Click the image for details In the American TV series 2 Broke Girls, there's a line: "DNA decides what we are, but not who we are." It's chicken soup for the soul, and it sounds so inspiring. When I was young, I always felt that life is a one-time deal, and who knows when the next chance might come, so I wanted to see all the beauty the world has to offer. As a result, I had wide interests and many hobbies. The same applied to work: I liked to explore every field, but my proficiency in any one area was not high. "Don't fear the infinity of truth; every inch of progress brings its own joy," said Hu Shi. The old man spoke well; it's meaningful and interesting. Later, after encountering many true experts, I realized I was just a "knowledge monger," using the pretense of pursuing breadth to cover up my inability to master things thoroughly. The day I figured this out, I noted in my phone: "Those who specialize in one art must have something moving about them." I forgot where I copied it from, but it was a case of "knowing shame, then acting bravely." People often ask me: "I've been in management for years; how can I improve further?" and "Can you recommend some books?" Observing in my circle, in most cases, the difference between someone with 5 years of work experience and someone with 20 years is far less than imagined. The old man who played chess on the street corner for 20 years never became a master; the person who managed clients for 20 years may still not be able to calculate financial accounts accurately. Those who can do it do it in 5 years; those who can't, can't do it in 20. Experts need time to accumulate, but they aren't just made by grinding out years. There are few true experts in the world because experts have their own thresholds. Kenichi Ohmae, a high-ability Japanese person, said in his book The Professional: "What is professionalism? It's that even if I tell you all the methods, you still can't outperform me." (Be cautious when reading Japanese books; generally, they are too verbose.) If you can't outperform me, it means I haven't truly explained everything. It seems the words are said and the points are made; experts hear them and think they're incisive, but the general public doesn't realize that those words have a combat power of 100,000 points. That's where the difference lies. It's a bit like the road sign systems in some cities: locals think they're clear, but out-of-town drivers find them baffling. Let me give two typical examples of what teachers said in middle school:

  1. "Don't do the types of questions you already know; focus on the ones you often get wrong."
  2. "Before going to bed at night, review the day's knowledge points." Looking back now, this is deliberate practice, moving from the comfort zone to the learning zone; this is neuroscience. But at the time, few in the class took it to heart. This middle school stuff was already seen through by Laozi 2,500 years ago, as in Tao Te Ching, Chapter 40: "When the superior man hears of the Tao, he diligently practices it. When the middling man hears of the Tao, he seems to keep it and lose it. When the inferior man hears of the Tao, he laughs at it. If he didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Tao." True insights seem destined to be ignored by the masses. ▍ Direction: In what field should you become an expert? Ability has three levels: novice, proficient, and expert. Let's take a manager's work as an example.
  • Low frequency, low importance: reach the novice level, just know how to do it, like singing the company song before a meeting.
  • High frequency, moderate importance: reach the proficient level, improve efficiency to save your time, like data processing, system tool application, and certain business processes.
  • High frequency, high importance: aim for the expert level, such as problem-solving, strategy formulation, project management, communication and presentation, financial analysis, etc. In which field should you become an expert? You must restrain yourself and tackle them one by one. Which comes first? The principle is "the more basic, the more important," but the specifics depend on fate. These things are interconnected; once one is mastered, others become easier, as the thinking and training methods are similar. The physics master Richard Feynman often went to the math department and asked math professors to quiz him. After answering, he was quite satisfied with himself, saying he didn't even know he could do those problems. This is the expert's realm of "not knowing that you know." For them, it's not difficult; the methodology is similar. Notice the experts around you: they often excel in several areas, doing everything brilliantly, because they've mastered the underlying code—the methodology of how to do things well. ▍ Ability: Can you become an expert?
  1. Method: For ordinary people, talent = time × method, i.e., long-term training × correct methods. Don't rush to blame your parents; don't take talent too seriously. Except for some sports, genes aren't that important. The Stoic dichotomy teaches us to accept what we can't change and change what we can. What you can change is more than you think.
  2. Motivation: If you can't persist in training, it's not because you're lazy; it's because you lack motivation. There's no such thing as "strong willpower" in this world. Don't waste time on willpower; rely on motivation and external forces. My mother says she has a bad memory (note: she's shifting the blame to my grandmother). I told her that if the enemy demanded she memorize The Song of Everlasting Sorrow in one day or they'd kill me, she said she should be able to do it, after all, I'm her biological child. A single female friend told me that when she was a child, her mother told her and her two sisters, "Don't bother with useless things; girls with good grades are the sexiest." As a result, all three sisters got into Peking University and Tsinghua University.
  3. Mentor: If you can't find the right method, it's not because you're stupid; it's because no one told you, "You need to first look for the method." When I was a kid, I played with the children of the art institute faculty in the backyard. I didn't see any innate artistic talent in them; they just spent their days among acrylics and plaster, had expert guidance from an early age, and were pushed into long-term training. Teachers' children tend to get good grades; if older siblings study well, younger siblings tend to do well too. Same principle. The chicken soup part ends here. Overall, it means "You can do it; hurry up and work hard." The following is technical detail, with more text, for reference only; you can skip it. ▍ Find the training methods of experts "The value of all efforts in life is to become part of beauty. But first, you need to know what beauty is." Experts become experts because they do something right, something that novices and proficient people haven't done. This thing shouldn't just be a knowledge point or skill point, but a different perspective or attitude. This is the difference, the true scripture, and you must find it. Without it, practice is just fussing—it looks lively, but in reality, you don't produce many buns in one steamer. It often happens that an expert in one field is also an expert in another.
  • Vasari described Leonardo da Vinci in Lives of the Artists: "No matter what field he entered, he reached a state of transcendence." If we could see the world through the eyes of the prophet Leonardo, it would surely be magical and brilliant. I guess his graphics card would quickly burn out my motherboard; being killed by da Vinci would be my honor.
  • Josh Waitzkin became a chess master at age 12 and later became the world champion in Tai Chi push hands, reaching the top in two fields. (There's a 1993 movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer, that depicts his childhood; if you're interested, you can check it out—it has a Douban score of 8.0, not bad. There are also two similar movies: The Young Pianist and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet.)
  • My friend Gu Danqing's father, an old man who focuses on oil painting, is also good at calligraphy, plays the flute beautifully, and is said to be very accurate with a slingshot. He excels in both spatial and temporal arts, without formal training, reaching expert levels. I believe there's a common training method behind all this. Josh wrote a book called The Art of Learning, sharing his methods and insights. His final conclusion was: "What I'm good at is neither Tai Chi nor chess; it's the art of learning." Experts indeed master a universal training method, which is "deliberate practice," aimed at producing the expert's "mental representations." Anders Ericsson wrote a book called Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise that explains this principle; if you're interested, you can read it. Through high-intensity, concentrated, and continuous deliberate training, the trainee forcibly transforms the skill's "principles, models, processes, standards, and algorithms" into intuition, thereby acquiring the expert's mental representations. In addition to training, this process requires clear operational guidance and immediate feedback—two important conditions. ▍ Find your mentor and like-minded peers The prerequisite for making deliberate training effective is finding a guide and a group of people with similar pursuits.
  • Find a competent mentor. Experts are more willing to seek teachers to guide them, while mediocre people like me are often busy looking down on others and indulging in teaching others. Reinventing the wheel is inefficient. Someone must know the good methods better. Find a master, learn from him; the master knows the correct optimal sequence, correct training behaviors, and can give timely, effective feedback, helping you avoid detours. What impresses me most is when the art teacher tells you "near big, far small," or the calligraphy teacher tells you "tighten the center." It seems simple, but it's the result of generations of effort. Expecting to figure it out on your own would take a very, very, very long life.
  • Find experts around you. For example, at work, your immediate manager is the best mentor. The manager may not be the best, but there should be something worth learning. Quickly discover, summarize, and incorporate it into your improvement plan. The advantage is that the sample is vivid, often in your sight, creating a good learning environment. If you think your leader has nothing worth learning, then finding something worth learning in your leader becomes a highlight of your skills—a kind of training to survive adversity.
  • The internet provides everything. The internet has everything; Zhihu is a valuable information source with a relatively high density of experts. Its app should be on the first page of your phone. The problem is that the internet's feedback is poor; people are better. Joining a high-quality community is also an option, like dark learning organizations such as "Kai Zhi Academy."
  • Make observation and reflection a habit. When I was a child learning art at the Children's Palace, the teacher said, "Don't just look; observe. Only when you understand can you produce good work." It's easy to say, but learning to observe is hard. The difficulty isn't in the technique of observation and summary, but in putting the intention into your CPU and keeping it occupying bandwidth. Finding a coach, experts around you, and online resources all rely on others; observation and summary rely on yourself. Constantly reflecting on yourself and staying as objective as possible is definitely anti-human, and it's difficult. This might be one of the core secrets of experts. ▍ Set your training goals There's a psychological phenomenon called the "planning fallacy": people are overly optimistic about their ability to act, unwilling to think comprehensively, and prefer to jump into action. This was an innate advantage of our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago: active action and blind optimism helped them survive winters and famines. Our elders also relied on the fearless spirit of the ignorant to start some rough national industries. Going further, we must become meticulous, and what strings together these trivial details is goals.
  • Have a goal. A goal is a magnetic field that pulls tasks onto a magnetic line in one direction, bringing focus and resources. "When the mind flashes, it shakes the ten directions"—that's the principle. This is hard. I once struggled for a long time with several skill trainings, unable to set a goal. "Improve XXXX ability" is a direction, not a goal, let alone a specific goal.
  • Quantify the goal. "If you can't measure it, you don't even know what you're doing." Applying the SMART principle, it's not hard to understand what a specific goal is. The trick is: if you really can't find a suitable outcome indicator, use process indicators or behavior indicators. For example, the number of training sessions, though not entirely outcome-oriented, still gives you something to hold onto. For instance, in my project management training, I hadn't figured out what the goal for that ability was, so I finally set: complete WBS and "time-scaled network diagrams" for 100 projects. In reality, I became proficient before reaching 50.
  • Set only one goal. At the airport, I flipped through an American chicken soup book called The One Thing. The book's purpose is to pad out word count; its writing method is mainly copying. The only worthwhile text is the title, but the title does have some truth. From how many books to bring on a business trip to whether to start two trainings simultaneously, it can make you hesitate. Often, at the end of the year, you regret not being more focused and setting only one goal in one area. At the beginning of this year, I set three challenge goals, then quickly convinced myself to reduce to two. Halfway through the year, it seems focusing on one is more reliable. Corporate annual plans have the same problem: they stuff in a bunch of things, and if you don't write them into the annual plan, you're considered unprofessional and not dedicated, but few are actually completed. Doing similar things every year and shouting for breakthroughs every year—to borrow Einstein's words, that's a sign of schizophrenia. "Less is more" is also anti-human; our emotional brain can only accept "more is more," which was true in animal husbandry and agriculture, because back then, those who did only one thing would starve. If the masses can't do it, focusing is probably a privilege of experts.
  • Break it into small modules. Learning experts all talk about skill decomposition. Josh Waitzkin even gave it a name: "making smaller circles." Break the skill into small, manageable modules and set smaller goals for each.
    • In project management, managers add many "milestones," i.e., stage goals, to ensure large projects are completed on time. This is a typical "accumulate steps to reach a thousand miles" approach.
    • A painter shared his learning experience: mastering the human body structure means drawing 100 bodies as a group, and drawing 6 groups within six months. It's not much—just 3 a day. In these trainings, the more basic the skill module, the more important it is. "The principle that makes a simple technique work is the same as the theory that supports the entire system." Let me summarize: Find the method, find the teacher, set the goal. All are easy to understand, all are hard to do, and most people won't do any of them. "NATURAL does not come NATURALLY." There are few so-called geniuses; most are the result of training. Churchill's son, recalling his father, said, "People say my father was a genius at impromptu speeches; that's because he spent the best part of his life memorizing drafts." The training process has no drama; people don't like to show that side. So, some people seem to be great for no reason, unattainable. Don't believe it; it doesn't exist. It's large doses of training that widen the gap between people. Michelangelo said, "If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful." I love Michelangelo's works, but I envy da Vinci's mind even more, and he was more elegant and refined. Da Vinci despised Michelangelo and his ilk—sculptors who did manual labor, dirty work. But in reality, to study human anatomy, he dissected over 30 corpses, from pregnant women to infants to naturally deceased old people, his hands stained with the blood of Florentines. This is what they mean by "those better than you work harder than you." Despair, right? Neuroscientists used MRI equipment to study brain changes in subjects before and after taking the London taxi driver license exam. To cope with London's insanely complex streets and the strict examination, subjects needed extensive, intensive training, eventually becoming human GPS. The results showed that extensive training physically changes the brain's structure: high-intensity training causes corresponding areas to continuously connect, grow, and strengthen, like muscles. Practice can reshape the brain's circuits and connections, changing its physical state. This experiment validates the saying, "You are not finding yourself, you are creating yourself." It truly is processing and shaping the brain. Conversely, if you don't keep training, does the brain also physically shrink? Could mindless entertainment like Qing dynasty dramas or Korean dramas cause intelligence to decline until you can't take care of yourself? I think it's very possible.
  1. Start training: Initiation [Don't worry about conditions or timing; just start moving] In Out of Control, there are eight methods for embracing the future, one of which is "start moving." Start moving; whether there's a next step depends entirely on it. If you still can't get moving, break the task down smaller, until there's no reason not to start. When I was a kid, I set a goal of doing one push-up a day. Looking back, it makes sense; it effectively breaks through static friction. Writing a book is harder to start than writing an article.
  2. Train regularly: Habit [Don't rely on willpower; rely on habits] Training is usually not pleasant. Don't rely on willpower; it's best to turn it into a habit. Experience shows: reserve a time slot, lock it in, and at a certain time, do a certain thing, without the process of debating whether to do it or not. Typical time slots: half an hour after waking up, an hour and a half after dinner, time on the road, the end of every meeting, etc. This practice becomes a habit within two months, and maintaining a habit is easier than forming one. Gradually, you'll come to enjoy this date with yourself; you must show up, never break the appointment.
  3. Train continuously: Frequency [Create every opportunity to use it] Continuity Talent = time × method. Time brings the accumulation of continuous training. Continuous training is "connecting the dots into a line"; the line must not break, and it will magically amplify your efforts. Malcolm Gladwell, a British-Canadian of mixed Jamaican descent with a chaotic background, wrote Outliers: The Story of Success, proposing the 10,000-hour theory. The gist is: there are no geniuses; 10,000 hours of continuous training makes you successful, like Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Wu. Malcolm isn't a scholar or scientist; he's a popular science writer who sells second-hand knowledge and is good at telling stories. Behind every book he writes, you can find more authoritative academic works. For example, behind Outliers is psychologist Anders Ericsson's 1993 research report, "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance"; behind Blink is Intuition. The advantage of second-hand knowledge is that it's interesting; the disadvantage is that it's unreliable. In his book Peak, Anders Ericsson very tactfully corrected the 10,000-hour theory, calling out to Malcolm: "I didn't say that practicing 10,000 hours makes you an expert. I said they applied the method of 'deliberate practice' and practiced for a long time, averaging 10,000 hours of training. Both method and time are important." When I first started working, P&G was very down-to-earth, arranging 52 weeks of Basic In Section Training for new hires. The communication training left a deep impression. At that time, I adhered to the spirit of "believe first, understand later; build strong fortresses, fight stubborn battles." I pedaled a tricycle to visit small shops, doing 30 customer visits a day, 150 times a week, over 600 times a month, for three consecutive months, practicing five questioning techniques, the PSF benefit selling model, and the four-step method for handling objections over and over. Large doses of continuous training can squeeze a skill from System 2 into System 1, turning a technique into an intuitive reflex, used without thinking. That's when you've made it. Frequency and intensity are inseparable; the total work done in a certain time is a necessary condition for skill development. But continuous training needs a set cycle. I suggest 3 months per skill block, at most half a year. Longer periods are not conducive to persistence and can easily lead to slack.
  4. Train hard: Intensity [What makes you comfortable won't improve you] Intensity If I could emphasize only one thing, it would be intensity. Intensity is the core of training, but for a long time, I couldn't get it right. Let me give two examples from physical training:
  • My running performance isn't good; I've never broken 4 hours in a full marathon, not as good as many old folks. The problem is I like running LSD (Long Slow Distance). It's easy to feel good while running, "Today I ran 15 kilometers again," and it's also exhilarating. For recreation, it's fine; for improving performance, it's not very useful. The good method isn't running more; it's fartlek, hill repeats, short bursts where your heart rate goes above 160, somewhat like sprint training. This makes you uncomfortable and can't be sustained for long. If you can sustain it, the intensity isn't high enough. What makes you comfortable won't improve you.
  • Strength training and fitness training are even clearer examples. A high-intensity, high-density 30-minute session is far more effective than a 90-minute dragged-out session. This kind of training has strict records, no more than 30 seconds rest between sets, constantly challenging maximum loads, and no time or energy for chatting during the session. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a light-equipment version of this, between aerobic and anaerobic, very reliable, especially suitable for friends who want to lose weight. You can look it up. Increasing intensity means increasing training volume in a limited time. This is one of the experts' secrets, and it fits the characteristics of secrets: it's clearly displayed in front of the masses, telling them this is the secret, telling them it's especially important, but the masses still just chuckle and pass by. That's the expert's secret. When discussing how to measure intensity, I found it difficult to clearly explain what counts as increasing intensity. Applying benchmarking analysis: "If you feel the intensity is too much, then it's just right."
  1. Train mindfully: Focus [Mental concentration is the best fuel] Concentration Training mindfully and with focus may have benefits beyond the training itself; this practice is a benefit in itself.
  • Bandwidth is limited; do one thing at a time. In each training session, focus your attention on the task at hand, regardless of the type of skill training. For this reason, I changed my habit of listening to audio programs during physical training. I used to think it was parallel tasking that improved efficiency; after practice, I found that focused training is much more effective. "Injecting consciousness into the training area" makes a big difference. The best state is to use consciousness to control a specific muscle group during training, focusing on the force, which allows you to achieve the expected training effect in 20% of the time.
  • Experience the inner calm during training and the joy of deeply doing one thing. If you're lucky, you might enter a state of flow. Canadian scholar Slingerland, in his book Trying Not to Try, interprets Zhuangzi's "Cook Ding Carves an Ox" as a state of flow: an immersive state where you concentrate effortlessly, forgetting yourself and time in the training. In the face of such a wonderful feeling, ability improvement is just a byproduct. Runners can experience a drug-like happiness between 5 and 15 kilometers, which is the effect of endorphins. This is the common mechanism behind exercise addiction, drug addiction, and flow states.
  • An American piano tuner wrote a book called The Practice of Practice, which is quite verbose, but it has a 4S viewpoint worth sharing: Simplify, Small, Short, Slow. Literally, it's not hard to understand: during training, simplify the content, use small modules, don't be too wordy, and interestingly, slow. The author believes that this "slow" allowed him to enter a self-forgetful state during training, probably flow. It seems time is slow, but in reality, it doesn't take long, and efficiency is high. You can try it, even just slowing down your tooth brushing to experience "slow."
  1. Upgrade training: Breakthrough [Beyond arm's reach, within ability] People's intuition is that as long as you keep doing something, you'll accumulate something, which brings improvement, and over time, you'll shine. The fact is, mere repetition does little for improvement. Relying on simple repetition can get you to the proficient level, but never to expert. Let me explain three concepts: 1) Comfort zone: what you're good at now; 2) Learning zone: what you're not good at but can work on; 3) Panic zone: where your legs shake and you pee your pants. The principle is: leave the comfort zone, enter the learning zone, and avoid the panic zone. Leave the comfort zone. After working in a position for a while, when you can naturally complete most tasks, you start to enter the "comfort zone." In the comfort zone, almost everything you do is repetitive. No matter how many times you accumulate such work, it won't improve your ability. That is, this state meets job requirements but won't make you an industry expert. Enter the learning zone. The brain, like the body, changes most rapidly in response to challenges at the "sweet spot" just outside the comfort zone. This is similar to the goal-setting principle in business management: "beyond arm's reach, within ability." Antifragile provides an explanation: individual cells like stability, the whole organism craves balance, and the human body tries its best to remain unchanged. As long as physical exercise isn't strenuous enough to disrupt the body's homeostatic mechanisms, it basically won't cause physiological changes, unless the exercise pushes the body beyond the limits that homeostasis can compensate for. The body responds to changes by raising different genes in the cells' DNA. These "awakened" genes enhance various biochemical systems within the cells, which change cell behavior, forcing them out of their "comfort zone." We use the body's desire to restore balance to drive change: exercise that leaves the comfort zone makes the body strive to adapt, making the body stronger to regain balance, thus establishing a new comfort zone. Antifragile is a good book; it's worth reading. The process of moving from the comfort zone to the learning zone can be compared to a hermit crab: when it develops to a certain stage, it needs to change to a larger shell to grow. It changes shells repeatedly to keep growing. If it doesn't change shells, it can stop growing and stay that size, just like staying in the comfort zone and not growing. Avoid the panic zone. Friends who have been ambushed while skiing can best understand what the panic zone is; it can easily make you give up the sport entirely. The principle is: it's better to be conservative in the learning zone than to hurt your hard-won training enthusiasm. Let me summarize:
  • Get moving, keep going: initiation, habit;
  • Train well, master quickly: frequency, intensity, focus;
  • Don't stop, keep moving forward: breakthrough. Learning and training won't be easy topics. Compared to learning habits, techniques aren't that important. Recently, many people say: "I've heard many good principles, yet still fail to live a good life." This isn't hard to understand. Listening is useless. Break through static friction, get moving, and practice any good principle, and you might live a good life. Source: Wei Zhi -END-