The Limits of Growth

1. Some interesting facts: You’ve probably heard of the “marshmallow experiment.” The researcher who participated in that experiment, Yuichi Shoda, repeatedly emphasized that many preschool children who ate the marshmallow still did quite well in development when they grew up. Patients with heart failure or cardiac arrest who are admitted during the national cardiology conference have a lower chance of dying, at which time thousands of the nation’s top cardiologists are not in the hospital. Because when experts have a hammer, everyone looks like a nail — even people who were not originally suitable for stents end up getting stents from stent specialists. The German team that won the 2014 World Cup consisted entirely of typical “late bloomers” — until the age of twenty-two or even older, they had not played in professional leagues before, at most appearing in amateur leagues. In childhood and adolescence, they spent their time playing pickup soccer or other sports.

2. You may have heard of the ten-thousand-hour rule, which advocates early specialization and training; many masters have accumulated ten thousand hours of practice, but in some fields this does not apply. In golf or chess, every shot or move is made within a defined range according to rules, and the result is seen immediately; similar challenges repeat. When we play golf, the ball’s landing is either too long or not long enough; the ball’s trajectory is a fade, a slice, or a straight shot. The player identifies a problem, tries to correct it, hits again, and practices like this for years. This is also the definition of “deliberate practice” — follow the ten-thousand-hour rule and start technical training as early as possible. Some fields are the opposite of golf and chess: competition rules are often unclear or incomplete; repeating patterns are occasional or not clear; and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both — these are the “hostile” learning environments. When professional firefighters face a novel situation, such as a high-rise fire, they may find that they suddenly lose the instincts developed over years of fighting fires in ordinary houses and are likely to make wrong decisions.

3. In research, the more members of a team come from different disciplines, the faster the team solves problems. In a competition to predict the probability of an event, a team made up of volunteers from different specialties beat a team of experts, so you should consult experts for facts, not opinions.