Book Review - Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

Years ago I had read a couple of books that discussed expert achievement and the 10,000 hour rule to achieve greatness. I was really impressed with the ideas. I didn't realize the authors were misquoting and misrepresenting the research.

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool is a nonfiction book discussing research conducted on several performers who reached the top of their field. It is available as an eBook, Audiobook, and those paper things your grandparents used to read.

The Good

Information. This book presents a lot of information and several studies about how those at the top of their fields reached their field. It describes the studies and also lists the limitations and deficiencies of the science and research.

Presentation. This book is well written with all the information clearly laid out and presented in an easy-to-understand manner that isn't trying to talk down to anyone.

The Bad

Speculation. The research covered very few different disciplines, and the authors speculated on a whole lot more based on the little research. While their speculation sounds reasonable, so do the ideas their research refutes.

Author Conclusions. The authors offer some conclusions and possible implications of this research, but they are very limited in their scope and ignore the fact that greatness takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of focus, and most people aren't capable of that even if they are capable of learning the the skills for greatness.

What I Would Like to Have Seen

I would have enjoyed more research. The studies were very limited to just a few categories.

Overall

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool is a nonfiction book discussing research conducted on several performers who reached the top of their field and how they did it. It refutes the notions of innate talent, the idea you must be born with the ability to reach greatness, and the 10,000 hour rule Maxwell Gladwell mistakenly took from their research. The studies are laid out and the information is clearly presented. The main weaknesses are the small number of areas that have been studied and the authors' limited view of what the ramifications of their research could be. I highly recommend this book and give it 4.5 out of 5 eReaders.