I’m a history teacher by training with a computer science background. I design e-learning. In 2000 I was tasked with building a role-play simulation using speech recognition that would help sales reps get better at verbal part of the job.

Long story short, I was shocked at how difficult it was for anyone to speak or perform simple verbal dialog they had studied. As a side, I was equally amazed at lack of academic understading (myself included) of the learning challege.

I began to break the learning task and decided that what expert sales reps did whey they spoke was express a series of talking points that they had habituated over time. I began to work on solving the challenge by focusing on highly focused incremental practicing. I have built three generations of role-play tools (Contact, DialogCoach, SpeakEasy) in progressive attemtps to build a message practice tool.

As I have hammered away in my small part of this performance issue, I have been frustrated with entrenched views about talent. I’m so thrilled with your book since you have done such detailed work at uncovering the mystery that surrounds pattern learning and performance.

In the worlds of sports and music the true importantce of practice is understood. In the world of soft-skills or skills that we don’t associate with muscular activity the status quo is to teach by pushing knowledge without an awarness of practice. It’s as if a football coach refused to let his team practice until they had memorized their playbooks.

I hope your work shines a light on this issue. If it does, so many people can reach performance levels they never thought possible!

I’m your number one fan… Good luck.