The Art of Manliness - Episode #57： Ungifted With Scotty Barry Kaufman

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00:00:48.060 All right, here's a question for you guys.

00:00:53.440 What does it mean to be gifted?

00:00:55.380 You probably, if you're like most people in America or in the West,

00:00:59.260 you probably took some test when you're in elementary school that was used to determine

00:01:03.140 whether you were a gifted student.

00:01:05.680 But what exactly was that test measuring?

00:01:08.600 And second, I mean, is that test really useful in determining future performance of a child

00:01:15.680 well into adulthood?

00:01:16.560 Well, our guest today has been studying this for most of his career.

00:01:22.840 His name is Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman.

00:01:24.460 He's a cognitive psychologist.

00:01:26.480 And his most recent book is called Ungifted, Intelligence Redefined.

00:01:30.440 And he takes a look at sort of America's, in particular, obsession with determining whether

00:01:38.060 a child is gifted or whether an adult is gifted and our obsession with IQ exams.

00:01:44.040 And, you know, he looks at what exactly are we measuring when we're taking IQ exams.

00:01:48.520 And he also challenges the idea that, you know, we shouldn't just use IQ exams to determine

00:01:53.840 the future prospects of a child, especially.

00:01:58.560 It's a fascinating book.

00:02:00.140 It's particularly interesting if you're a dad, because you might have kids who are in that,

00:02:04.980 who are taking those tests that you took when you were a kid.

00:02:07.260 And whether they get into the gifted program or they stick with the average kid,

00:02:11.460 that can have a profound effect on the rest of their life.

00:02:15.020 So we discuss all this in the podcast.

00:02:17.240 It's a really interesting, interesting one.

00:02:19.740 So stay tuned.

00:02:23.460 Well, Scott Barry Kaufman, welcome back to the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:02:27.840 Thanks.

00:02:28.640 I love chatting with you.

00:02:29.700 I actually think you're the first like repeat guest we've had.

00:02:35.000 On two very different topics.

00:02:36.740 On two very different topics.

00:02:38.360 Yeah.

00:02:38.520 For those of you, yeah, Scott, we had Scott on the show like last year, early last year

00:02:42.500 with Glenn Geer.

00:02:44.920 Yeah, that's right.

00:02:45.500 wrote mating intelligence, the co-author book called Mating Intelligence about how to, what

00:02:51.440 research says about what people find attractive in one another.

00:02:54.960 Fascinating book, fascinating podcast.

00:02:56.960 I recommend you check it out.

00:02:57.980 But today we're going to not talk about love and sex.

00:03:02.200 We're going to be talking about intelligence.

00:03:04.600 Just like, not just mating intelligence, like intelligence, like IQ stuff.

00:03:08.780 Um, so Scott, that's, that's the question though.

00:03:12.240 That's the question though.

00:03:13.160 Yeah.

00:03:13.400 What is intelligence?

00:03:15.040 What is intelligence?

00:03:16.180 So yeah, Scott, your book is ungifted and the subtitle is redefining intelligence.

00:03:21.080 Wait, the book itself is ungifted.

00:03:24.280 Yeah.

00:03:24.660 It was a horrible book.

00:03:26.660 You should be, that's the title.

00:03:28.140 Yeah.

00:03:28.340 The book, title of the book, ungifted subtitle.

00:03:30.780 I mean, maybe the book isn't ungifted.

00:03:32.720 I guess that's, that is for you to judge.

00:03:34.000 No, no, it was, it was a great book.

00:03:35.840 Cool.

00:03:36.680 Um, so it's just, you take on this idea of intelligence, like what it is, how we measure

00:03:41.440 it.

00:03:42.160 Uh, it's just, it's very comprehensive.

00:03:44.120 Um, but I want to start off talking about, uh, your personal history because you enter,

00:03:50.480 you know, you, you put that in, you inject that into the, the book throughout, right?

00:03:54.500 And basically your personal history seems like it's a lot of it's with the impetus and

00:03:58.460 what inspired the book and sort of your, uh, research and intelligence.

00:04:02.640 Um, but it, let's start off like you're, you're, you have just an extremely impressive

00:04:06.260 resume, uh, graduated from Carnegie Mellon fellowship at the university of Cambridge, PhD from

00:04:13.700 Yale.

00:04:14.000 You've, um, taught at NYU.

00:04:16.200 You've written, you know, you started a book, uh, a successful website called the creativity

00:04:20.520 post published several books.

00:04:22.640 And what's crazy too, guys, listen to this.

00:04:24.300 He's only 34 years old.

00:04:25.820 Uh, so he's done all this in a short amount of time.

00:04:28.320 Uh, well, just not a short amount of time, but just like very early in his life.

00:04:32.420 Um, but what's funny is you talk about in your book is if someone looked at you when you

00:04:37.420 were in elementary school or middle school or high school, they would probably wouldn't

00:04:42.400 think, no, Scott's not going to do any of that stuff.

00:04:44.740 He'll at best, you know, be working some sort of mindless corporate job at worst, maybe working

00:04:52.120 in retail.

00:04:53.620 Um, can you talk a bit about your childhood and adolescence in terms of, terms of schooling?

00:05:00.180 Sure.

00:05:00.600 I think that's exactly right.

00:05:01.640 And I would even go so far to say that even, even if you still measure me by traditional

00:05:05.920 metrics, you would not be able to predict what I'm actually doing.

00:05:09.780 So, um, it's, that's the paradox I've tried, been kind of like spending my whole life trying

00:05:14.600 to solve.

00:05:15.500 My early childhood, um, I had a lot of ear infections the first couple of years of my

00:05:20.540 life.

00:05:21.000 And I developed a learning disability called central auditory processing disorder, um,

00:05:27.860 which made it very hard for me to process information, process auditory input in real

00:05:32.640 time.

00:05:33.020 I mean, I would just kind of like zone out in the daydream in the classroom.

00:05:36.180 And, um, because it was hard for me to keep up to the auditory lectures. 0.83

00:05:41.660 And of course, you know, from the outside that it looks like I was, um, dumb, right?

00:05:46.740 I mean, it looks like I was not understanding anything.

00:05:49.200 It was just very hard for me to, um, to process it in real time.

00:05:53.040 And, um, I eventually outgrew or, or, or maybe, you know, maybe you never really outgrew these

00:05:59.720 things, but you, and I don't even, how do you tell anymore, you know, but I compensated

00:06:04.040 so much for these things that by fifth, sixth grade, um, I think that I was, I was yearning

00:06:10.600 for more intellectual challenges, but I was still in special education and they wouldn't

00:06:15.120 let me take more course challenging courses that I wanted to take.

00:06:19.300 And, um, really a lot of my early childhood, I had to kind of fight to display to people

00:06:25.780 what I was capable of.

00:06:27.400 Um, and, uh, and that was a lot of my early, early childhood.

00:06:31.540 So how did you make that leap from, you know, being put in special ed and being seen as sort

00:06:36.680 of on the slow track to doing all this impressive stuff?

00:06:39.400 Was there a moment that like sort of things sort of shifted for you where someone saw like

00:06:44.260 an adult saw, Hey, this person, this guy's, this kid's got potential.

00:06:47.760 Um, how did, how did things shift for you?

00:06:50.200 Yeah.

00:06:50.600 I don't know if, if they saw potential, but what they saw my frustration, there was one,

00:06:55.580 there was a teacher in ninth grade.

00:06:56.840 I was, I was kept in special education all the way up to ninth grade.

00:06:59.660 And I had to keep in mind, you know, I had a lot of catching up to do once I eventually,

00:07:03.580 um, uh, left special education, but I was sitting there in ninth grade and a teacher who

00:07:10.280 had not been there, um, prior to that day, I guess she was covering for the regular teacher.

00:07:15.240 She saw that I was like, so quickly frustrated.

00:07:18.620 I was like looking out the classroom across the hall, the biology class, they wouldn't let

00:07:23.320 me take.

00:07:24.520 And I was supposed to be taking an untimed history test.

00:07:27.200 And I clearly wasn't, wasn't paying too much attention to it.

00:07:30.700 You know, she's like, what's going on?

00:07:31.840 I was like, well, I have the rest of my life to take this test since it's untimed.

00:07:35.140 So what does it matter?

00:07:36.440 And she really, she took me aside and she, she, after class outside the class, she said,

00:07:41.960 look, why are you still here?

00:07:43.720 Um, you, have you thought about, you know, get taking your, try, trying it, you know,

00:07:48.800 without, out gifted, without, um, not gifted, without special education.

00:07:52.940 And I was, and I was like, whoa, like no one's ever like questioned.

00:07:57.280 No, I mean, it's something I intuitively wanted, but you know, we spend a lot of time in our

00:08:03.180 youth, um, accepting authority, right.

00:08:06.600 Accepting, you know, kind of like the judgment of others.

00:08:09.040 And, and this was really a pivotal moment in my life.

00:08:11.820 She really, um, caused me to question, um, whether or not I was capable of more that I,

00:08:16.780 I too, we felt as though I was capable of more, but it kind of gave me, empowered me to,

00:08:20.400 to take a stand.

00:08:21.200 And I, I didn't report to special education.

00:08:23.620 Um, I didn't report back and, uh, they let me out on a trial, trial basis.

00:08:27.700 I put that in quotes.

00:08:29.780 Um, but I went from like a CD student to straight A student and, um, you know, it's, it's amazing

00:08:35.240 the power of having something to prove that can be a great motivating force in itself.

00:08:41.340 And I was just like, so determined to prove that I, um, was, uh, could do something that,

00:08:47.800 that someone would describe as intelligent.

00:08:50.200 Yeah.

00:08:51.060 I did try it all sorts of identities.

00:08:53.100 I did all sorts of stuff.

00:08:53.960 My grandfather was a famous cellist, um, and he was retired and he, I was like, well,

00:08:58.760 you teach me how to play cellograms.

00:08:59.980 And he taught me and I joined the school orchestra.

00:09:02.120 I did, uh, choir.

00:09:03.980 I did, um, I did plays.

00:09:06.320 Um, I did became a Latin scholar.

00:09:09.600 I tried lots of identities.

00:09:11.020 I'm not going to say I was good at all these identities I tried, but the exciting thing is

00:09:14.680 that I was just given that freedom to, um, to, to try different identities, which I didn't

00:09:18.760 have that freedom prior to that moment.

00:09:20.520 Interesting.

00:09:21.240 It was funny when, as I was reading that, like I related to that.

00:09:23.960 Quite.

00:09:24.360 And I'm sure there's a lot of people who read this and like, I relate to that.

00:09:27.020 Um, you know, while I wasn't like placed in like special ed, I was just sort of like

00:09:30.460 on the average track track, right.

00:09:32.100 Because of the standardized test you take, you know, the Iowa test of basic skills or

00:09:37.420 whatever.

00:09:38.320 And I remember being really frustrated because I had friends who got to go to like enrichment

00:09:41.960 hour.

00:09:42.540 Right.

00:09:42.880 And they had to like, they had to do cool stuff, like learn about Greek architecture.

00:09:46.980 And I was like stuck, like color, you know, color by number stuff.

00:09:50.720 And I remember like, just being so like frustrated about it.

00:09:54.200 I'd go home and like, you know, research this stuff on my own.

00:09:57.220 Cause I wanted to like, I wanted that experience, but because, you know, this test says I wasn't

00:10:01.840 ready for it.

00:10:02.460 I was denied that.

00:10:03.360 And like, it wasn't until like middle school that I had just an English teacher who said,

00:10:08.600 you know, I think you should be like on the honors track.

00:10:11.800 And if like, it weren't for her, like I would like it because of that lady, like I was like

00:10:17.540 seen as the honor student now.

00:10:19.020 Like I was every class I got, I was honors and like things just really went up for me

00:10:24.080 after that.

00:10:24.500 But it was just like, I just remember being just completely frustrated that I couldn't do

00:10:28.660 this stuff because a test said I couldn't.

00:10:31.960 That's right.

00:10:32.580 We spent so much more time limiting children than offering them opportunities.

00:10:37.080 That's a, that's, that's a, it came so clear to me in my childhood.

00:10:40.640 And I don't think we're that, that far changed today.

00:10:43.940 Yeah.

00:10:44.500 Okay.

00:10:44.900 So based on your personal experience, as well as your, you know, your own research, as well

00:10:49.440 as, you know, just years of research on the topic, you make the argument in your book

00:10:53.860 Ungifted that how we define intelligence isn't very useful and that we need to redefine it.

00:11:01.200 So what's wrong with how we typically look at intelligence?

00:11:06.460 Yeah, it's a good question.

00:11:07.220 I think a lot, you know, even since this book has come out, my ideas have, have not changed,

00:11:13.760 but have morphed and nuanced more ways, nuanced ways.

00:11:18.800 The thing that I think that I want to emphasize, wanted to emphasize in Ungifted is I'm not

00:11:23.660 trying to distort the idea of intelligence out of, you know, and completely redefine it

00:11:28.800 in my own way so that like, I come out on top.

00:11:31.860 You know, it's like, it's not like a personal vendetta to like, I define intelligence by the

00:11:36.240 ability to do whatever Scott Barry Kaufman's good at.

00:11:38.820 What I'm trying to really do is change the way we assess it or judge it.

00:11:45.340 First of all, I would like to stop judging people's intelligence at any one moment in

00:11:49.500 time.

00:11:50.100 But if we absolutely must, what I argue in the book is that there's two conditions I

00:11:54.620 think have to be met at a minimum.

00:11:56.180 So I don't think just administering an IQ test in a two hour, you know, give a two hour

00:12:01.500 snapshot into a person's ability to, on the spot, come up with a problem solve in a very

00:12:08.960 decontextualized, impersonal way that's not at all interesting to the test taker.

00:12:14.400 I think at the very least, if you really want to judge what someone's capable of intellectually,

00:12:19.660 you have to one, activate them or make sure that they're activated, make sure that they're

00:12:24.840 engaged in what they're doing.

00:12:27.300 This is something that interests them.

00:12:28.800 You have their attention.

00:12:29.620 You have their full attention, their full brain power.

00:12:32.480 And second of all, you need to give them a heck of a lot more than two hours to display

00:12:37.280 it.

00:12:37.880 You know, you need an extended period of acquiring expertise, acquiring mastery, and really cultivating

00:12:46.520 a deep learning process.

00:12:48.920 I think that it's a very superficial, narrow way of judging someone's intelligence in a

00:12:53.440 two hour decontextualized testing session.

00:12:56.540 So that's the major point I wanted to make.

00:12:58.940 But I actually, I don't, I don't think we need to distort the idea.

00:13:02.900 I think intelligence intuitively means something to people.

00:13:05.580 And I think it's an uphill battle trying to just completely say, no, intelligence means

00:13:10.820 something completely different than you ever thought it meant.

00:13:13.100 I don't think that's the best strategy moving forward.

00:13:15.300 I think we can think of, you know, intelligence as the, as sort of the capacity or the ability

00:13:20.520 to learn, the ability to learn, to, to have knowledge, to acquire, the ability to acquire

00:13:28.200 knowledge.

00:13:29.400 You know, these are things we truly think of as intelligence.

00:13:31.780 But I think that, that so many more people are capable of displaying those capacities, those

00:13:38.620 abilities in much more extraordinary ways than we give them credit.

00:13:42.020 Does that make sense?

00:13:43.100 That makes sense.

00:13:43.780 And that kind of leads me to my next question, because it's about the history of IQ testing

00:13:47.320 in the West.

00:13:48.440 Because that's, you devote a lot of the book to that.

00:13:50.220 And part of the problem, I, what I gather the problem with how we look at intelligence

00:13:55.240 is the way we test for it.

00:13:58.160 That's my major beef.

00:13:59.400 Yeah.

00:13:59.540 Yeah.

00:14:00.240 It's with IQ test and like, it's just a really fascinating history, how IQ tests, how they

00:14:06.200 got their start and how they become sort of almost this, it's almost like they, we treat

00:14:10.620 like astrology.

00:14:11.540 Like you can take this test and it's like, this is going to define you and predict how

00:14:16.240 you're going to do in life for the rest of your life.

00:14:18.960 Um, but you know, are IQ tests really that useful?

00:14:22.840 And like, what exactly are IQ tests measuring?

00:14:26.560 Um, cause that, that was, I found that very interesting.

00:14:29.000 Like, you know, what are, what are we, what are we measuring when we, when we take an IQ

00:14:32.720 test?

00:14:33.820 That's a great question.

00:14:34.680 And I, and I've been, you know, part of my scientific research in the past 10 years has

00:14:39.320 been really trying to understand what exactly is IQ measuring these, or these tests measuring.

00:14:45.360 I really want to pinpoint narrow down exactly and kind of put limits around it.

00:14:49.940 And what I basically come to the conclusion is that they are measuring, um, a set of intellectual

00:14:56.700 functions that are things that we would reasonably want to consider in the intellectual domain

00:15:02.700 of things like memory, right?

00:15:05.100 I mean, if, as you grow older, you know, you, you, you have to admit that your memory declines,

00:15:10.040 right?

00:15:10.600 You can't like, you can't be in denial about reality.

00:15:12.740 Like this is something that is important for our lives, you know, short-term memory, working

00:15:17.080 memory, your ability to simultaneously hold various things in your head and process and

00:15:22.760 try to integrate them to come up with a, make an inference, right?

00:15:25.640 That's the hallmark of reasoning.

00:15:27.180 Human reasoning on the spot requires the, um, a working memory capacity to, um, be able

00:15:33.020 to synthesize things.

00:15:34.580 Um, your ability to, um, uh, vocabulary, you know, what is your vocabulary?

00:15:39.920 What is your, um, reading comprehension?

00:15:42.300 Can you read things quickly and then, um, understand the gist of what you're reading and understand?

00:15:47.180 So all these, these cognitive functions, um, I think we can admit belong in the domain

00:15:52.740 of intellectual functioning.

00:15:54.640 But I think that the problem is when we use these tests to, um, judge what someone's capable

00:16:00.500 of achieving intellectually or what they're, um, when we use it as a measure of potential,

00:16:05.220 that's where I see the problem coming.

00:16:07.880 So, um, Alan Kaufman, I'm not related to, but we have the same last name.

00:16:13.520 And in 1979, the same year I was born again, probably, probably pure coincidence, um, wrote

00:16:19.580 this seminal book that I feel has been grossly underappreciated called Intelligent Testing,

00:16:25.560 not intelligence testing, intelligent testing.

00:16:28.560 Um, it, he was a, uh, student of, um, David Weschler who created the, uh, you know, the Weschler

00:16:34.040 tests of, um, of intelligence.

00:16:36.840 Um, and he, he argued that we need to use these tests in a, in a, we can use these as

00:16:41.820 a tool, um, to understand a student's patterns of cognitive strengths and weaknesses.

00:16:46.800 You know, oh, the student clearly is a much better reasoner when it comes to spatial information

00:16:52.160 than verbal information or much better, you know, at, um, verbal analogies than, um, uh,

00:16:58.880 than, so than other, the other things that were than short-term memory, uh, things like

00:17:02.820 that nature, but he argues that they should be used for that purpose, not the purpose

00:17:06.740 of measuring some sort of innate intelligence, but using the testing to inform some sort of

00:17:12.960 specific goal.

00:17:14.180 Like, oh, maybe this person is, um, is not performing well in school.

00:17:18.320 Use it as like a problem solving process.

00:17:20.580 You know, you know, if a student comes in, you know, and you're a school psychologist and

00:17:24.840 the student is, um, doing poorly in school, there's a whole bunch of reasons that that could

00:17:30.400 be the case.

00:17:31.340 Um, and one of the reasons may, may be that the child is under challenged and is, um, not

00:17:36.180 being given a chance to accelerate at the, at the pace that they require, or, um, um, as

00:17:41.580 well as a whole, whole host of other reasons.

00:17:43.380 And I think that an IQ test battery can be used among a lot of other indicators, uh, like,

00:17:50.060 um, school back, you know, uh, family background, the environment, the child grows up in the teacher

00:17:55.400 support, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:17:57.460 I argue for a holistic assessment of intelligence.

00:18:00.740 That's really what I'm arguing for is, um, a holistic assessment that takes into account

00:18:05.160 so many factors in the, in the problem solving process.

00:18:08.540 Does that make sense?

00:18:09.340 That makes sense.

00:18:09.860 And I guess I imagine why we haven't like, as in the West or in America, haven't done

00:18:14.580 that is it's pretty complicated to do a holistic view of a person.

00:18:19.220 I mean, it's pretty easy to use a test to say, okay, this is this person's potential.

00:18:24.580 So we'll, we'll use this as some sort of filtering.

00:18:26.720 Cause that's what we use the IQ test or different types of IQ testing is the filtering device.

00:18:30.560 Um, that's right.

00:18:31.620 Like for a sorting device, sorting device.

00:18:33.920 Yeah.

00:18:34.160 Like I guess an example from my personal life, like I guess the LSAT, right.

00:18:38.760 For gender into law school is sort of an IQ test. 0.99

00:18:42.460 It's testing for reasoning, a specific type of reasoning with IQ, the global IQ score, like

00:18:47.880 0.80, very high.

00:18:49.980 Yeah.

00:18:50.640 Um, but like we, uh, Oh, I lost you.

00:19:01.320 Hello.

00:19:02.020 Hello.

00:19:02.880 Hello.

00:19:03.400 Hey, hey, I, we got disconnected.

00:19:05.500 We just accidentally got disconnected.

00:19:06.920 Yeah.

00:19:07.380 That's okay.

00:19:08.580 Um, we're still recording, so it's fine.

00:19:10.860 Great.

00:19:11.420 Um, yeah, but I, I remember like that's used as a sorting device.

00:19:15.280 And like, if you don't score like universities, law schools use that, if you score within a

00:19:19.340 certain range, like you're not going to get into that law school.

00:19:22.160 Um, but what's interesting though, is that I've known students who'd like did very poorly

00:19:26.660 on the LSAT, not very poorly, but like just bad enough or good enough.

00:19:30.220 They can get in, but they went on to have very successful careers in the law because maybe

00:19:36.340 they weren't great at taking the LSAT, but they were good at other aspects or, you know,

00:19:41.000 other aspects of the law that's, I guess, more important.

00:19:44.100 I don't know if that makes any sense.

00:19:45.780 It does.

00:19:46.520 It does.

00:19:47.600 Um, here's a question too.

00:19:50.060 Like, I don't, I don't know if this is even related, but you know, there's been, I just

00:19:55.020 read this, that there's studies that show that IQ tests in America have been going up.

00:20:00.480 Like there's like some kind of effect, right?

00:20:02.140 There's, isn't there a name for that?

00:20:03.100 Like why I forgot.

00:20:06.660 Like, there's like, yeah, it's called the Flynn effect.

00:20:08.920 The Flynn effect.

00:20:09.720 Yeah.

00:20:09.840 What is the Flynn effect?

00:20:11.920 Yeah.

00:20:12.240 So I, it turns out that like, if our great, great, great, great grandparents were alive

00:20:19.240 today and took an IQ test, their IQ, uh, would, if their exact score would have a very

00:20:26.440 different meaning, um, today than it would have when they first took that test, it would

00:20:31.240 be much, much lower their IQ score.

00:20:33.880 And you have to understand the way IQ is, and to understand the, to understand what I really

00:20:37.040 mean by that, you have to understand how IQ is calculated.

00:20:40.760 IQ is not like weight or height.

00:20:45.120 There's no, you know, it, it, it's an arbitrary number.

00:20:47.940 It's a number that's purely relative to other people in the population.

00:20:52.340 So if you're alone on a desert island, your IQ, you have the highest IQ in the world, as

00:20:57.680 well as the lowest IQ in the world.

00:20:58.800 That makes sense.

00:20:59.600 Okay.

00:20:59.820 Your IQ is meaningless.

00:21:01.560 Um, so what you do is you go out there and you, you measure your, um, IQ, you, you measure,

00:21:07.300 um, you, you administer a test to like thousands, thousands of people.

00:21:11.100 And then your particular IQ score is how well you did, um, in comparison to all these other

00:21:18.140 people.

00:21:18.360 And it's turned, it's, see, it looks like over the course of the 20th century, people

00:21:23.180 have been getting, been performing better on these tests.

00:21:26.400 The standard has risen on this test so that, uh, that, that, that what would earn you an

00:21:32.660 IQ of, let's say 120 in 1900 would now, you know, be like in the, the mentally disabled 1.00

00:21:39.540 range and that's the paradox that, that is, is, does that mean that our great, great,

00:21:44.800 great, great grandparents were mentally, all mentally disabled?

00:21:47.540 Well, no.

00:21:48.720 So, so then the, the natural question is, well, then, then, then are these tests even meaningful?

00:21:53.920 Right.

00:21:54.520 So there's, it, it raises the whole host of questions.

00:21:58.120 It does seem like IQ has been rising.

00:22:01.140 Interesting.

00:22:01.880 Um, all right, here's the question, like for me, and I think other people will be interested

00:22:05.080 because like, as I was, as I was reading this section, I was having a hard time getting

00:22:07.780 my mind around it, but like you talk about general intelligence.

00:22:11.820 Yes.

00:22:12.300 Yes.

00:22:12.740 That's the, the very thorny.

00:22:14.820 Yeah.

00:22:15.640 In a very like, um, easy to understand way you can, you know, IQ, which is just an average

00:22:22.220 score of among, amongst a whole wide range of different, uh, cognitive functions, um, is,

00:22:28.700 is, is almost perfectly correlated with general and the general intelligence factor.

00:22:33.140 Uh, so you can just think of general intelligence as IQ.

00:22:36.040 Gotcha.

00:22:36.140 Um, general intelligence itself is, it's a, it's a statistical, um, method, you know,

00:22:41.780 that is, is actually quite sophisticated requiring something called factor analysis, where you

00:22:46.360 look at, um, the correlate, how do all these tests relate to one another?

00:22:50.700 And you see that people who are good at one test tend to be good at the other kinds of

00:22:55.420 tests.

00:22:56.040 And people who are do poorly on one test tend to do poorly on other types of tests.

00:23:00.120 And you can, um, kind of figure out statistically what, um, what's, what, what's in common,

00:23:06.700 how much, you know, is in common across all these different tests and then rank people

00:23:11.440 on how well they are in what's in common across all the tests.

00:23:15.180 But that's a very sophisticated way of just saying it's a, it's, it's, it's a rough, you

00:23:19.480 know, estimate of, uh, of, of the average efficiency among a whole bunch of different,

00:23:24.480 of these cognitive tests, very similar to the physical fitness tests you take in high

00:23:28.740 school or middle school, right?

00:23:30.980 You can come up with a general fitness factor, general fitness factor, which is just basically

00:23:36.480 your, your basic, um, average, um, efficiency, uh, across all sorts of things like putting

00:23:42.480 your chin up on the, the, you're running the 500 meter down.

00:23:46.460 You take all that, you put them through the hoops in 10 different ways.

00:23:49.840 And then you just rank people in one dimension, um, which is their average efficiency across

00:23:55.680 all of it.

00:23:56.200 And that's all the general intelligence factor is, but, but it is complicated.

00:23:59.880 I mean, it is, it's hard to describe that general audience because it is, it doesn't

00:24:03.980 involve quite sophisticated statistics and there's so many debates.

00:24:07.440 Yeah.

00:24:07.480 That was the thing.

00:24:07.980 Like when I was reading it, it was like, yeah, a lot of statistics, which I never took in

00:24:11.660 college.

00:24:12.480 Um, so, um, but okay, that, that, that helped kind of clear things up for me.

00:24:17.180 Um, here's another question I have.

00:24:18.860 I mean, I mean, maybe this goes to whether IQ tests are useful or not.

00:24:24.480 Take my example with the LSAT.

00:24:25.780 I'm that's, I'm familiar with that because that had a big effect on my life.

00:24:28.960 Um, when I, I remember when I first took my first practice exam, like I scored like a

00:24:32.720 one 42, which would not get you into law school.

00:24:37.000 This is, this is when I have never, this is like the first time I ever took the LSAT.

00:24:39.600 But then like, after like three months of intensive practice and, and study, like I was able

00:24:44.240 to get that score up to like one 65, which could get you into some really, uh, fantastic,

00:24:49.660 you know, some really, uh, high ranking law schools.

00:24:51.900 And I ended up scoring like a one 60 when I actually took the exam.

00:24:55.260 Um, and so like, I got better at it.

00:24:58.000 Like I, I improved my, I guess, IQ in that, that reasoning, that area.

00:25:02.000 But like, I know if I, if I were to take the, the, the LSAT today, I don't think I would

00:25:06.280 do that well.

00:25:06.860 Cause like, I've been out of, like, I haven't really, I'm out of practice.

00:25:10.060 Like, so, I mean, can you like, I mean, is IQ testing, can you sort of like practice

00:25:14.820 those skills and then like do well for that IQ test, but later on in life, you know what

00:25:20.380 I'm talking about?

00:25:20.900 Do you get where I'm going with this?

00:25:23.140 I mean, that's a very, it's a very contentious field is how much can you train IQ versus the

00:25:29.960 specific, um, abilities that are measured by IQ tests.

00:25:33.840 Yeah.

00:25:34.020 So, and that's a very contentious hot field right now.

00:25:38.360 Um, there's, um, you know, I told you like on IQ tests, there's like seven or eight different

00:25:45.120 general, like specific abilities that are measured from like reading comprehension to spatial

00:25:50.740 visualization ability to a bunch of cognitive abilities.

00:25:53.580 And IQ is just the average of all that, right?

00:25:56.840 Well, it looks like it's a lot harder to, and IQ, the IQ itself does, um, fluctuate across

00:26:03.120 our lifespan.

00:26:03.660 So it can change, um, it can change, but, but it really is fairly stable, relatively stable

00:26:11.120 across our lifespan.

00:26:13.240 What, what is, what, what we can, it seems to be much more amenable to change are those

00:26:17.620 specific abilities that, um, that you, that, that involve practice.

00:26:22.420 So, you know, luminosity has, you know, uh, or, uh, cog mid, right.

00:26:28.000 They, they train specific functions like working memory and you, it's, there's evidence seems

00:26:33.440 to be much more clear that working memory can be improved than that general global efficiency.

00:26:39.820 Now with the LSAT, that's a very interesting point because there is a recent study that

00:26:45.540 came out where they, um, looked at the effect of LSAT training on the brain, um, over the

00:26:50.600 course of a couple of months.

00:26:52.240 And they found, first of all, they found that people on average jumped from like the 40th

00:26:57.460 percentile to the 70th percentile.

00:26:59.220 So, so clearly that training, um, helped a lot, but also their, uh, brain connectivity

00:27:05.460 between, um, the, what's called the, the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe, which, which we

00:27:10.920 know is really important for attention and focus and executive functioning.

00:27:15.120 Um, that connectivity was much stronger after that practice.

00:27:18.620 So this practice has measurable effects on the connectivity of key regions of our brain.

00:27:24.140 And I think that it's just like going to the gym.

00:27:26.220 Like if you don't practice it, um, those, you know, you're, it's, you're going to atrophy.

00:27:31.160 Those skills are going to atrophy.

00:27:33.140 Um, if you go back and tried it right now, you probably, you're right.

00:27:36.000 You probably wouldn't do as well.

00:27:37.100 But if we gave you, um, another four month booster session or something, um, you could

00:27:41.940 probably, um, get back up there.

00:27:43.740 So these things are, um, are both relatively stable, but are also amenable to, um, change.

00:27:49.640 That's, that's my nuanced answer.

00:27:51.380 Yeah.

00:27:51.560 We're going to take a quick break for you, words from our sponsors.

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00:28:36.440 And now back to the show.

00:28:38.000 That's a good one.

00:28:38.800 And yeah, you bring up brain training because that's kind of controversial too.

00:28:42.560 It's like, it's, you know, okay.

00:28:43.940 Yeah, you can improve working memory, but like, you know, like basically the argument

00:28:49.460 that seems like, yeah, you can do these games and you'll get better at that game, but does

00:28:53.140 it like correlate to like improvement?

00:28:54.840 Does that transfer?

00:28:55.900 Yeah.

00:28:56.820 And, and, and the question is, so if you view IQ as smarts, which, you know, I, I don't

00:29:02.060 equate it with smarts.

00:29:03.720 Um, but if you do, which a lot of intelligence researchers do, then they'll say, you're just

00:29:08.720 improving your working memory.

00:29:09.860 You're not improving your smarts.

00:29:12.660 Now I think it's, that's a slippery slope.

00:29:14.720 I think that it, you know, say that to a lot of people who, um, suffer from their inability

00:29:20.080 to focus like people with ADHD.

00:29:21.760 And if you show them, uh, go through training and you show them benefits and their ability

00:29:26.280 to concentrate in their daily life, that's a very meaningful improvement in itself, you

00:29:32.320 know?

00:29:32.480 And what does that mean?

00:29:33.180 Their intelligence wasn't improved just because their IQ scored in budge, you know,

00:29:36.480 in, in, in, in certain, in certain ways, I would count that as a, an improvement of

00:29:40.100 intelligence.

00:29:40.960 Yeah.

00:29:41.780 But yeah, it becomes definitional.

00:29:44.820 Yeah.

00:29:45.660 That's right.

00:29:46.220 It's really interesting.

00:29:47.500 Um, so, okay.

00:29:49.660 You know, one problem you talk about in the book, um, with IQ tests is that they can off

00:29:54.340 what they end up doing is they label people as either gifted or ungifted.

00:29:57.680 That's what we do with an elementary school.

00:29:59.220 That's right.

00:29:59.800 And, and when these labels are applied in youth, they can, you know, basically they

00:30:03.780 follow you for the rest of your life.

00:30:05.800 That's right.

00:30:06.520 And, and I think we all, you know, intuitively understand, okay, if you're labeled ungifted,

00:30:09.740 how that's going to hurt you.

00:30:11.000 But you also make an argument in your book that being labeled gifted can hurt as well.

00:30:16.580 Um, how so?

00:30:17.900 Yeah.

00:30:18.080 I don't know if anyone's actually labeled, I don't know if, uh, ungifted is an official

00:30:21.280 label.

00:30:21.980 Yeah.

00:30:22.380 Just like, what'd you call it?

00:30:23.800 Normal?

00:30:24.800 The closest, what'd you say?

00:30:26.440 Just like normal average.

00:30:27.560 What would you?

00:30:28.160 No, there is, there is a term that is official that is used called slow learner, which I find

00:30:34.540 extremely derogatory.

00:30:35.900 Um, and, um, and the slow learners are considered beyond hope.

00:30:41.160 So they, they're not low enough in IQ to warrant a diagnosis of mental disability, but they're 0.52

00:30:47.120 not high enough where, uh, we say that they are capable of remediation.

00:30:52.120 So they fall between the cracks.

00:30:53.720 That's the, like, you know, the 80 to 90 or the 70 to 80 IQ range is they're slow learners.

00:30:59.900 Yeah.

00:31:00.140 So that's the closest thing I would say to ungifted.

00:31:02.320 Um, but being labeled gifted does impact it.

00:31:06.880 I think it sets up an unrealistic expectation of what it takes to succeed in life and what

00:31:11.900 it takes to, um, particularly when you get to a point where you're going to face challenges,

00:31:16.500 it sets up this, um, expectation that you were somehow born with this special sauce that's

00:31:26.760 going to get you through the hard times in life.

00:31:29.480 That's going to get you to your goals.

00:31:31.200 That's going to be able to allow you to achieve no matter what.

00:31:35.460 And I think it's very dangerous.

00:31:37.100 That's very dangerous and, and not true.

00:31:39.760 You know, there are clearly people, kids that are, um, developmentally ahead of others,

00:31:46.900 just as though, just as there are kids who are developmentally, um, slower than others

00:31:52.500 at any moment in time and the, the resources they, they require, um, it does involve giving

00:31:59.140 them more accelerated, you know, cause I'm a, I'm a, I'm a fan of acceleration, but beyond

00:32:04.420 to that, I think it's dangerous to set up for them expectations that, um, that, that they

00:32:09.700 hold around their head, this sort of fixed notion of ability as you're either gifted

00:32:14.800 or you're not gifted because the reality is far more complicated than that.

00:32:18.640 So I guess they, uh, one does, I guess, uh, not, uh, what, where am I, what am I trying

00:32:24.700 to go for?

00:32:25.120 Like a disadvantage of being called gifted.

00:32:27.660 I mean, you, you sort of lose that on those opportunities of like learning grit and, uh,

00:32:32.760 cause you, you sort of like, it's sort of learned helplessness, right?

00:32:35.220 It's like, okay, if I can't get it right off the bat, then it's no, I can't even, I shouldn't

00:32:40.400 even try.

00:32:40.960 Cause apparently I wasn't born to do that.

00:32:43.660 I mean, is that.

00:32:44.420 That's right.

00:32:44.840 I mean, kids, I mean, that's a very common finding most kids in, in special education

00:32:49.240 is they, they, um, they acquire learned helplessness and that's, that's a, that's a, that's a shame.

00:32:56.460 Um, in the, in the, there's a lot of debate, a lot of debate, uh, amongst the gifted

00:33:01.420 community about what the purpose of gifted education should be.

00:33:06.220 And, and I think that, um, that's far from settled, you know, is giftedness who you are

00:33:12.280 or is giftedness what you do?

00:33:14.180 And the field is divided on that issue.

00:33:16.460 And if you believe giftedness is who you are, um, then, uh, then, then nothing you do

00:33:24.740 is really going to, uh, matter really.

00:33:27.660 Um, if you, you know, if, if giftedness is who you are and say, I'm gifted and then

00:33:31.700 you fail at something, well, that can have a traumatic impact on a person's self-esteem

00:33:36.720 and, um, and, uh, motivation to, to keep going because they'll say, oh, I guess I wasn't

00:33:43.920 gifted to begin with, you know?

00:33:45.960 So that can work in different ways as well.

00:33:47.940 So, so do you think we should just drop the labels completely?

00:33:51.400 I'm okay for dropping it.

00:33:52.780 I just wrote a, uh, uh, op-ed that we just submitted in the New York times.

00:33:57.060 We'll see what happens with, um, some other researchers who wrote a very thoughtful book

00:34:01.900 on, um, on rethinking gifted education.

00:34:04.760 And, you know, we argue that the gifted, gifted education shouldn't be about identifying the

00:34:11.300 gifted kid and, and giving them resources.

00:34:14.880 It should be about advanced academics.

00:34:17.800 It should be about, it should be more about the gifted curriculum and not the gifted person.

00:34:22.480 So, um, we think it does a, it gets in the way of the, the, the everyday practical needs

00:34:28.280 of the child in the classroom, the giftedness concept and label, I feel gets in the way of

00:34:34.500 the real issues, which is the individual needs of each child in that classroom.

00:34:39.940 And you are going to have some students in any classroom that at any moment in time require

00:34:44.680 more advanced academics, but, um, sticking the giftedness label, I think, um, gets in

00:34:52.500 the way of, um, of, of how to actually help them with what, with, with this, what they

00:34:57.240 need most, which is normally just advanced academics within a particular domain, not in

00:35:01.760 general, not in every single, um, in every single way possible, but usually in very specific

00:35:07.020 ways, you know, the kid who, who's, who's a math whiz, um, and needs more math curriculum,

00:35:12.740 you know, like let's give them advanced academics and math.

00:35:16.040 But, um, I'm a very, I'm very more, uh, an advocate of, um, very, very practical approach,

00:35:22.280 a very needs-based approach, but not getting tripped up in, um, these fixed labels.

00:35:28.820 Interesting.

00:35:28.840 I'm curious if things like, uh, Khan Academy and online education will make that practical

00:35:36.020 because I'm sure like right now people are like, it's easier just to like segment these

00:35:39.180 kids off into their own separate class.

00:35:42.220 Um, but I guess with online education, you, you don't have to do that so much.

00:35:47.280 That's right.

00:35:47.840 And you also let kids go at their own pace.

00:35:50.440 Yeah.

00:35:51.300 And, you know, the giftedness concept is all about, is all about how fast do you get

00:35:55.760 there?

00:35:56.520 You know, if you're getting there faster than others, you're gifted.

00:35:58.860 If you're getting there slower than others, you're ungifted.

00:36:00.460 But, you know, I think that really is not, um, thinking about it the right way.

00:36:04.560 It's not really conducive to, to, uh, getting the best out of these kids.

00:36:08.480 Um, if there's an emphasis instead, if we had more of a, uh, an emphasis or a school

00:36:12.820 culture on the process and, um, and, and not so much on how fast you get there, but

00:36:18.340 the quality of what you're producing, if there's more of an emphasis on that, I think

00:36:23.340 you'd be getting a lot more performance, better performance out of all the students.

00:36:26.880 Very interesting.

00:36:27.760 Okay.

00:36:28.140 So another big theme in, in your book is this idea of greatness, like achieving

00:36:33.560 greatness.

00:36:34.560 Um, and that's, I guess the first question would be like, how do you define greatness?

00:36:38.500 Like, what is it?

00:36:39.180 Like, how do you define it?

00:36:40.240 Cause that's a, I mean, I'm sure like it's going to be different for every person, right?

00:36:43.400 Yeah.

00:36:43.600 Now that we've sorted out, uh, intelligence.

00:36:45.620 Yeah.

00:36:45.840 Yeah.

00:36:46.080 Let's go, let's go to this other.

00:36:48.340 Uh, complex, you know, contiguous topic.

00:36:52.720 Um, you know, the greatness is, it's such a loaded word.

00:36:56.340 I, I, you know, other, other people have used other words that, um, I, basically what

00:37:01.460 I'm talking about, there's about world-class expertise.

00:37:05.200 I'm talking about, you know, high achievement at a level in which you, um, clearly, uh, have,

00:37:11.980 have acquired so much knowledge in that field.

00:37:14.720 And, and maybe you even like, you kind of sit on top of it.

00:37:19.100 You're kind of like, um, you kind of change it or see it in, in, in, in, in new ways or,

00:37:24.940 or, or steer, steer it in new directions.

00:37:26.700 You're like, you're influencing it.

00:37:28.040 To me, I, I think that's what, what greatness really is, is your ability to, um, kind of

00:37:33.380 pull, pull a whole field or pull a whole, um, kind of, you know, uh, where people are

00:37:39.140 like falling, you know, in new directions.

00:37:41.600 Um, but it does require a certain amount of expertise to do that.

00:37:46.140 So there's a certain process to that.

00:37:48.220 I know that you've, uh, you've, you've, uh, excerpted, I think one of Robert Greene's

00:37:52.700 books, Mastery.

00:37:54.020 Mastery, yeah.

00:37:55.060 Um, you know, I, I, I think that he, um, what he calls mastery might be what I'm calling

00:37:59.640 greatness.

00:38:00.260 Okay.

00:38:01.180 You know, but it is, there is no objective definition of what greatness is.

00:38:05.300 What do you think greatness is?

00:38:06.840 Everyone, everyone, I think, thinks of greatness in a different way, probably.

00:38:10.940 Yeah.

00:38:11.180 I mean, well, after you read, after I read your book, I was like, oh, that's a great,

00:38:15.420 I like that idea of greatness.

00:38:16.800 Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, to me, greatness is like being excellent in some aspect of your

00:38:24.320 life.

00:38:24.660 That's to me what greatness is.

00:38:26.740 Um, whether that's sports or music or relationships, I'm not talking just about picking up chicks,

00:38:34.560 but like, just like being, having that social intelligence, being adept at that.

00:38:39.140 Uh, to me, I guess that would be greatness.

00:38:42.160 Yeah.

00:38:42.680 I mean, I would be totally on board with that.

00:38:44.540 I don't want to get, I, I, you don't want to get too tripped up on, on the, on the terms.

00:38:50.640 Um, but there's clearly, there clearly is a characteristic, you know, you kind of like

00:38:55.720 no greatness when you see it.

00:38:58.140 Yeah.

00:38:58.880 Yeah.

00:38:59.480 Or, or, or, you know, when you've achieved it, like, you know, that you've, you've kind

00:39:03.000 of gotten to a level that's top of the curve, like top 1% compared to other people in

00:39:09.180 that field or in that, whatever you're interested in.

00:39:12.180 So, I mean, to achieve, you know, greatness or excellence, whatever you want to call it.

00:39:15.700 Um, I mean, besides expertise, right.

00:39:19.640 I mean, I, I'd imagine there's other attributes you need.

00:39:22.820 And it's not just intelligence either.

00:39:24.560 You can be very, I mean, I know extremely smart people who've just have wasted their

00:39:29.660 smart, you know, their smarts, uh, because they lack certain, you know, certain attributes

00:39:34.320 that would allow them to take advantage of that.

00:39:37.680 Exactly.

00:39:38.180 That's why I like to think of greatness as a multiplicative, multiplicative function of

00:39:43.440 a wide range of characteristics, not an additive function.

00:39:47.460 So if, if greatness was just the sum of grit and, and IQ and, um, curiosity, and, you know,

00:39:57.320 then that wouldn't allow for, um, for your ability to compensate in various ways to reach

00:40:02.620 the same goal, because you would just add, add these things, add these values up and your

00:40:07.160 total value, um, would be the summation of them.

00:40:09.680 But instead I see them more as a multiplicative function.

00:40:12.800 So a very high, um, a very high level of certain characteristic, um, can give you a higher total

00:40:20.720 product value than, um, than, than another one, because these things multiply, um, among

00:40:27.040 each other.

00:40:27.700 And, uh, in the book, I, I outline a lot of different characteristics that you can bring

00:40:32.100 to the table, um, that we should be considering as potential contributors to greatness.

00:40:37.220 Um, things like, uh, growth mindset, self-regulation, deliberate practice, which is sure, certainly

00:40:44.580 something, um, that is extremely important.

00:40:46.880 That's sort of the quality or the way that you learn, um, active learning strategies, um,

00:40:52.400 not becoming, not being a passive learner, but, but, but actively, um, seeking out mentors,

00:40:58.840 actively seeking out knowledge and, um, and sort of, uh, making that a very active learning

00:41:04.420 process, um, talk about, um, I think openness to experience is very important, um, intellectual

00:41:10.300 curiosity.

00:41:11.380 I've distinguished intellectual curiosity in my own research from IQ.

00:41:15.100 They're separate dimensions.

00:41:16.600 So you can be a very fast information processor and, um, not have much curiosity and the other

00:41:23.080 way around.

00:41:23.580 And I think these things, the thing, the point I want to make is that you could mix and match

00:41:27.760 all of these characteristics in unique ways to kind of give you your own brand of intelligence,

00:41:33.120 your own unique, um, your unique aspect of intelligence that you bring to the table that you wouldn't

00:41:39.180 appreciate if we just solely stuck to the standardized model.

00:41:44.240 You know, if we just took one, one of these characters, like IQ and said, you know, the

00:41:48.440 extent to which you deviate from this number is the extent to which you deviate from intelligence

00:41:52.260 or the extent to which you, you, the extent to which you deviate from your ability to be

00:41:56.280 great.

00:41:57.040 You know, I don't think that's the right way of thinking about it.

00:41:59.340 Yeah.

00:41:59.580 So correct me if I'm wrong.

00:42:00.920 So what, what I'm understanding is like, you could be, you could score low on an IQ

00:42:05.600 test or be considered a slow learner, but if you have these other attributes or some

00:42:10.180 of them or a mixture of them, um, you could, you might not, might take you a little bit

00:42:15.300 longer to get that point, but you could eventually get there if you stick to it.

00:42:19.040 Is that, yeah, there's no, there's no God didn't put any, uh, limits that saying like,

00:42:25.360 Oh, you must have IQ above this number to be great in life.

00:42:29.680 Yeah.

00:42:30.300 You know, there's no commandments from above like that.

00:42:32.780 Um, a lot of time we put our own, we self-impose limitations and, and our own perceived limitations

00:42:39.460 are often incorrect.

00:42:40.700 And I think that's what I, you know, that's just what I noticed in myself, um, so clearly

00:42:46.820 is just how many limiting notions I had about that.

00:42:50.560 I was being fed all these notions about how intelligent I was.

00:42:54.100 And once I kind of tested those limits, I realized just how wrong they were.

00:42:59.020 And I think, um, you know, more people need to be doing that with themselves.

00:43:03.640 Very interesting stuff.

00:43:05.060 Um, I think we're running out of time here, but I got, I got one last question for you.

00:43:10.580 You're asking me really great questions.

00:43:12.140 Well, I mean, it's just really, it's fascinating stuff.

00:43:14.340 I mean, here, let me get to this question.

00:43:15.640 Okay.

00:43:16.480 Um, you talk about, you devoted a chapter to deliberate practice, right?

00:43:19.600 You talk about, that's one of those attributes you need to achieve mastery or greatness.

00:43:23.280 Um, I think we've all, we've written about it.

00:43:25.060 I think people are kind of pretty familiar with it now.

00:43:27.280 This whole idea of like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell's the 10,000 hour rule and you need it, whatever.

00:43:33.100 Um, but you sort of take a nuanced view on it, uh, conception of it.

00:43:36.860 I mean, can you explain where your ideas like differ from the typical idea of deliberate

00:43:41.860 practice?

00:43:43.800 Yeah.

00:43:44.260 I don't think that I, I differ too much from, from the traditional notions.

00:43:48.780 Um, what, why were you thinking I differ from the, you mean like Erickson's notion?

00:43:53.300 It was just, it seemed like it was a little more nuanced.

00:43:55.100 Cause like, I think we, you, I think the popular idea of deliberate practice out there is like,

00:43:58.900 okay, if you just devote 10,000 hours, 10,000 hours to this.

00:44:01.960 Or like, then like, you're going to become a golf pro, which.

00:44:07.020 So, okay.

00:44:07.460 So there, um, the, the, the rule, the 10,000 hour rule, I think is, is we have to understand

00:44:13.380 it's just an average.

00:44:14.440 There are people that get there in two years and there are those that takes 20 years.

00:44:18.480 Right.

00:44:19.120 We let's not, you know, let's get away from the, the rule idea.

00:44:22.040 Um, the kind of practice you put into it, you know, that what's called what Anders

00:44:27.100 Erickson has called deliberate practice is, is a sort of quality of practice, which is

00:44:32.880 clearly important, but that kind of practice interacts.

00:44:37.300 I think, I believe it interacts with a lot of a wide range of other variables, like your

00:44:42.320 levels of motivation, your, um, the extent to which you're, um, at the appropriate challenging

00:44:48.160 yourself so that you can enter that flow state, um, the, um, environmental support, how much

00:44:53.720 are, are people giving me the resources?

00:44:55.780 How much are people, do you believe, like, do you feel as though you're in a supportive,

00:44:59.920 um, belonging environment?

00:45:02.380 Um, I, I see deliberate practice as something that, you know, it, it, it, the, the rate at

00:45:07.640 which you, you go up that curve, the rate at which you learn things differs, um, from

00:45:13.640 different people, um, and, and what, and the amount of time it takes you to get there, you

00:45:18.480 know, differs greatly, but it differs depending on a wide range of personal characteristics

00:45:22.880 and environmental characteristics.

00:45:24.560 So I think we just need to be careful of just saying 10,000 hour rule because it really is,

00:45:29.380 it really is not a rule and there is no magic number to this.

00:45:32.280 And I think that when you get rid of the magic number idea, it allows you to acknowledge

00:45:37.400 there are prodigies and there are also late bloomers and that's okay.

00:45:40.880 You know, the world has lots of different kinds of people and I'm okay with embracing

00:45:45.180 that messiness and embracing that, um, it's not messiness.

00:45:48.620 It's just human diversity.

00:45:50.200 And, um, and I'm okay with that, you know?

00:45:52.680 Very well, the 10,000 hour rule that sells books.

00:45:56.040 It does.

00:45:56.880 It's simple.

00:45:57.680 It's a simple idea.

00:45:58.840 They're like, Oh wow, that's awesome.

00:46:00.680 I want to, I can do that.

00:46:02.400 Um, well, here's, I know, okay.

00:46:04.620 As a dad and I know there's a lot of dads or soon to be dads out there, their parents

00:46:09.320 and like a lot of modern dads are, they're much more involved in their kid's life.

00:46:14.060 Are there specific things that we can be doing with our kids to encourage these, these skills

00:46:19.720 and attributes that are necessary to achieve greatness in their own way, whatever that

00:46:24.480 is.

00:46:25.420 Absolutely.

00:46:26.040 At the end of the day, that's, that's where my whole research is going.

00:46:28.980 That's what really I'm passionate about the most is how can we as, as teachers and parents

00:46:34.420 bring out the best in our child?

00:46:36.040 Cause I think it's all we can ask for at the end of the day, you know, we get tripped

00:46:38.700 up with all these words and we're afraid, Oh, Johnny's not progressing as fast as Jimmy

00:46:44.880 down the street.

00:46:45.760 You know, if we just stop with the comparisons, stop with that whole, um, paradigm of individual

00:46:52.540 differences where we say, Oh, he, my child's not progressing as fast a rate as that child.

00:46:57.860 Um, stay at a very local, um, stay at a very like, um, needs based.

00:47:02.500 What does my child need at this exact moment?

00:47:04.920 Um, and there are things that you can do to bring out the best in that child to make them

00:47:08.300 motivated.

00:47:08.780 You can, um, I think we could, we should listen to their daydreams, listen to their own, um,

00:47:13.940 where are their thoughts?

00:47:14.920 What are they dreaming about?

00:47:15.800 What are their, um, you know, that gives us clues to their passions and their proclivities.

00:47:20.260 Um, I think we should instill in our children, um, the value of hard work, um, instill in

00:47:26.720 them the idea that, that they will see results if they put in that work, that there is, um,

00:47:32.140 this sort of, uh, uh, Carol Dweck calls it a growth mindset that there's value to, um,

00:47:38.400 learning from feedback and, um, and, um, and, and there's no state labeled failure, you know,

00:47:44.280 don't ever say to your child, like you failed, you know, in this moment, you know, really

00:47:48.380 try to instill in them this, this growth mindset, um, set up the conditions to allow them to

00:47:54.640 play, set up the conditions to allow them to question authority.

00:47:57.760 And I would say ultimately the thing I've learned the most about my whole, my whole life, um,

00:48:03.380 is the importance of being your own self advocate.

00:48:06.320 And what I mean by being your own self advocate is insulating yourself from the expectations

00:48:11.500 of others, kind of creating the bubble around that so that you are totally operating with

00:48:17.200 your own internal compass.

00:48:19.160 And, um, that's probably the, the number one thing I see among those who do reach greatness

00:48:22.800 is that they've done a really good job, um, following their own internal compass, um, and

00:48:27.820 kind of ignoring that, um, sort of that outside, uh, expectations and influences.

00:48:33.080 Very cool.

00:48:34.100 Um, what about, what about guys who are like in their twenties or thirties, or I mean, even

00:48:38.460 if they're fifties, like they, they feel like they haven't, they've sort of like missed out,

00:48:42.560 right.

00:48:42.980 They, they, they, they're not on that path there.

00:48:44.480 I mean, can you turn things around?

00:48:46.560 I guess is the question.

00:48:47.320 I mean, are you, if you haven't started this now, are you doomed to a life of mediocrity?

00:48:51.280 Is that, that's the question?

00:48:53.540 Definitely not.

00:48:54.280 Definitely not.

00:48:54.780 Like I, um, I did this profile, I did this piece on late bloomers for psychology today

00:48:58.820 a couple of years ago, and I had the, the great privilege of interviewing, um, a bunch

00:49:02.760 of late bloomers in their fifties, sixties, and seventies who, um, completely changed careers.

00:49:08.640 And what I, what struck me about that is that they were able to, um, use that their age

00:49:15.300 to their advantage.

00:49:16.260 So it actually, sometimes it is, it's to your benefit to be a late bloomer because you can 0.96

00:49:22.800 bypass all the games people play all the bullshit, you know, the competition and everything amongst 0.94

00:49:29.360 the younger people. 0.96

00:49:30.140 You can just glide right over it all and get your own unique niche in the marketplace.

00:49:36.300 I've seen that in this, this guy who'd be got on Broadway at age 50, I think.

00:49:40.720 Um, and, and, you know, he just served, you know, all these kids that are vying for the

00:49:44.820 same spots for outside of drama school at age like 22, when they just graduate, he just

00:49:49.420 walked right over that.

00:49:50.460 Right.

00:49:50.680 Yeah.

00:49:51.280 Um, or, um, and you can see it in, in lots of different fields.

00:49:54.460 I would definitely not, um, lose, lose hope.

00:49:57.800 And I would, I would, I would try to think strategically of ways of using it to your

00:50:01.600 advantage.

00:50:01.960 In fact, very cool.

00:50:03.700 All right.

00:50:04.160 Well, Scott, this, as always fascinating discussion, a book, a great book.

00:50:10.120 If you're a dad, go get it.

00:50:12.300 Even if you're not a dad, highly recommend you'll get it.

00:50:14.240 You'll get something.

00:50:14.920 I got something out of it, um, for my own life.

00:50:17.700 So thanks again for taking the time to talk to us.

00:50:21.040 Thank you, Brett.

00:50:22.100 I really appreciate the work you do.

00:50:23.680 Thank you.

00:50:24.440 Our guest today was Dr.

00:50:25.880 Scott Barry Kaufman.

00:50:26.840 Scott is the author of the book, Ungifted Intelligence Redefined, and you can find

00:50:31.200 that on amazon.com.

00:50:34.520 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast.

00:50:37.980 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:50:41.260 at art of manliness.com.

00:50:42.720 And if you enjoy this free podcast, we would really appreciate it if you take the time to

00:50:47.260 give it a rating on whatever service you use to listen to podcasts, be it iTunes or

00:50:52.200 Stitcher, that would help us out a lot.

00:50:53.800 And until next time, stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #57： Ungifted With Scotty Barry Kaufman

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