tiny_brain_energy's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content: ****
Length: ***
Writing: ****
Length: ***
Writing: ****
victorfrank's review
5.0
An insanely useful trove of immediately actionable tools & deep insights conveyed through memorable stories of the greats
Did you know that Barack Obama used to be terrible at public speaking? That Stan Lee almost quit writing comics around age 40? That after a slump and injury, Roger Federer took almost a year off to revamp his entire game to become the greatest of all time? Well I did not, which is part of why I enjoyed "Decoding Greatness" enough to have read it twice already!
But the even bigger reason for my enthusiasm for the book is its giant trove of deep, sometimes counterintuitive, always actionable insights about how you, too, can achieve world-class results. This is a book about reverse engineering success — also known as emulating those who are great at what they do so you can get similar results. Friedman expertly structures the book to make its life-altering information easy to digest, reference, and implement.
Heck, I've already implemented not one but *two* of its suggestions (and it's still the release day). For one, if journaling is good enough for Thomas Edison, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams, I figure it's good enough for me. So I just acquired my first-ever 5-year journal. I'll also be tracking my own performance in various realms to find more "leading indicators."
Some other super-useful techniques:
• Reverse outlining: To write a great article or book, read then break down the structure of the best works in the genre. Then, emulate that structure.
• Totally new stuff tends to bomb; people actually prefer the familiar. So for maximum creative success, you want "optimal newness" -- something that's "derivative with a twist."
• Visualization is miraculously effective! Just make sure you visualize the whole process of doing the thing. If you just visualize standing on the damn podium, that's actually counterproductive. Optimal dose: 20min/day.
• Reflective practice: This is so huge. “We’ve been taught that education occurs from the outside in—that learning happens through exposure to new information. But that’s only half the equation. Reviewing past events with an eye for insights, patterns, and predictions is how we turn experience into wisdom.”
I also appreciate all the tools that Friedman casually drops in that I had no idea existed. Want to see all the chord progressions for any pop song? Get the Capo 3 app! All the parts of every car in the world? The A2Mac1 website has you covered! And then there's the epic, word-by-word breakdown of the late Sir Ken Robinson's greatest TED talk of all time.
Of course, there's even more in there: the science of giving and receiving useful feedback; cognitive task analysis; how to interview an expert to get actually useful information (harder than you think); and my favorite — pressure acclimatization training, as exemplified by speed cuber Dan Knights and basketball god Stephen Curry.
As a coach, therapist, and performer, I'm a huge fan of the literature of high performance, and this book is now one of my favorites. Implementing any one of its dozens of science-backed ideas is bound to measurably improve your game. Do more than that, and who knows how far you'll go! "Re-read great books often", another of the book's recommendations, is one I'll be applying to this one regularly. Get one copy for yourself and one for the favorite budding performer in your life.
-- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer and author of [b: The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible|33977456|The Tao of Dating The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible|Ali Binazir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485248157l/33977456._SY75_.jpg|13580088], the highest-rated dating book on Amazon, and [b: Should I Go to Medical School?: An Irreverent Guide to the Pros and Cons of a Career in Medicine|34099644|Should I Go to Medical School An Irreverent Guide to the Pros and Cons of a Career in Medicine|Ali Binazir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1486004834l/34099644._SY75_.jpg|55119946]
Did you know that Barack Obama used to be terrible at public speaking? That Stan Lee almost quit writing comics around age 40? That after a slump and injury, Roger Federer took almost a year off to revamp his entire game to become the greatest of all time? Well I did not, which is part of why I enjoyed "Decoding Greatness" enough to have read it twice already!
But the even bigger reason for my enthusiasm for the book is its giant trove of deep, sometimes counterintuitive, always actionable insights about how you, too, can achieve world-class results. This is a book about reverse engineering success — also known as emulating those who are great at what they do so you can get similar results. Friedman expertly structures the book to make its life-altering information easy to digest, reference, and implement.
Heck, I've already implemented not one but *two* of its suggestions (and it's still the release day). For one, if journaling is good enough for Thomas Edison, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams, I figure it's good enough for me. So I just acquired my first-ever 5-year journal. I'll also be tracking my own performance in various realms to find more "leading indicators."
Some other super-useful techniques:
• Reverse outlining: To write a great article or book, read then break down the structure of the best works in the genre. Then, emulate that structure.
• Totally new stuff tends to bomb; people actually prefer the familiar. So for maximum creative success, you want "optimal newness" -- something that's "derivative with a twist."
• Visualization is miraculously effective! Just make sure you visualize the whole process of doing the thing. If you just visualize standing on the damn podium, that's actually counterproductive. Optimal dose: 20min/day.
• Reflective practice: This is so huge. “We’ve been taught that education occurs from the outside in—that learning happens through exposure to new information. But that’s only half the equation. Reviewing past events with an eye for insights, patterns, and predictions is how we turn experience into wisdom.”
I also appreciate all the tools that Friedman casually drops in that I had no idea existed. Want to see all the chord progressions for any pop song? Get the Capo 3 app! All the parts of every car in the world? The A2Mac1 website has you covered! And then there's the epic, word-by-word breakdown of the late Sir Ken Robinson's greatest TED talk of all time.
Of course, there's even more in there: the science of giving and receiving useful feedback; cognitive task analysis; how to interview an expert to get actually useful information (harder than you think); and my favorite — pressure acclimatization training, as exemplified by speed cuber Dan Knights and basketball god Stephen Curry.
As a coach, therapist, and performer, I'm a huge fan of the literature of high performance, and this book is now one of my favorites. Implementing any one of its dozens of science-backed ideas is bound to measurably improve your game. Do more than that, and who knows how far you'll go! "Re-read great books often", another of the book's recommendations, is one I'll be applying to this one regularly. Get one copy for yourself and one for the favorite budding performer in your life.
-- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer and author of [b: The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible|33977456|The Tao of Dating The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible|Ali Binazir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485248157l/33977456._SY75_.jpg|13580088], the highest-rated dating book on Amazon, and [b: Should I Go to Medical School?: An Irreverent Guide to the Pros and Cons of a Career in Medicine|34099644|Should I Go to Medical School An Irreverent Guide to the Pros and Cons of a Career in Medicine|Ali Binazir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1486004834l/34099644._SY75_.jpg|55119946]
ryangoodyear's review
4.0
4.5 out of 5 stars, fun read, and I really appreciated how it didn't simply cite and rephrase other contemporary pop-sci books. It discusses some actions that experts take early in their careers, including collecting from a wide variety of sources (same domain and other domains) and how they use visualization and feedback to improve. It looks at how and why many experts make for terrible teachers, and good questions to ask experts.
Gems:
P4 Judd Apatow’s radio station “con” to interview comedians
P23 “The process of copying--of carefully analyzing a particular work, deconstructing its key components, and rebuilding it anew--is a transformative mental exercise that does wonders for our thinking. Unlike the experience we get when we passively consume a word, copying demands that we pay meticulous attention, prompting us to reflect on both subtle details and unexpected techniques.”
P30 “view themselves not as master craftsmen but as collectors”
P49 ‘Overstimulation can contribute to the experience of anxiety. And anxiety is the enemy of simplicity.”
Pg 66 “being proudly selective about the information you consume and intentionally excluding influences”
P83 “What nobody tells people who are beginners--and I really wish someone had told this to me--is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phrase. They quit.” - Ira Glass
P88 Sturgeon’s Law - 90% of everything is crap
P95 “Simply put, metrics motivate. They lead to better decisions, great consistency, fewer distractions, and emotional investment. This is the scoreboard principle: measurement begets improvement. Which is why the first step to improving at anything, whether it be losing weight, acquiring a new skill, or mastering a formula you’ve reverse engineered, begins with relentlessly keeping score.”
P98 vanity metrics i.e. annual revenue, total website visits
P101 “At most workplaces, few people monitor their own behavior with any regularity.”
P105 Ben Franklin tracked 13 virtues
P107 “If there is one finding that the science of expertise considers sacrosanct, it’s that immediate feedback is vital to improvement. And the more rapid the feedback, the quicker we learn. That’s because objective data don’t just help us assess the quality of our performance--they contain important clues about the adjustments we need to make to be successful.”
P109 leading indicators of a successful day - Cal Newport noticed hours of unbroken concentration
P112 surrogation. “Occurs when people become so consumed with hitting a number that they forget the outcome that number is intended to promote.”
P119 “...the cost of workplace failure tends to be substantial. Most managers show little tolerance for mistakes, no matter how well intentioned, and penalize those who make them. Unlike the fields of sports, music, and education, where there exists a profound appreciation that learning occurs through experimentation and feedback, the world of work is consumed with instant, reliable results.”
P141 “Enhanced anticipation is a common feature of expertise.”
P151 use a 5-year journal
P152 “Research tells us that memory is not the precise, enduring snapshot of events that we like to think it is. Rather, it decays with time, is subject to a host of cognitive biases, and changes slightly each time we recall an event. None of these deficiencies applies to written entries, making journals a far superior tool for learning from the past and improving our predictions of the future.”
P156 “Why would visualizing a positive outcome lead to a worse grade? The emotional payoff we experience when we imagine ourselves achieving a desired result diminishes our appetite for doing the work necessary to be successful. We’re temporarily sated, even when we’re logically aware that the entire experience is a fantasy. Yet that’s not the case when our mental simulation is focused on process. Mentally rehearsing the specific actions we need to take in advance reliably elevates our performance.”
P160 “Practicing at a reduced level of difficulty has serious consequences, a number of which are counter-productive.”
P162 brain region specifics:
At first, complex behaviors require the attention of the cerebral cortex.
Basal ganglia and cerebellum are used once we grow more familiar with certain actions
P174 “The curse of knowledge also leads many qualified professionals, particularly those embarking on new roles, to undervalue their skills. A common experiences among new consultants, for example, is the happy discovery that they actually know a lot more than they initially assumed. It’s not because they’ve spontaneously sprouted new abilities. It’s because they’re comparing themselves to experts they worked with or studied in the past. Their clients don’t share that experience. They’re too consumed with their own industry to be nearly as knowledgeable and are often delighted with insights that a new consultant may (naively) dismiss as obvious.”
P175 “Experts leave out a staggering 70% of the steps required to succeed, because they rarely think about them.” Later in the book, it’s pointed out that if you ask 3 experts, only 10% of the steps will be left out.
P176-177 “[experts] can’t help communicating in ways that novices find overwhelming. Years of experience have taught them to shrink extraordinarily complicated ideas into time-saving abstractions. They also toss around specialized jargon that feels second nature to them and sounds like gobbledygook to everyone else.”
P178 types of questions to ask experts:
journey questions: help to unearth a roadmap for success as well as remind the expert of their experience as a novice
process questions: drills down on specific steps
discovery questions: focus experts on their initial expectations and invite them to compare those naïve beliefs with what they know today
Gems:
P4 Judd Apatow’s radio station “con” to interview comedians
P23 “The process of copying--of carefully analyzing a particular work, deconstructing its key components, and rebuilding it anew--is a transformative mental exercise that does wonders for our thinking. Unlike the experience we get when we passively consume a word, copying demands that we pay meticulous attention, prompting us to reflect on both subtle details and unexpected techniques.”
P30 “view themselves not as master craftsmen but as collectors”
P49 ‘Overstimulation can contribute to the experience of anxiety. And anxiety is the enemy of simplicity.”
Pg 66 “being proudly selective about the information you consume and intentionally excluding influences”
P83 “What nobody tells people who are beginners--and I really wish someone had told this to me--is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phrase. They quit.” - Ira Glass
P88 Sturgeon’s Law - 90% of everything is crap
P95 “Simply put, metrics motivate. They lead to better decisions, great consistency, fewer distractions, and emotional investment. This is the scoreboard principle: measurement begets improvement. Which is why the first step to improving at anything, whether it be losing weight, acquiring a new skill, or mastering a formula you’ve reverse engineered, begins with relentlessly keeping score.”
P98 vanity metrics i.e. annual revenue, total website visits
P101 “At most workplaces, few people monitor their own behavior with any regularity.”
P105 Ben Franklin tracked 13 virtues
P107 “If there is one finding that the science of expertise considers sacrosanct, it’s that immediate feedback is vital to improvement. And the more rapid the feedback, the quicker we learn. That’s because objective data don’t just help us assess the quality of our performance--they contain important clues about the adjustments we need to make to be successful.”
P109 leading indicators of a successful day - Cal Newport noticed hours of unbroken concentration
P112 surrogation. “Occurs when people become so consumed with hitting a number that they forget the outcome that number is intended to promote.”
P119 “...the cost of workplace failure tends to be substantial. Most managers show little tolerance for mistakes, no matter how well intentioned, and penalize those who make them. Unlike the fields of sports, music, and education, where there exists a profound appreciation that learning occurs through experimentation and feedback, the world of work is consumed with instant, reliable results.”
P141 “Enhanced anticipation is a common feature of expertise.”
P151 use a 5-year journal
P152 “Research tells us that memory is not the precise, enduring snapshot of events that we like to think it is. Rather, it decays with time, is subject to a host of cognitive biases, and changes slightly each time we recall an event. None of these deficiencies applies to written entries, making journals a far superior tool for learning from the past and improving our predictions of the future.”
P156 “Why would visualizing a positive outcome lead to a worse grade? The emotional payoff we experience when we imagine ourselves achieving a desired result diminishes our appetite for doing the work necessary to be successful. We’re temporarily sated, even when we’re logically aware that the entire experience is a fantasy. Yet that’s not the case when our mental simulation is focused on process. Mentally rehearsing the specific actions we need to take in advance reliably elevates our performance.”
P160 “Practicing at a reduced level of difficulty has serious consequences, a number of which are counter-productive.”
P162 brain region specifics:
At first, complex behaviors require the attention of the cerebral cortex.
Basal ganglia and cerebellum are used once we grow more familiar with certain actions
P174 “The curse of knowledge also leads many qualified professionals, particularly those embarking on new roles, to undervalue their skills. A common experiences among new consultants, for example, is the happy discovery that they actually know a lot more than they initially assumed. It’s not because they’ve spontaneously sprouted new abilities. It’s because they’re comparing themselves to experts they worked with or studied in the past. Their clients don’t share that experience. They’re too consumed with their own industry to be nearly as knowledgeable and are often delighted with insights that a new consultant may (naively) dismiss as obvious.”
P175 “Experts leave out a staggering 70% of the steps required to succeed, because they rarely think about them.” Later in the book, it’s pointed out that if you ask 3 experts, only 10% of the steps will be left out.
P176-177 “[experts] can’t help communicating in ways that novices find overwhelming. Years of experience have taught them to shrink extraordinarily complicated ideas into time-saving abstractions. They also toss around specialized jargon that feels second nature to them and sounds like gobbledygook to everyone else.”
P178 types of questions to ask experts:
journey questions: help to unearth a roadmap for success as well as remind the expert of their experience as a novice
process questions: drills down on specific steps
discovery questions: focus experts on their initial expectations and invite them to compare those naïve beliefs with what they know today
tcranenj's review
4.0
The cult-of-productivity title notwithstanding, this book is really a description of how people learn. If you can read past the off putting “how to boost your monthly sales” vibe that lingers beneath some chapters, there is helpful stuff here for teachers and autodidacts.
serbotec's review
5.0
Decoding the book
Optimal newness = past / creativity
Creativity = attention^2 * influence
Attention = metrics * focused influence
Influence = reverse + outside mainstream
Optimal newness = past / creativity
Creativity = attention^2 * influence
Attention = metrics * focused influence
Influence = reverse + outside mainstream
wellington299's review
4.0
As a computer programmer, I feel like a hack smashing different ideas into a Frankenstein solution. This book says this is creativity .... this is success. Big chunk of my job is finding something that works (for another problem) and make it work for me. I'm creative!
I love the conclusion with the story of Vincent Van Gogh. And the final chapter about feedback will make a lasting impression on me. A lot of the book took effort for me to pick up and read. Some books I read like I eat (inhale) like ice cream. This was not one of them.
But overall I liked the book.
I love the conclusion with the story of Vincent Van Gogh. And the final chapter about feedback will make a lasting impression on me. A lot of the book took effort for me to pick up and read. Some books I read like I eat (inhale) like ice cream. This was not one of them.
But overall I liked the book.
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