PEAK CH1-2

Thoughts

When I first read this book, I asked around my friends on what aspect is more important to a genius. Most of them said the gift; some said both the gene and the gift. Honestly, I cannot agree no more at first. I am not a genius and haven't inherited any super great genes from my parents. But gradually I found that it was only an excuse of my being normal which has nothing to do with genes or gift.

I learnt to play the piano at six. People said it would help me better develop my brain and make me smarter. I did spent years practicing from entry level to a much senior level. However I was requested to stop learning before I went to high school since my mum was too anxious about my poor score of math & physics. So I actually didn't become smarter as they thought I would be. And I had to give up playing the piano to spend more time making up for school work.

During the eight years' time, I was not able to figure out what the naïve, purposeful or deliberate practice were. I think I had done well on the naïve practice and moderate on the purposeful practice but none of the deliberate practice. I still believe that I have a gift at music. But apparently it didn't make me a genius.

I was trained to be precise at playing every note, which is pretty much like the naïve practice; I was also forced or sometimes at my own wish to practice playing several hours a day to get prepared for exams or piano contests; and I always felt proud when others praised me for doing well. These could be my purposeful practices. But that's all. After I stopped learning, I seldom spent time practicing and pretty much had set myself back. With no more challenges, my brain was having less changes and I believe the tissue that in charge of my musical neuron has become smaller and smaller ever after. Just like those retired London taxi drivers.

I feel lucky to have access to PEAK and get to know man can develop their extraordinary abilities in any area of human performance. There is still numerous unexplored potential in my brain. Hope I could get inspired from rest of the readings and start my new challenge, new change.

Summary

People all have a born extraordinary gift which is much more powerful than we could imagine. Mozart's ability of his gift – perfect pitch lies in the ability to develop that gift with right sort of trainings and practices, not simply a born gift which everyone possesses in various aspects.

The author used several examples to show us the relationships among naïve, purposeful and deliberate practices. Through naïve practice, one might make progress at a certain level by trying hard but that won't last far; comparatively the purposeful practice has more advantages as it has well-defined, specific goals; it is focused; it involves feedback; and most importantly it requires getting out of one's comfort zone. All these characters may push yourself to your limits at doing something but it is just the first step towards the deliberate practice and it has limits too.

The most powerful and effective approach to improve has been proved to be the deliberate practice. Before deeper exploring on the deliberate practice, the author first led us to the secret of our brains with two examples. Through the London cabbies' experiment, we know that the posterior hippocampi of the drivers has increased at the brain tissue level; and the study on the Braille readers' visual cortex tells us the brain's structure may change in response to use. The brain, likes human body, could change upon the challenge it faces. But we need to make sure not pushing it too hard, which may risk injuring yourself and setting yourself back to where you were. So keeping in changing but not too far outside its comfort zone is crucial.

At this time the author brought us the deliberate practice:

The fact that the human brain and body respond to challenges by developing new abilities underlies the effectiveness of purposeful and deliberate practice.

Regular trainings can lead to changes in the parts of the brain that are challenged by the training but not homeostasis. This kind of learning may be able to fulfill one's innate potential, to develop a particular skill or ability but cannot go far since it doesn't make you go out of the comfort zone. While with deliberate practice of which the goal is to build your potential, to make things become possible, it requires challenging homeostasis, getting out of one's comfort zone and forcing your brain or body to adapt. It is doing more by increasing your ability to do, rather than helping you on how to do. It provides you the control of your destiny and ability to shape your potential in ways that you choose.

Expressions

Mozart is about to embark on a tour around Europe that will jump-start the Mozart legend.

embark on / verb // 本意为登上船，常用来表示开始着手做某事

I am embarking on cooking myself a nice dish.

jump-start / verb // 本意为一辆车给另一辆车的电瓶充电，文中表示cause to start quickly

Proper exercise every day will jump-start your good mood and health.

One of the divers barely avoided serious injury while attempting a double somersault, and an official report released a few months later concluded that the dive was simply too dangerous and recommended that it be banned from future Olympic Games.

somersault // 翻筋斗，也可以表示态度的巨大转变

One caveat here is that while it is always possible to keep going and keep improving, it is not always easy.

caveat // 注意事项、预先声明

(there was one caveat...), 后面的话是补充说明前面的信息，同时起强调作用

There is one caveat that it is never too late to learn.

That still left one loose end, however: perhaps the taxi drivers in the studies had started out with larger posterior hippocampi that gave them an advantage in finding their way around London, and the extensive testing they went through was nothing more than a weeding out process that zeroed in on those prospective drivers who were naturally better equipped to be able to learn their way around the maze that is London.

zero in on // give it your full attention, concentrate on

You can try to zero in on the gentle wind to feel the silence and peace.

They found that Einstein's inferior parietal lobule was significantly larger than average and that its shape was particularly unusual, which led them to speculate that his inferior parietal lobule may have played a crucial role in his ability to perform abstract mathematical thinking.

speculate // to guess about the possible causes or effects of something, without knowing all the facts or details.

Every one in the room is holding different thoughts about the financial crisis and speculating every possible result.

We will spend much of the rest of the book answering that we have glossed over in this chapter: what exactly are we trying to improve about our brains?

gloss over // to avoid talking about something unpleasant, or to say as little as possible about it.

She glossed over the talk regarding her husband's fairs.