Learning, expertise and creativity

Performing under pressure by quieting the self-interference that spoils play.

How masters from Leonardo to Faraday found a life's task and served apprenticeships.

How people champion new ideas, and how leaders can encourage originality.

Early specialisation works only where rules are stable; elsewhere breadth wins.

Creativity in humour, science and art as 'bisociation': joining two unrelated frames.

A neurologist on the varieties of luck in scientific discovery

Why some groups of talented people achieve greatness and others never do.

A journalist learns memory techniques and wins the US Memory Championship.

What a chess prodigy turned tai chi champion learned about learning itself.

How timing, culture and accumulated advantage explain exceptional success.

Cognitive science and learning theory applied to thinking and learning better.

Deliberate practice, not innate talent, explains world-class performance.

How talent is grown, not born, through a brain mechanism training can tap.

Seven patterns, such as the adjacent possible, in the settings that produce ideas.

Field-tested tips for improving skills in sport, music, art, maths and business.

How extreme-sports athletes use flow states to push performance further.

How experts in music, chess, medicine and sport excel through deliberate practice.

Creative genius explained as a Darwinian process of variation and selection.

A powerlifter's guide to the mental training behind world-class strength.