1
00:00:20,927 --> 00:00:23,665
I wanted to be extraordinary.

2
00:00:23,665 --> 00:00:28,571
If I could have chosen at 15 what to be extraordinary at,

3
00:00:28,571 --> 00:00:31,967
I probably would have picked science.

4
00:00:31,967 --> 00:00:38,384
I like science. I was pretty good at it too but not extraordinary.

5
00:00:38,384 --> 00:00:45,519
I come to believe that talent was some sort of genetic boolean.

6
00:00:45,519 --> 00:00:49,716
You either have it or you don't. You're born with it or you're not

7
00:00:49,716 --> 00:00:52,954
and I apparently was not.

8
00:00:52,954 --> 00:01:00,911
At 15, I had not shown a single glimmer of extraordinary talent in anything.

9
00:01:00,911 --> 00:01:09,407
and because scientist do their best work when they're young and I was already 15, I figured it was too late.

10
00:01:09,407 --> 00:01:12,263
so I pivoted it.

11
00:01:12,263 --> 00:01:17,978
For years, I tried to ferreted out my innate talent.

12
00:01:17,978 --> 00:01:24,788
I was going to be a potter. I was an apprentice potter for about a week.

13
00:01:24,788 --> 00:01:32,097
and then I was an apprentice artisan woodwork that was maybe for 6 months and I was like "screw this thing. I'm going to high high school

14
00:01:32,097 --> 00:01:36,165
of performing art".

15
00:01:36,165 --> 00:01:41,892
After 3 years on a tenor saxophone, it was obvious that I was not cut out to be a jazz musician.

16
00:01:41,892 --> 00:01:46,243
I was pretty good at composing things like baroque coral music.

17
00:01:46,243 --> 00:01:50,874
So I put together an application for a college of musical composition for film

18
00:01:50,874 --> 00:01:54,748
and before I even sent off the application, I tried out for a theater school.

19
00:01:54,748 --> 00:02:01,051
After a week of audition, I was inexplicably accepted as a student.

20
00:02:01,051 --> 00:02:07,252
After a year, I could tell you with certainty that theater was not my talent.

21
00:02:07,252 --> 00:02:09,475
neither was ballet

22
00:02:09,475 --> 00:02:11,564
or fencing

23
00:02:11,564 --> 00:02:15,436
or contemporary French circus.

24
00:02:15,436 --> 00:02:18,939
I tried a lot of things and not halfheartedly either.

25
00:02:18,939 --> 00:02:21,035
I worked really hard.

26
00:02:21,035 --> 00:02:24,377
But whenever there's something that's really 
difficult, there is this voice that reason.

27
00:02:24,377 --> 00:02:32,486
It must not be my talent because had it
been my gift, it would have come naturally.

28
00:02:32,486 --> 00:02:35,515
(inaudible)

29
00:02:35,515 --> 00:02:39,223
I believed in the genetic explanation of greatness.

30
00:02:39,223 --> 00:02:42,563
I thought you just have to stumble across that accidental match.

31
00:02:42,563 --> 00:02:46,759
To find the lock for which you are the key

32
00:02:46,759 --> 00:02:52,195
and inevitably by aiming in every possible direction at once, hoping to hit a target.

33
00:02:52,195 --> 00:03:01,591
I wander blindly into a low paying job where
the only requirement was that you can type 80 words per minute.

34
00:03:01,591 --> 00:03:07,032
I woke up on my 25th birthday thinking a quarter century?

35
00:03:07,032 --> 00:03:14,707
I'm a washed up evolutionary dead end in a back water dead end life.

36
00:03:14,707 --> 00:03:21,966
I performed a reality check and came to the 
conclusion that even if I couldn't be an extraordinary scientist,

37
00:03:21,966 --> 00:03:26,897
I can still probably become a top tier mediocre scientist.

38
00:03:26,897 --> 00:03:32,980
All I needed was a university degree in something scientific.

39
00:03:32,980 --> 00:03:37,731
Having majored in saxophone in high school, 
there were remedial credits involved.

40
00:03:37,731 --> 00:03:41,299
I began to teach myself math and physic and chemistry

41
00:03:41,299 --> 00:03:45,459
and because I knew I wasn't talented, I didn't expect it to be easy.

42
00:03:45,459 --> 00:03:48,508
I expected it to suck.

43
00:03:48,508 --> 00:03:56,330
I just started at the beginning. Did one thing at 
a time, by the book, until I learn it and then I moved on.

44
00:03:56,330 --> 00:04:01,207
Whenever I panicked,I remind myself that this
is not rocket science. This is basic math.

45
00:04:01,207 --> 00:04:05,079
If I don't understand it, I must have skipped a step

46
00:04:05,079 --> 00:04:11,525
and so I slowed down and do some research 
and sure enough, within hours or sometimes 
days I be right back on track.

47
00:04:11,525 --> 00:04:15,022
cheerfully slogging

48
00:04:15,022 --> 00:04:26,925
I found that I was balancing on a continuum 
and that there was a sweet spot and that
sweet spot has nothing to do with math or physics

49
00:04:27,010 --> 00:04:29,887
and it works like this:

50
00:04:29,889 --> 00:04:34,953
You're asked to perform a particular 
saxophone tune at 88 beats per minute.

51
00:04:34,953 --> 00:04:42,038
This fall squarely within your capability so you 
can perform this task effortlessly, confidently.

52
00:04:42,047 --> 00:04:51,859
While you're doing so, you can think about
other things. for example, how to adjust your 
(tac?) based on what the drummer is doing.

53
00:04:51,859 --> 00:04:59,757
You can react to something that happen in the 
audience without fumbling or losing your place.

54
00:04:59,757 --> 00:05:05,020
When you're asked to perform that same tune 
at 105 beats per minute,

55
00:05:05,020 --> 00:05:12,633
you can do this but it requires every bit of concentration that you can muster.

56
00:05:12,633 --> 00:05:17,558
Your skill level is perfectly balanced against the challenge.

57
00:05:17,558 --> 00:05:24,391
The difficulty of the exercise is barely met by your ability.

58
00:05:24,391 --> 00:05:28,743
You're being stretched and being stretched is painful.

59
00:05:28,743 --> 00:05:35,920
Remaining in that place, that painful place
that stretches you, requires a monumental effort.

60
00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:48,289
It's exhausting. It's hard. It's not fun. It's also 
satisfying. Empowering. Deeply rewarding.

61
00:05:48,289 --> 00:05:54,750
When you're asked to play that tune at 120 beats per minute, you panic. You simply can't do it.

62
00:05:54,750 --> 00:06:00,228
The challenge has no counterpart whatsoever in your skill.

63
00:06:00,228 --> 00:06:11,202
You flail. Your executive function shuts down.
Your output becomes erratic. It's terrifying.

64
00:06:11,202 --> 00:06:17,210
This continuum is a measure of effortlessly
you can perform a given task.

65
00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:23,916
At one end of the continuum, you have your comfort zone where you can perform effortlessly.

66
00:06:23,916 --> 00:06:30,287
You don't level up in your comfort zone 
because you're doing stuff you already know how to do.

67
00:06:30,287 --> 00:06:36,640
At the other end of the continuum, you have
your panic zone where you cone level up
because you're busy freaking out.

68
00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:43,268
Between the two, there's a space where your 
ability and the challenge barely overlap.

69
00:06:43,268 --> 00:06:50,815
And this is where you level up. I'm not saying
you should never be in your comfort zone or
your panic zone,

70
00:06:50,815 --> 00:06:57,848
not at all. Your comfort zone is where complex
skills become reflexive.

71
00:06:57,848 --> 00:07:06,939
You have access to higher level of thinking. 
You should absolutely spend time there, 
especially when you need to be productive.

72
00:07:06,939 --> 00:07:15,964
Your panic zone is an excellent place to
experiment. To play. To find your boundaries.

73
00:07:15,964 --> 00:07:24,235
Because as long as you don't need to be 
delivering values, your fear can be transform 
into thrill and discovery.

74
00:07:24,312 --> 00:07:32,848
you should absolutely spend time there, 
but not when people are paying you money.

75
00:07:35,188 --> 00:07:41,273
In other words, you should spend time in your
comfort zone and your panic zone.

76
00:07:41,273 --> 00:07:48,618
You just shouldn't try to learn stuff there.

77
00:07:48,618 --> 00:08:00,416
I spent months working through math and
physic problems and during that time, I 
learned as much about practice as I did about 
calculus and mechanic.

78
00:08:00,416 --> 00:08:07,450
Practice is a strange beast. It's not play.
It's not intended to be fun

79
00:08:07,450 --> 00:08:16,912
It's also not work. It's not intended to produce 
anything. Practice is thing entirely unto itself.

80
00:08:16,912 --> 00:08:26,883
What a lot of people commonly think as 
practice is futzing around, kinda doing stuff 
but seem relevant to what you think you might 
want to kind of get better at.

81
00:08:26,883 --> 00:08:36,540
This sometimes kinda works.For practice to 
be truly effective, it need to be focus and deliberate.

82
00:08:36,540 --> 00:08:39,898
The most basic form of practice is the drill.

83
00:08:39,898 --> 00:08:47,389
Now, a good drill boils down to three 
elements: focus, repetitions and continuous feedback.

84
00:08:47,389 --> 00:09:00,508
A drill work in activities until you're focusing 
on a narrow slice of that skill in
a way that's repeatable and which provide
immediate and continuous feedback.

85
00:09:00,508 --> 00:09:04,424
How narrow a slice depends on your capabilities

86
00:09:04,424 --> 00:09:08,939
If you're in your comfort zone, you need to ratchet up drilling a notch.

87
00:09:08,939 --> 00:09:21,731
If you're in your panic zone, your adaptation
will be random and accidental and 
you'll find yourself practicing doing it wrong 
more than you're practicing doing it right.

88
00:09:21,731 --> 00:09:28,576
Practice doesn't make perfect. It makes permanent.

89
00:09:28,576 --> 00:09:34,500
If you're practicing in your panic zone, you'll wind up being permanently wrong.

90
00:09:34,500 --> 00:09:41,387
You want to find that sweet spot. That space 
where ability and challenge barely overlap.

91
00:09:41,387 --> 00:09:47,019
So, find something that you can kind of almost do.

92
00:09:47,019 --> 00:09:52,161
Warp it until you're focusing on a particular 
aspect of that skill.

93
00:09:52,161 --> 00:09:56,435
Make it repeatable so you can do it over and over and over

94
00:09:56,435 --> 00:09:59,913
And it make the feedback loop as short as possible

95
00:09:59,913 --> 00:10:07,943
And then go do it. 
And then take a nap.

96
00:10:07,943 --> 00:10:12,092
Not all focus (inaudible) practice activities are drilled

97
00:10:12,092 --> 00:10:16,190
Take simulations, for example.

98
00:10:16,190 --> 00:10:21,218
Athletes have scrimmages. In therapy it's call role play.

99
00:10:21,218 --> 00:10:27,579
In programming, we do weekend projects, 
hack fest, and code retreats.

100
00:10:27,579 --> 00:10:33,907
In a simulation, you improvise as though it were the real thing

101
00:10:33,907 --> 00:10:39,899
When you make a mistake, nobody dies.

102
00:10:39,899 --> 00:10:48,682
You don't lose. You don't fail.
you also don't stop, go back and immediately 
do it over again correctly because that's what 
thrills are for.

103
00:10:48,682 --> 00:10:52,726
In a simulation, you keep going.

104
00:10:52,726 --> 00:11:00,529
A simulation doesn't warp activities. it
intensify them. You provide a more 
concentrated learning experience.

105
00:11:00,529 --> 00:11:07,474
by putting together implausible combinations 
of unlikely occurrences.

106
00:11:07,474 --> 00:11:13,239
Another interesting type of practices is the case study.

107
00:11:13,239 --> 00:11:17,006
Athletes watch videos of practice sessions and performances.

108
00:11:17,006 --> 00:11:22,899
Chess players study games played by grand masters and try to determine what the 
next move would be

109
00:11:22,899 --> 00:11:27,971
and then when they're wrong, they analyze why.

110
00:11:27,971 --> 00:11:36,799
In programming, reading code is a case 
study. What were they thinking?

111
00:11:36,799 --> 00:11:44,551
What pressure cause them to choose this
approach? What are the trade offs?

112
00:11:44,551 --> 00:11:49,897
Case studies are about observations and 
analysis and critical thinking

113
00:11:49,897 --> 00:11:51,950
and then you have direct practice.

114
00:11:51,950 --> 00:12:01,003
Those precise notes and perfect pauses of a 
violinist playing a concert piece while nobody's listening

115
00:12:01,013 --> 00:12:09,496
Direct practice when done deliberately and 
with focus hones clockwork precisions, 
making it reflexive.

116
00:12:09,496 --> 00:12:12,702
You can shift your attention away from the
mechanics of your performance.

117
00:12:12,702 --> 00:12:23,521
You can focus all of your creativity on the
subtle details that lift your performance from 
the subtle and mundane to the exquisite.

118
00:12:23,521 --> 00:12:26,488
And typically, we associate direct practice with musicians


119
00:12:26,488 --> 00:12:36,185
but it's just as much the domain of stand up 
comedians and trial lawyers and 
complementary French circus acrobats.

120
00:12:36,185 --> 00:12:44,997
And then there's intimations. Overlooked and undervalued.

121
00:12:44,997 --> 00:12:47,749
When you're a beginner, you don't know what you don't know.

122
00:12:47,749 --> 00:12:52,723
Intimating masters will teach you things that you don't know you need to know

123
00:12:52,723 --> 00:12:58,913
and often things that the master themselves are unable to articulate.

124
00:12:58,913 --> 00:13:07,268
In our culture, we tend to hide individuality
and creative self expressions and it's really 
hard to be creative.

125
00:13:07,268 --> 00:13:13,496
Without having internalized a vast store of techniques and _____.

126
00:13:13,496 --> 00:13:21,072
Don't be a snowflake. Go copy someone who
know that they're doing.

127
00:13:21,072 --> 00:13:26,772
No matter what type of practice activity 
you're doing, no matter how good you are, 
practice is grueling.

128
00:13:26,772 --> 00:13:38,138
Drills, simulations, case studies, direct 
practice, imitations. These are all ways of
stretching you to the edge of your ability.

129
00:13:38,138 --> 00:13:44,457
That's equally as difficult for expert as it is beginners.

130
00:13:44,457 --> 00:13:49,735
That said, practice is particularly challenging 
when grossly incompetent.

131
00:13:49,735 --> 00:13:56,442
Not so much because you suck, per se. But
because feeling stupid is so powerfully unpleasant.

132
00:13:56,442 --> 00:14:00,332
It's one of the important driver behind procrastinations.

133
00:14:00,332 --> 00:14:08,201
When you're feeling overwhelm by your own
ineptitude, it's easy to become fatalistic.

134
00:14:08,201 --> 00:14:15,131
Another disadvantage of being a beginner is 
that so many practice activity lack inherent 
feedback.

135
00:14:15,131 --> 00:14:21,661
When you're vastly unskilled, your judgement 
is completely unreliable.

136
00:14:21,661 --> 00:14:27,737
Everything, including the right thing, feels wrong.

137
00:14:27,737 --> 00:14:36,384
It's easy to consistently make the wrong 
adjustment, leaving you with deeply ingrain 
bad habit.

138
00:14:39,784 --> 00:14:47,247
It took me 18 months to pass all the 
prerequisite exams and I was ready to apply 
to universities.

139
00:14:47,247 --> 00:14:55,492
I was accepted to two study programs. One in 
aerospace engineering and one in molecular 
biology.

140
00:14:55,492 --> 00:15:00,280
When people around me realize I was serious
about this university thing, I got a bit of a push 
back.

141
00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:07,981
They were like "holy crap, you're gonna be
like thirty two by the time you finish".

142
00:15:07,981 --> 00:15:16,065
If we were gonna be realistic about it though, I
was going to be thirty two anyway.

143
00:15:16,065 --> 00:15:18,349
I picked molecular biology.

144
00:15:18,349 --> 00:15:25,840
University was completely uneventful. I wrote 
papers. I did lab work. I read books. I took exams.

145
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:31,531
It changed my life. Not so much because of
the papers and the exams, but because I was 
learning.

146
00:15:31,531 --> 00:15:37,200
I was practicing and I was introduce to the (--------)

147
00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:47,330
Now before university, I occasionally 
experienced (flow?). Mostly when solving 
truss problems and mechanics.

148
00:15:47,330 --> 00:15:55,203
Telling the computer what to do was like truss 
problems except better.

149
00:15:55,203 --> 00:16:00,455
I kept coming back to and exploring 
programming. Exploring. Not learning.

150
00:16:00,455 --> 00:16:09,020
Learning is what I did with math and physics. 
That was a study, tedious, rewarding, diet, 
deliberate, focus practice.

151
00:16:09,020 --> 00:16:14,464
It took a really long time before I 
transition from exploring to learning programing.

152
00:16:14,464 --> 00:16:18,339
Even when I did make the transition, it was 
hit or miss.

153
00:16:18,339 --> 00:16:28,257
A lot of the research I found were confusing, 
outdated or just hopelessly advanced.

154
00:16:28,257 --> 00:16:33,802
After three years, I had a bachelor degree in 
molecular biology,

155
00:16:33,802 --> 00:16:37,368
some basic ability to write control structures

156
00:16:37,368 --> 00:16:42,174
and far more importantly, I've come to accept that talent is not ebullient*

157
00:16:42,174 --> 00:16:49,842
It's not some innate genetic trait that you have
to go and look for and may or may not find

158
00:16:49,842 --> 00:16:54,740
The truth is, talent is bullshit.

159
00:16:54,740 --> 00:16:58,506
Skill can be develop systematically and 
the system is awesome.

160
00:16:58,506 --> 00:17:05,434
A system you can understand.
A system you can hack.

161
00:17:05,434 --> 00:17:11,152
The technical term for skill development is
leveling up.

162
00:17:11,152 --> 00:17:15,169
Now, a pair of researchers, a couple of 
brothers by the name of Dreyfus

163
00:17:15,169 --> 00:17:23,542
created a model of how leveling up works and 
their scale goes like this

164
00:17:23,542 --> 00:17:25,713
Novice, where you know nothing.

165
00:17:25,713 --> 00:17:30,143
Advanced beginner, where you still suck but
you kind of see what this is about.

166
00:17:30,143 --> 00:17:33,223
Competent, where you can start getting shit done.

167
00:17:33,223 --> 00:17:35,530
Proficient, where you get shit done really well.

168
00:17:35,530 --> 00:17:42,504
And expert, where the shit you get done
seems like magic to pretty much everyone else.

169
00:17:45,204 --> 00:17:57,511
When we're novices, we can be in one of two
state: mindless obedience or overwhelm

170
00:17:59,511 --> 00:18:08,843
As novices, we're in the (inaudible) position of
being only millimeters away from our panic 
zone at all times.

171
00:18:08,843 --> 00:18:11,143
If a rule was clear, we're stuck.

172
00:18:11,143 --> 00:18:13,192
If we accidentally skip a step, we're stuck.

173
00:18:13,192 --> 00:18:20,837
If we...I get a result that deviate even slightly
from what we expected, we're stuck.

174
00:18:20,837 --> 00:18:24,712
We have no frame of reference.

175
00:18:24,712 --> 00:18:36,449
When we're advanced beginner, we see 
1,000 disconnected details and we give every
single one of those details equal consideration.

176
00:18:36,449 --> 00:18:45,106
There's no cohesion where I'm able to
distinguish between relevant and irrelevant 
and incidental.

177
00:18:45,106 --> 00:18:50,959
We can look things up, but we can't troubleshoot.

178
00:18:50,959 --> 00:18:58,135
When we're competent, we gain the ability 
to evaluate relevance within a context.

179
00:18:58,135 --> 00:19:02,389
We also gain the ability to perform routine
procedures and do basic troubleshooting.

180
00:19:02,389 --> 00:19:06,945
Here, we can be productive without
something stepping outside of our comfort zone.

181
00:19:06,945 --> 00:19:12,390
Which may be why so many people stagnated
this skill level indefinitely.

182
00:19:12,390 --> 00:19:17,819
When we're proficient, we can make much 
finer discrimination.

183
00:19:17,819 --> 00:19:23,063
We can evaluate the significance of subtle indicators.

184
00:19:23,063 --> 00:19:28,137
We look further ahead. We make predictions.
We prognosticate.

185
00:19:28,137 --> 00:19:31,869
We recognize underline patterns. 
We apply overarching principles.

186
00:19:31,869 --> 00:19:40,743
All of the intricacies of the subject matter 
come together in a vast and fascinating web.

187
00:19:40,743 --> 00:19:47,023
When we're expert, you see 1,000 details and
immediately disregard 999 of them.

188
00:19:47,023 --> 00:19:51,753
We focus in on the one that matters. How do we do it? No idea.

189
00:19:51,753 --> 00:19:55,495
We don't know how we know, what we know. 


190
00:19:55,495 --> 00:20:00,397
A lot of people talk about instinct or intuition 
as though it's some sort of super power.

191
00:20:00,397 --> 00:20:02,391
But it's not magic. 


192
00:20:02,391 --> 00:20:13,495
It's powerful processing that happens very
very quickly and it's based on a gargantuan 
store of knowledge and experience.

193
00:20:13,495 --> 00:20:23,059
Described in this way, skill development
sounds so sequential and regular and inevitable

194
00:20:23,059 --> 00:20:31,476
leveling up in a series of climaxes win after 
win after win as though life was a television commercial.

195
00:20:31,476 --> 00:20:38,531
This is a scientific model. A scientific model is 
like a uml diagram but for science.

196
00:20:38,531 --> 00:20:48,134
It's a simplification about the world. It's useful
lie that you tell yourself in order to navigate a 
messy reality.

197
00:20:50,344 --> 00:21:03,228
So maybe sequential, but regular? hardly. 
Inevitable. We should be so lucky. Life is messy.

198
00:21:03,228 --> 00:21:10,764
Leveling happens in spurts and sudden 
surges and there are plateaus.

199
00:21:10,764 --> 00:21:13,680
A lot of people seem to dread the plateaus.

200
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:18,908
Hurrying past them as best as they can and 
always with their eye on the goal.

201
00:21:18,908 --> 00:21:26,261
Am I there yet? Am I done yet? Am I good yet?

202
00:21:26,261 --> 00:21:32,092
Plateaus are neurologically important. 
The way sleep is neurologically important.

203
00:21:32,092 --> 00:21:40,971
It injects time into your practice. It allows
complex skills to become deeply embedded.

204
00:21:40,971 --> 00:21:44,904
Plateaus are where your skills being 
refactored so that you can scale.

205
00:21:44,904 --> 00:21:51,912
If you're in a rush, you're going to end up with 
brittle and fragile skills.

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Focus on what you're doing. 
Not how you're doing.

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00:21:59,136 --> 00:22:04,031
There's a saying "immature practice until they 
get it right.

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Professional practice until they can't get it wrong."

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That's what plateaus are about. 
They put the level in level up.

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I used my university degree exactly once. For the first programming job that I got.

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The CTO of a start up looked at my resume and said

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00:22:26,631 --> 00:22:34,346
"huh, a degree in molecular biology in biological chemistry. You must be pretty smart."

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00:22:34,346 --> 00:22:37,436
And she gave me the job.

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00:22:37,436 --> 00:22:48,186
It was the combination of a lot of hard work, 
practice and it was a start of a lot more 
hard work and practice.

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00:22:48,186 --> 00:22:51,492
I thought I wanted to be extraordinary,

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00:22:51,492 --> 00:22:59,978
but what I really craved was passion and that
deep sense of satisfaction that comes with 
focus and accomplishment.

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00:22:59,978 --> 00:23:09,355
Mastery isn't about perfection. Skills grows by 
focusing intently on the things that stretch you

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00:23:09,355 --> 00:23:18,177
and passion grows by giving your attention to 
something long enough to gain depth and 
understand nuances.

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00:23:18,177 --> 00:23:28,227
Talent is bullshit. Skill is cultivated. Passion is 
curated ad hacking skills is hacking passion.

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00:23:28,227 --> 00:23:32,375
Don't do what you love. Do 
something well enough to love what you do.

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Thank You.