Missed Opportunities for Deliberate Practice

We often focus deliberate practice on our hobbies, like sports or music, but rarely apply the same effort to our professional skills.

"Practice makes perfect." We've all heard it, but what if that's only half the truth? It's not just any practice that leads to mastery—it's deliberate practice that propels us to greatness. Repetition alone is not enough.

That's the conclusion drawn from the extensive research of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. While there is debate continues over the roles of natural talent versus deliberate practice, one thing is clear: focused, intentional practice is essential to becoming an expert in any field.

Definitions vary, but I believe the most important parts of deliberate practice are:

1. A focus on weaknesses or specific improvements
2. Timely feedback

Deliberate Practice Differs From Regular Practice

It's about breaking down a skill and tackling the toughest parts head-on. Think of a pianist who doesn't just play the whole piece over and over but hones in on the trickiest sections. This isn't just mindless repetition.

Tighter and Faster Feedback Loops

Feedback is another big piece of the puzzle. You can't get better if you don't know what you're doing wrong. Without quick feedback, you might end up reinforcing bad habits. In sports and music, feedback is instant—you miss a note or fumble a pass, and you know right away. This doesn't apply to areas like investing. Warren Buffett got around this by digging into old newspapers and practicing investment decisions based on historical data. That way, he didn't have to wait years to see if his strategies worked.

You can also gain a competitive edge by taking deliberate practice way further than others would. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo's teammates used to mock him him for practicing stepovers with weights on his feet. But those weighted drills upped his speed significantly in real games.

Even traits we consider "natural" can be honed through deliberate practice. Steve Jobs is a great example. He wasn't always as charismatic as we remember him. Before college, people saw him as shy and reserved. He eventually shed his old self through years of practice on seemingly trivial details like resisting the urge to break eye contact.

Sure, some skills are tougher to practice deliberately, but it's not impossible. It takes a level of creativity to self-engineer practice even when feedback isn’t immediate and progress feels slow. I think it's kinda fun to keep a list of examples (so if you have any to add, send them my way!); some are listed below.

Deliberate Practice Examples

• Richard Feynman: The Feynman technique is a prime example of deliberate practice. By explaining a concept in simple terms, you quickly identify gaps in your understanding (immdediate feedback), you can then re-study on those weaknesses, and repeat the process.
• John Schulman: In his guide to ML research, he said that the main ways to build knowledge in ML is to read textbooks/papers and then reimplement those algorithms. This has immediate feedback because it will show which parts of the algorithm you don't yet understand.
• Celine Halioua: During fundraising, she constantly iterated her pitch to achieve a high conversion rate. The feedback she used was body language, and what specific phrases caused people to be excited, lose interest, get bored, get engaged, etc.
• Warren Buffett: To practice value investing, he read old newspapers and tested investment strategies on historical data, which allowed him to refine his methods without the long wait for real-time results.
• Cristiano Ronaldo: By practicing stepovers with weights on his feet, he enhanced his speed and agility, turning a mocked training method into a game-changing skill.
• Steve Jobs: He worked on building his confidence and charisma by maintaining unwavering eye contact during conversations, which apparently helped him to go from shy to the confidence/arrogance he's famous for.