To Be Great at Something Is to Be Well Myelinated
The new science of performance.
In this world of distractions everywhere, it creates a huge demand for people who can resist. Or, in other words, the rarest and most important skill you can cultivate in today’s information age is the ability to concentrate.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book Outliers how 10,000 hours of deliberate practice can make you the best in any field. To find out how deliberate practice works, scientists did research and came to a conclusion.
The neuroscientists increasingly believe that the answer is myelin- a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons, acting like an insulator that allows cells to fire faster and cleaner.
The new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons and corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively.
To be great at something is to be well myelinated.
By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you're forcing the specific relevant circuit to fire again and again, in isolation.
The repetitive use of specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the…
