Decoding Greatness (book)

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: Mastery

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas How to decode greatness:

1. Become a collector - identity greatness in others and capture their inputs. Collect in an a way that would be easy to later use as a study resource.
2. Spot the difference - pinpoint what makes your "mentors" unique, what separates experts from the rest (aka novices)
3. Think in blueprints - breakdown those differences into more abstract "recipes", blueprints, systems or rules for success. The essence behind their greatness converted into a usable method.
4. Don't mimic, evolve - don't just copy, make it your own. Imbue it with your skills and perspective, modify, add and remove as you see fit.
5. Embrace the vision-ability gap - at first you will fail a lot, that's a good thing. Keep your bar high while maintaining motivation knowing that it takes time to improve, but at least you know where you want to go.
6. Keep score selectively - track your progress over time, gather feedback and be hold accountable, to verify that you remain on the right track and achieve your goals.
7. Take risk out of risk taking - do small experiments. Use pseudonyms, work on several ideas simultaneously. Don't overcommit before you see that what you produce is valuable (to yourself and others)
8. Distrust comfort - don't get "used" to what you do, keep on changing, evolving and increasing the bar of what you do. We evolve best when we are challenged.
9. Harness the future and the past - reflect on past performances, distill insights, and prepare for future performances in advance. Imagine possible scenarios and counteract it before it happens.
10. Ask wisely - filter feedback and convert it into useful actionable growth. Remember that some feedback is just noise. It has to be specific, growth oriented, and actionable.

🗒️Relate

⛓ Life lessons, action items

🔍Critique

✅ by following this method, what will happen?

1. Faster, better learner - by decoding greatness and learning from others, which could improve much better and faster that we have ever could on our own

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... There are some small sections that are more directed towards business managers, but this is still a useful book for everyone to read.

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... Despite having read several "how to be better at x" books so far, this book is very refreshing, extensive and useful. It combines beautifully several different approaches into a single coherent method. I like it's systematical thinking, the way it deconstructs training and improving into clear actionable steps.

It's nuance such that many of the simple answers to why he might be wrong and what's problematic with those approaches are answered. For example, he emphasize copying others, but also adds that copying will only get you so far, and you have to add your own uniqueness to what you do.

Small problems with the structure is that in the end it doesn't always match the principles shown in the book. Perhaps a "theoretical background" as the first part, and then a chapter per principle would have been better. For example I'm slightly confused as to why the third section is called "the vision ability gap" when it's just a small principle which is unmentioned later in the section. Also the "how to talk to experts" deals also with "how to listen to common feedback", clearly a chapter that could have been separated in half.

📒 Notes

Introduction Introduction

globalization has caused the world to shrink, turning the whole world into a single competitive market. Now it's a "winner takes all" situation, where the first to outshine others wins it all, and the rest are destroyed creative destruction.

In this world it's essential to sharpen your competitive advantage, this can only be done through lifelong learning, but most importantly learning through others by reverse engineering their ideas imitation. To tear their ideas apart, identity the essence and the unique contribution of each component, and add your own value and make something new.

It's important to balance between imitation and originality. If you're just imitating you don't add any value so you are just a worse alternative than your competitor. If you are "too original", people won't know how to evaluate you, you need a level of familiarity Moderation.

Introduction

• how do you achieve that level of success? One major piece of the puzzle involves cultivating the ability to learn quickly so that you can continue to master new skills. (Location 130)
• copying or over-relying on established recipes is a losing strategy that rarely results in memorable outcomes. Just as dangerous, however, is ignoring proven formulas altogether and overwhelming audiences with a flood of originality. (Location 188)

The Art of Unlocking Hidden Patterns

The Mastery Detectives

There are three sources of competence:

1. Raw talent - what we are born with luck
2. Practice - developing our skills by practicing them again and again Practice beats talent
3. Imitation - to learn from others

Imitation can start as something as simple as copy work, doing exactly what others have done without changing anything. This alone can open us to how the experts see the world, why did they make certain choices, and what a good output can look like. It gives perspective and direction to explore.

The most important thing to get from copying the experts is the underling aspects. Like learning chords from songs, ingredients from recipes, and principles from coding pattern recognition. This is what would transform mindless copying to learning and being able to create something new transferred learning.

It's not the copying itself per say that leads to creativity, but what we learn from it. It breaks our default way of thinking, providing a new way of looking at things clean slate.

It also makes it easier to get better quickly because we can learn lessons that took much time, effort and resources to learn in a quick way Upfront costs. Also, looking at other's work is much more likely to promote creativity and originality because we can hardly do anything original by ourselves. We need peer support to get better, we need diversity because today the requirements to be innovative are so high that no one person can do it alone complexity

The Mastery Detectives

• To reverse engineer is to look beyond what is evident on the surface and find a hidden structure—one that reveals both how an object was designed and, more important, how it can be re-created. (Location 226)
• observing the greats opens your mind to fresh possibilities. (Location 337)
• Successful entrepreneurs also excel at something else: pattern recognition. They possess an extraordinary capacity for identifying profitable opportunities by linking successes they’ve observed in the past with changes now taking place in the market. (Location 380)
• creativity comes from blending ideas, not isolation. When we’re exposed to new ideas and fresh perspectives, we are at our most generative. This is why one of the best predictors of creativity is openness to experience. Those who actively seek out novelty, embrace curiosity, and plunge down rabbit holes are far more creative than those who shut themselves off from the outside world. (Location 478)
• originality is not the same thing as creativity. Often, those who introduce new concepts are locked into certain ways of thinking, preventing them from identifying important and novel applications for their “original” ideas. (Location 481)
• the alternative to reverse engineering isn’t originality. It’s operating with intellectual blinders. (Location 489)
• replicating a work won’t result in creativity. It’s afterward that the real magic happens. (Location 517)
• there is a price to working in isolation. Invariably, we find ourselves considering fewer options, recycling the same tired ideas again and again, or falling back on familiar solutions that have worked in the past. (Location 525)
• Far from making us unoriginal, copying breaks the spell. It challenges our assumptions, relaxes our cognitive constraints, and opens us up to new perspectives. (Location 529)

Algorithmic Thinking

AI is good at making predictions and identifying connections we aren't aware of. Through our behavior they can detect preferences that are even hidden from us.

To recognize valuable patterns and separate them from the noise, we first need to collect data, and lots of it. Having many examples would make learning much easier practice beats perfection. In our case, collecting examples means finding experts who will show you the way. This will solve the inherent problem about practice till improvement. You can practice an idea you are not familiar with.

Therefore improvement is all about sampling, finding the right examples to learn from. For example, being a writer without reading a lot is prone to failure. Only through learning from successful writers will you be able to improve Survivors Bias.

To detect patterns we also need to Zoom out, to go up the ladder of abstraction and try to see the commonalities. One way of abstraction is quantification, to find measurable metrics that will help you compare between different contents. Another option is qualitative, like writing the outline of an existing content. To identify the logical structure behind the argument, the methods used.

Together you will be able to not only figure out how these examples differ from one another, but hopefully also understand why they are like that. For example, showing that a successful presenter spends most of his time on jokes and anecdotes will not only help you outline a better presentation, but also glean into the power of storytelling and appealing to emotions rather than logic for persuasion.

Algorithmic Thinking

• Because the first step to achieving mastery is recognizing mastery in others. (Location 623)
• You can’t practice an idea you’ve never considered. The best ideas don’t emerge from hours of isolated practice. They’re waiting to be found inside the work of masters. (Location 635)
• Patterns are more easily found in quantity. The more remarkable examples you have to admire, study, and dissect, the easier it becomes for you to detect an underlying thread. (Location 641)
• detecting patterns requires abstraction. (Location 737)
• When it comes to finding patterns in works you admire, all you need is an openness to numbers and a willingness to explore. (Location 756)

The Curse of Creativity

Copying is not enough. If you just copy a formula you are bound to fail, at the least for being a lesser copy of the source. What you need is a combination of a formula and your unique insights, to adapt it as you see fit and based on your strengths and worldview skill synthesis. Two people with the same formula would have two different results.

However, don't go completely overboard with changing, too much novelty is met with fear and scorn. People prefer some familiarity Familiarity bias.

Therefore what you need is a mix of old and new.

Where do you get the "new" from? The answer is outside your expertise. You need to Experiment with new ideas and get mixed with experts from those fields weak ties. If those experts are not available, even just asking yourself "how would x do it?" Is sufficient to trigger a new way of thinking rethinking. But from there, you take it and make it your own.

When you explore, choosing what to explore is important. Similarly, choosing what not to pay attention to is also critical less is more. Don't listen to random noise that lacks true value. One way to filter out noise is see which passes the Lindy Effect, the concepts and methods that have survived a long time are very helpful even now. Similarly, rereading content could help you see those bits of wisdom in a new light repetition, and might be more beneficial than consuming something new.

The Curse of Creativity

• Copying alone is rarely enough. On the contrary, it’s one of the most reliable ways of ensuring that your work is not taken seriously. (Location 933)
• the more often a formula is used, the more predictable and less appealing it becomes. (Location 938)
• simply cloning a formula that works for someone else is ultimately a failing strategy. What you need is a formula that works to compliment your unique abilities, interests, and situation. (Location 962)
• if outright mimicry leads us nowhere and absolute novelty is met with scorn, the solution is to steer clear of both extremes. (Location 1026)
• we rarely consider changing our social circle as a tool for sparking creative ideas. We should. (Location 1127)
• Being selective about your influences is the antidote to creative homogeneity. (Location 1166)
• It’s only by deconstructing the masters and then adding a twist that we produce extraordinary results. (Location 1323)

The Vision-ability Gap

When we start imitating experts, we intentionally or unintentionally raise our bar of excellence while our capabilities are still lagging behind. This is the vision ability gap, which results in first batch trash, and the dissonance between the low quality of our output vs our high expectations causes us to quit.

The Vision-Ability Gap

• The stronger your radar for excellence, the harder it becomes to stomach mediocrity. And that’s a problem, especially when deconstructing the work of masters will invariably raise your standards. (Location 1425)
• If half of everything you encounter seems absolutely spectacular, chances are, you are not yet sufficiently attuned to what it is that you truly love. (Location 1470)

The Scoreboard Principle

To close down the gap and improve our capabilities accordingly, we need to keep score periodical review. By measuring and quantifying our inputs and outputs, we can improve much faster simply because it adds visibility to what we do. It's much harder to ignore cases of procrastination and it gives us an incentive to improve because we are now measured by what we do.

We can easily see how gamification provides us with motivation to be better and do more, the problem arises when the metrics are irrelevant or lead to wrong incentives Goodhart’s Law.

Having good metrics will allow us to improve through good habits, chunking aka breaking down tasks into small components that can be improved easily. Furthermore, they can help us gain immediate feedback with being reliant on someone else, and see which indicators are more relevant in terms of lag or leading factors to success.

To avoid the problem of inverse incentives, we need metrics that are:

1. Diverse - have several metrics, best of different kinds (long/short term, quantitative/qualitative, etc) Multitrack
2. Completing - add negative metrics as well, things you want to avoid
3. Evolving - change your metrics over time based on your situation, goals and needs

The Scoreboard Principle

• Once you start collecting performance metrics, anything that doesn’t contribute to a desired outcome becomes impossible to ignore. (Location 1562)
• humans—regardless of their age, gender, or culture—are born with three basic psychological needs: the need for belonging, autonomy, and competence. It’s the last of the three that growing scores appeal to—the basic human desire for learning, skill acquisition, and mastery. By signaling progress and illustrating achievement, metrics satisfy our instinctive drive for growth. (Location 1600)
• In the real world, there are infinite paths to success. And the first step to winning is becoming clear on the points you’re trying to score in the first place. (Location 1749)
• It’s not enough to track positive behaviors and outcomes. The ideal scoreboard tracks both the measures we hope to boost as well as those we need to minimize. (Location 1865)

How to Take the risk out of risk Taking

We know that failure and challenge are necessary for growth Obstacles as stepping stones learning should be hard, but our workplaces are the opposite of a growth inducive environment. It lacks immediate quality feedback, acceptance of failure and risk taking, and emphasis on growth and tailor made challenges.

The key to improvement through reduction of risks while still taking chances:

1. Mini experiments - start small, to create a few easy "cheap" products/content to test out, only to get crucial feedback and learn while the costs are still low, so that you can improve better when you go big.
2. Use pseudonyms - who we are is a type of path dependence. By embracing a new identity we have a clean slate and are able to test freely, both from others and ours cognitive distancing. change starts from the inside out.
3. Tasting - there is no value in seeking perfection if you create something nobody wants. First ask people and seek their preferences.
4. Diversify - don't pull all your eggs in a single basket. Diversify your options by creating different forms of content, or evolve over time

How to Take the Risk Out of Risk Taking

• we learn best when we’re challenged in ways that stretch the limits of our current abilities. (Location 1941)
• the key to improvement involves gathering feedback from a tiny segment of a population, minimizing risk, and using the input to make ongoing adjustments. (Location 2031)
• pseudonyms allow companies to experiment with new products and identities without assuming huge risk. (Location 2107)
• There are times, however, when we would be better off postponing the pursuit of excellence in favor of first confirming that our approach is one that others crave. (Location 2172)

Practicing in Three Dimensions

What differs experts and novices:

1. Intuition - experts are better at filtering information, both identifying crucial cues that seem irrelevant, and removing noise intuition. They think more about less things.
2. Hardware - due to Neuroplasticity, our brain adapts over time to be better at what they are doing. So not only that we have access to better information, we can also process it better.
3. Reflective practice - experts are more likely to reflect and evaluate past performance. For example, Journaling is a good practice that allows for reflection and processing of events, emotions and actions introspection.
4. Pre mortem - it's useful to imagine in advance what is your goal, how you can achieve it, and which obstacles you might face along the way Pre-Mortem. Using this visualization technique you can prepare in advance mentally, emotionally, and logistically to future challenges. Even 10 minutes is enough.
5. Diverse difficulty - habit formation is the enemy of mastery. If something becomes automated, we are less mindful and focused while doing it, which could make out weaknesses permeant. We instead have constantly change our training. Either train in a new way, increase the difficulty, or combine it with another field.

Practicing in Three Dimensions

• Years of experience have taught experts to quickly distinguish relevant from irrelevant cues, enabling them to home in on just the bits of data that are worth evaluating. Their attention is highly selective, focusing on a small number of essential cues. (Location 2305)
• reflective practice prompts us to do something we rarely do over the course of the workday: pause and consider our progress. In so doing, we are briefly jolted awake, freed from the fog of mindless reactivity and routine habits, and made to examine the value of our actions. (Location 2414)
• mentally simulating a task helps you identify obstacles before you encounter them. (Location 2545)
• Working on our weaknesses is unpleasant, stressful, and hard. But it’s a process that does something crucial for skill development: it breaks the spell of automaticity. (Location 2649)

How to Talk to Experts

Experts are usually bad teachers. They are often so many levels above us that they forget what it's like to be us. They suffer from the curse of knowledge, unable to imagine themselves otherwise. Another problem is that the majority of their expertise has been converted to intuition so they are unaware of what a novice needs to know, and what makes them experts.

To make their expertise a bit more visible and understandable, we could ask:

1. Journey questions - what resources you used to be where you are? Which points are crucial?
2. Process questions - how do you approach planning? What steps do you take?
3. Discovery questions - what is your motivation for doing what you do? Which parts of what you been through are irrelevant or you would have skipped if you could?

When receiving feedback, especially from non-expert crowed, we have to make sure it meets the criteria for useful feedback, otherwise it's just noise:

1. Specific - general comments offer nothing of value, what exactly was good/bad?
2. Improvement focused - how can I do better advice is more important than what went wrong
3. Aware of our context - who are we aiming at? What is our goal?
4. Properly timed - it needs actionable insights right now, otherwise it's just "too little too late"

How to Talk to Experts

• We tend to assume that high performers are keenly aware of the skills that set them apart and possess the ability to impart that knowledge to anyone they choose. Neither of those assumptions is true. (Location 2769)
• not all feedback is valid, insightful, or instructive. (Location 2986)
• when it comes to feedback, quantity is not the same as quality. (Location 3067)
• To improve, we need feedback that meets a particular set of criteria. We need it to be specific, improvement-focused, reflective of the audience we are trying to reach, and properly timed. (Location 3094)
• Adopting a long-term perspective reminds us that we still have time to improve, that not getting this one task right doesn’t define who we are. (Location 3138)

Stumbling on Greatness

How to decode greatness:

1. Become a collector - identity greatness in others and capture their inputs. Collect in an a way that would be easy to later use as a study resource.
2. Spot the difference - pinpoint what makes your "mentors" unique, what separates experts from the rest (aka novices)
3. Think in blueprints - breakdown those differences into more abstract "recipes", blueprints, systems or rules for success. The essence behind their greatness converted into a usable method.
4. Don't mimic, evolve - don't just copy, make it your own. Imbue it with your skills and perspective, modify, add and remove as you see fit.
5. Embrace the vision-ability gap - at first you will fail a lot, that's a good thing. Keep your bar high while maintaining motivation knowing that it takes time to improve, but at least you know where you want to go.
6. Keep score selectively - track your progress over time, gather feedback and be hold accountable, to verify that you remain on the right track and achieve your goals.
7. Take risk out of risk taking - do small experiments. Use pseudonyms, work on several ideas simultaneously. Don't overcommit before you see that what you produce is valuable (to yourself and others)
8. Distrust comfort - don't get "used" to what you do, keep on changing, evolving and increasing the bar of what you do. We evolve best when we are challenged.
9. Harness the future and the past - reflect on past performances, distill insights, and prepare for future performances in advance. Imagine possible scenarios and counteract it before it happens.
10. Ask wisely - filter feedback and convert it into useful actionable growth. Remember that some feedback is just noise. It has to be specific, growth oriented, and actionable.