THE ROAD TO THE EXTRA-ORDINARY!

“Deliberate practice can revolutionize our thinking about human potential.” Anders Ericsson (p. 256)

As the Olympics continue in Rio de Janeiro this week, we keep seeing extraordinary performances— world-class athletes doing incredible things. How are they able to do this? How does it work that anyone who can do extraordinary things? What kind of training produces expertise?

I ask these questions because NLP is about modeling best practices. And that modeling of the extraordinary arose from Maslow’s Psychology of the Bright-Side. Abraham Maslow began this focus when he began his “Good Humans Studies” which was triggered by two extraordinary “good human specimens”—Max Wertheimer and Ruth Benedict. As a Behaviorist he had already studied some of the highest intelligent animals (he did the bonding studies with chimpanzees with Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin). So when Max and Ruth caught his attention, he began studying “the best” of humans. That began a thirty-year study of self-actualizing people.

Now while this has been the focus of NLP, NLP has never had an exclusive right on this subject. Since Maslow’s initiation of the Human Potential Movement and Humanistic Psychology, many others have followed. Among them is Anders Ericsson, the Swedish Psychologist. And the newest book by Anders Ericsson continues this theme of modeling excellence. In Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016) he has highlighted the concept that he is known for—“deliberate practice.” And in terms of the study of expertise and how expertise develops, Ericsson is an undisputed leader. It was Anders who led out with scholarly papers on expertise and who then put his longitudinal studies in a massive 800+ page book, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006).

In his latest work Ericsson focuses on the importance of training for developing and expanding capacity and argues persuasively throughout the work that “potential” is much less a function of genetics and “innate talent” than “the right training.”

“The clear message from decades of research is that no matter what role of genetic endowment in ‘gifted’ people, the main gift that these people have is the same one we all have— the adaptability of the human brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us.” (xviii)

He argues that the ability to create, through the right sort of training and practice, abilities that they would not otherwise possess by taking advantage of the incredible adaptability of the human brain and body. It is this adaptability through the right kind of learning that makes all the difference— we could say, the Olympic difference.

“... this is a book about a fundamental new way of thinking about human potential, one that suggests

that we have far more power than we ever realized to take control of our lives.” (xix)

The key then is the right kind of training, training “in the right way.”

“People have a tremendous capacity to improve their performance as long as they train in the right way.” (p. 113)

So what is this right way to train? The answer is “deliberate practice.” Read that carefully. He did not merely say “practice.” Mere practice, in fact, is not the key and may in fact make things worse. What?! Yes our common ideas about “practice” are mostly “myths.” Ericsson argues that any practice which does not tap into the unique qualities of deliberate practice can be worse than no practice at all. Shocking? Stunning? Yes, for anyone who has grown up with the idea that all you need is practice and effort. In this book Ericsson calls deliberate practice “the gold standard” of practice and it is for anyone who wants to take advantage of the gift of adaptability in building new skills.

So what’s wrong with practice as we normally think about practicing something? Ericsson says that the misunderstanding is that “continued practice improves skill.” But it does not. “Research has shown that once a person reaches that level of ‘acceptable’ performance” so that the skill becomes automatic, then “the additional years of practice don’t lead to improvement (p. 13).” And the reason? Homeostasis (p. 37). “The human body has a preference for stability.” And the problem with traditional approaches is that they are “not designed to challenge homeostasis” (p. 48). Most people are “satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis.”

“You have to keep upping the ante; run farther, run faster, run uphill. If you don’t keep pushing and pushing and pushing some more, the body will settle into homeostasis, albeit at a different level. This explains the importance of staying just outside your comfort zone; you need to continually us to keep the body’s compensatory changes coming.” (p. 40)

This gives us our first hints about what’s involved in deliberate practice. And in this special kind of practice is the structure of expertise—the critical success variables that lead to “the right kind of training.” It is this kind of training that produces extraordinary results.

1) Focused on small specific goals which are in service of the larger long-term goal. When you make your practice deliberate and purposeful, you start with a well-defined goal, create a plan, then break the skill down and put together “a bunch of baby steps.” Now you can truly focus your full attention on a specific detail of the skill in question. Now you have a clear objective of your focus; now you can zoom in with close attention to every detail of the performance you are working on.

“If your mind is wandering or you’re relaxed and just having fun, you probably won’t improve. ... There’s little point to practicing if you don’t focus.” (p. 151, 154)

2) Strained effort as you up the ante and push yourself to the edge of your discomfort. The effort here is not effort for the sake of effort, but to break out of the body’s homeostatic processes that seek to prevent instability and compensate for disequilibrium.

“Most people live lives that are not particularly physically challenging. ... The reason that most people don’t possess these extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t because they don’t have the capacity for them, but because they’re satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis.” (p. 47) “The hallmark of purposeful or deliberate practice is that you try to do something you cannot do—that takes you out of your comfort zone.” (p. 159)

3) Constant and precise empirical feedback to monitor how you are doing. “Without feedback, you cannot figure out what you need to improve on or how close you are to achieving your goals.” This feedback needs to be sensory-based (something you can see or hear) because when you are able to measure it, you can monitor how you are doing— what’s working, what’s not working, what to do instead.

The incredible thing about deliberate practice is that it aims beyond merely reaching your potential, it aims at developing your capacity. That’s why we have developed benchmarks in Neuro-Semantics as well as a training process that taps into the wisdom and insight of “the structure of expertise” as detailed by Ericsson and others. We do that in Meta-Coaching, which is a whole system designed in this way. We are doing this in the Self-Actualization Trainings. We also do this in the Trainers’ Training (NSTT).

People interested in trainings that incorporate deliberate practice and trainers who are fascinated in learning how to train in this way do not come to Neuro-Semantics because it is easy. It is not. It is rigorous. It is challenging. We invite people to move to the edge of their comfort zone and then two more steps. People come precisely for these reasons— it is challenging, rigorous, and demanding— and fun.

They want this because in this way they develop and expand their capacity for learning, developing, and moving to areas of expertise. They do this because they want to be on the cutting-edge of excellence. It is not for the fair-hearted. It is not for those who need therapy. It is for those who are ready to be challenged to be more than they ever imagined they could be.

Join the Olympic Training for Trainers (NSTT): NSTT: Neuro-Semantic Trainers’ Training in 2016 is in Hong Kong. Dates: Sept. 28– Oct. 12. Sponsored by APTI: Asia Professional Training Institute Lead by L. Michael Hall and a group of Neuro-Semantic Master Trainers Contact: [email protected]; [email protected] Ask for the Flyer of the event.

Resources (see www.neurosemantics.com for these books): Achieving Peak Performance (2009). Benchmarking Intangibles (2011).