.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think we believe that those representations are really critical to be able to perform at a high level, but they re also equally important when it comes to you trying to keep improving.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because if you re going to improve something, you actually have to have something that you can change.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the more refined your representations are about how you actually ended up deciding what you ended up doing,
4
SPEAKER_01
you will now be able to review that and see how you need to change that in order to be avoiding making a mistake that you ended up doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
One thing I thought was great news in the book is that in every area, not just in music, but the relationship between skill
4
SPEAKER_00
and mental representations is a virtuous cycle.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the more skilled you become, the better those mental representations are.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, of course, the better the mental representations are, the more effectively you can practice and get better at that skill.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s great news, but the problem is, it becomes kind of a chicken and egg thing, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Do we develop the mental representations first, or do we develop the skill first, and then the representations come after that?
4
SPEAKER_00
et cetera, et cetera, I mean, where do we begin?
4
SPEAKER_00
Can we begin to consciously create mental representations that help us become more effective?
4
SPEAKER_01
That s where either the teacher comes in, or if you basically engage now in some training activities that we find to be very closely related here to your improvement.
4
SPEAKER_01
So for example, you could actually test your ability playing against world-class chess players by buying books, which documents each of the moves that they made in various games against other world-class players.
4
SPEAKER_01
And instead of just reading to see what they did, you can actually look at that position and ask yourself, if I was playing against this world-class player, what would I do?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you come up with a move, and then you can actually look up what basically that player did.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if that player did something quite different from what you intended, that sort of implies that your representations need to be altered and improved.
4
SPEAKER_01
So now you can actually start analyzing and try to understand here why the player did this, whereas you didn t consider that move possibility.
4
SPEAKER_01
And similarly, you know, a teacher would be able to tell you and give you feedback that if you had done this move, that would have been much better.
4
SPEAKER_01
And here s why.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the question is, why did you not basically think about that when you were generating this move?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that way of seeking out ways to test yourself
4
SPEAKER_01
And one of the nice things is that if you actually fail, that s an opportunity to improve.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if you re looking now for a way to improve your representations, any time when you actually make a mistake is typically a case here where you can actually do some refinement that will actually allow you to do better in the future.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would love to talk and wrap with how to set up a regimen of deliberate practice.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know there s a lot of things that go into this, and I would love to just sort of gloss over these.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know if people want more, they can definitely find more on the website and in the book Peak, but deliberate practice is characterized by a set of traits.
4
SPEAKER_00
Would you discuss those with us?
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
We argue that the key here is the kinds of aspects that are true for purposeful practice, where you actually have a goal with your practice, you can get immediate feedback, and you can kind of repeat doing whatever the training activity will actually help you raise your performance.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what we find is that the kind of focus that you need is really critical.
4
SPEAKER_01
People who are really, you know, motivated to improve their performance tend to do
4
SPEAKER_01
is that they pick out the best time of day for engaging in these training activities.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you re working maybe an hour or two before you go to work, or if you re self-employed, maybe in the morning when you wake up,
5
SPEAKER_00
That seems to be the best time.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you re really going to try to go beyond what you actually are able to do, so you re actually raising your performance, you need to have all the attention and the resources that you can actually contribute.
5
SPEAKER_00
And only then will you now be able to improve.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I would argue that one of the key things that I find with people who are not successful is that they are almost often too impatient.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you re actually starting with a training program, the worst thing you can do is to try to get in four or five hours and really have this rapid improvement.
5
SPEAKER_00
What you should be doing is maybe set aside 15, 20 minutes each day to do something that is focused to improve you.
5
SPEAKER_00
And as you are building up now more habits and routine, you know, then you can kind of increase it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s when you get the more effective results.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think working with a teacher, you will actually get that help of pacing yourself so you re not actually going out there and pushing yourself to the limit.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I ve heard of people who want to go run a marathon and then they go out and run for three or four hours.
5
SPEAKER_00
and then they re so sore that they can t train for next three, four weeks.
5
SPEAKER_00
And basically, obviously, that s so incredibly counterproductive beyond the fact that you probably now destroyed whatever motivation you had for participating in the marathon.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is there anything that I haven t asked you that you want to make sure you deliver to the AOC audience?
5
SPEAKER_00
One good heuristic is to find somebody who s able to perform at a level that you eventually would want to reach.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you can actually find a way here of contacting that person and actually now share some information about how this person was able to do it would be one way.
5
SPEAKER_00
Obviously, if there is an available teacher or some kind of mentor in the organization,
5
SPEAKER_00
that would also be sort of a great way of now initiating.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think thinking about this is in the long term and actually making sort of slow and gradual progress is key.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that also, I think, really is very related now to people who are ultimately very successful, because I think most of the time people burn out even before they are able to get to the point where you really get the self
5
SPEAKER_00
enjoyment here of really feeling like you re actually able to do something that you re really proud of.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in the long run, it s the ones who practice more who end up prevailing and not the ones who had some sort of innate intelligence or other talents.
5
SPEAKER_01
One last question though, what about people who have a higher IQ or what about people that just have the ability to focus better?
5
SPEAKER_01
Does it become kind of tortoise in the hair where
5
SPEAKER_01
You said that person might start off, the first year they re really killing it, you seem far behind, but then three to five years later, you ve left them in the dust because of your practice regimen and mental representations?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think that s a really interesting question, and I mention here that as far as we can tell here from research on scientists,
5
SPEAKER_00
that their IQ is not correlated now with their ability to publish journal articles and other things that are valued in the research community.
5
SPEAKER_00
One thing that I ve found is, and I guess I don t really think that IQ tests measure what everyone thinks is intelligence, but more that it sort of represents some abilities that are highly related to your ability to read and understand instructions and being able to kind of start out
5
SPEAKER_00
in a domain well.
5
SPEAKER_00
And what I found is that people who perform well on IQ tests, they re great when they start out with various activities.
5
SPEAKER_00
When they get to this point where we actually argue that you need to develop new mechanisms to keep improving,
5
SPEAKER_00
That s when they kind of get bored and they don t really see here, you know, how they can keep excelling.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s now very tempting for them to actually pick up some other kind of activity where they can make the same rapid improvement that they did in other domains.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, this is unfortunately a lot of speculation, but at least it s consistent with the evidence that we have.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s really helpful when I talk to people who have been very successful in school.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when they realize what it seems to take for everyone to be successful in a domain, I think that s really helpful for them and also makes them perhaps be motivated now to put in what seems to be necessary for anybody to reach a high level.
5
SPEAKER_00
being able to master domain so you can actually improvise and think about it independently.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because in the beginning, you re really dependent on a teacher who is actually guiding you because you really don t have the representations.
5
SPEAKER_00
But a good teacher will actually help you build up these representations.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that
5
SPEAKER_00
is what ultimately will be the key for you to actually, once you ve learned now what the teacher can teach you, you can now be on your own because you ve internalized all the representations and the types of comments that your teachers have been able to give you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Being at that point, I think is something that is really exhilarating because it s almost like you re now exploring new territory.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like discovering a new world.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not geographically, but inside your own mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that excitement here of actually being, developing, and really seeing how you re going beyond and maybe discovering things that other people have never seen.
5
SPEAKER_00
That kind of excitement is something that I think is really a motor
5
SPEAKER_00
that is a positive way of pushing people to kind of go beyond what they currently can do.
5
SPEAKER_01
Excellent.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much, Dr. Erickson.
5
SPEAKER_01
Peak, Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by yourself, Dr. Anders Erickson and Robert Poole.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really complete book.
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of research in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Usually it s hard to read science, you know.
5
SPEAKER_01
It can get really tedious.
5
SPEAKER_01
You guys did a great job of making it not that.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I applaud you for that.
5
SPEAKER_01
The book, of course, will be linked in the AOC show notes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thanks again so much for your time and expertise.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I really enjoyed this.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much, both of you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Super interesting show.
5
SPEAKER_01
In the book Peak, he goes after flow and talks about the differences between flow and things like deliberate practice and where these all fit together.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love the idea that innate talent is not real or at least might not exist and certainly isn t what we think it is.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the concepts and ideas of deliberate practice make things a lot more exciting for those of us who thought
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I can probably just never do this because I wasn t born with X, Y, and Z genetics.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is exciting news for all of us who are high performers and would like to stay that way.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you enjoyed this one, don t forget to thank Dr. Anders Erikson on Twitter.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll have that linked in the show notes.
5
SPEAKER_01
as well as the other resources mentioned on the show, and of course the book, Peak, and you can tap our album art and most mobile podcast players to see the cheat sheet for this episode.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll link to the show notes right on your phone.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm.
5
SPEAKER_01
I engage there a lot.
5
SPEAKER_01
I post a lot of articles and insights and discussion, and you can find our sponsors as well at theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
5
SPEAKER_01
I also want to encourage you to join us in our social capital challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s all about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop personal and professional relationships with you.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
5
SPEAKER_01
and I m doing regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward every single week.
5
SPEAKER_01
This will make you a better connector, it will make you a better networker, and a better thinker.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge, or text charmed to 33444.
5
SPEAKER_01
This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
5
SPEAKER_01
Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
5
SPEAKER_01
Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
5
SPEAKER_01
Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else either in person or shared on the web.
5
SPEAKER_01
Now stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Coming up next on The Art of Charm, Sam Harris, author, neuroscientist, researcher, and ethicist, and his mother created Golden Girls, what could go wrong?
5
SPEAKER_01
He s a staunch critic of religion, an advocate of mindfulness without religion, and an all-around amazingly sharp and fascinating thinker, and very controversial.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s what s next on The Art of Charm.
5
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
5
SPEAKER_02
Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.