How To Become An Expert – #294

Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery
The Qualities of Being An Expert

 

For More of SuperCreativity Podcast By James Taylor

What could a lacemaker have in common with vascular surgeons? A Savile Row tailor with molecular scientists? A fighter pilot with jazz musicians? At first glance, very little. But Professor Roger Kneebone, who has been called the expert on experts, has spent a lifetime finding the connections and recently published these in a new book called Expert: Understanding The Path To Mastery.

In Expert, he combines his own experiences as a doctor with insights from extraordinary people and cutting-edge research to map out the path we're all following - from 'doing time' as an Apprentice, to developing your 'voice' and taking on responsibility as a Journeyman, to finally becoming a Master and passing on your skills. As Kneebone shows, although each outcome is different, the journey is always the same.

Professor Kneebone directs the Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science and the Royal College of Music - Imperial College Centre for Performance Science. His first career was as a surgeon, operating on trauma patients in southern Africa. He then changed direction, becoming a general practitioner in southwest England. Now, as an academic at Imperial College London, he researches what experts from different fields can learn from one another. His unorthodox and creative team includes clinicians, computer scientists, musicians, magicians, potters, puppeteers, tailors and fighter pilots. Expert is his first book for a general readership.

Whether you're developing a new career, studying a language, learning a musical instrument or simply becoming the person you want to be, Professor Kneebone’s ground-breaking research and book reveals the path to mastery.

Roger and I discuss how anyone can become an expert, the future of work, improvisation skills, thread management, innovation, ZPD theory, and why having expertise and being an expert aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.

James Taylor  

I'm James Taylor, and you're listening to the SuperCreativity podcast, a show dedicated to inspiring creative minds like yours.

What could lacemaker have in common with vascular surgeons? A Savile Row tailor with molecular scientists, a fighter pilot with jazz musicians, at first glance very little. But Professor Roger kneebone, who has been called the expert on experts, has spent a lifetime finding the connections, and recently published these in a new book called expert understanding the path to mastery. In expert, he combines his own experiences a doctor, with insights from extraordinary people cutting edge research. to map out the math we're all following, from doing time as an apprentice to developing your voice and taking on responsibility as a journeyman to finally becoming a master and passing on your skills as Kneebone shows. Although each outcome is different, the journey is always the same. Professor Kneebone directs the Imperial College Center for engagement in simulation science and the Royal College of Music, Imperial College Center for performance science. His first career was as a surgeon operating on trauma patients in southern Africa. He then changed direction becoming a general practitioner in southwest England. Now as an academic at Imperial College London. He researches what experts from different fields can learn from one another. His unorthodox and creative team includes clinicians, computer scientists, musicians, magicians, Potter's poverty as tailors, and fighter pilots. expert is his first book for a general readership. Whether you're developing a new career, studying a language, learning a musical instrument, or simply becoming the person you want to be, Professor Kneebone groundbreaking research and book reveals the path to mastery. Roger and I discuss how anyone can become an expert, the future of work, improvisation skills for Threat Management, innovation, Zed PD theory and why having expertise and being an expert aren't necessarily the same thing. So Professor Ragini, thank you so much for coming in joining us today, you've been called the expert on experts. How'd you feel about that term? And in this time that we're living through just now can experts felt like they went out of fashion, but they seem to be coming back into fashion at the moment?

Anyone Can Become An Expert

Roger Kneebone  

Yes, well, first, and first of all, well, thank you for inviting me onto onto the program. I do feel very uncomfortable at this idea of being have been called an expert, about anything really. And I suppose that brings into question that the whole idea of what it means to be expert, which is what this book is all about. I think I think experts have had a kind of a bad press recently, and there's been a sort of, there's been a sort of movement of almost mistrust, or, or sort of feeling that experts aren't really necessary, which I think is very, I think it's very dangerous. And one of the things I've tried to explore in my book is, is what it means to be expert and why I think we might think experts are so important. And I mean, one of the reasons is, is an obvious one, I suppose, which is that we we all need experts for the things that we need to have done, that we can't do ourselves. And it might be we need an operation, we need an expert surgeon to do it if we need to fly somewhere in the days when we used to fly to places. And I'm sure we will again once the once the current pandemic has changed. But we need expert pilots to fly us around when a central heating system blows up or something we need. We need expert people who can help us with things that we can't do. And these days, particularly, I think we need experts to help us navigate these very uncertain times that we're in with the pandemic and all the other things that are going on around us at the moment. But there's another reason we need to understand what being expert means I think and that is that we are all of us, I think somewhere on a on a path towards becoming experts. And we may not be terribly far along if we've only just started for instance, I don't know learning a new language or taking up a hobby or sport or something like that we may be right at the at the early stages. And in other in other parts of our lives, you might be much further on in a professional job, whatever it might be, but we are always somewhere on a pathway that leads to becoming more expert. And we can do In the minutes about what is

James Taylor  

in the book, I mean, you make it interesting because you're, in some ways I feel your natural categorizer, you're very good at being able to, like, take us through in a very logical way and associate your teaching background, as well. But one thing you see in the book is you can have expert just having expertise doesn't necessarily make you an expert,

Roger Kneebone   

is a correct. So I think this I think this is a an important distinction to make, because people talk a lot about expertise. But to me, the, the central thing is that people have become expert, they do have knowledge and skills, and particular aspects of their of their work, let's say that you could, that you could consider as instances of expertise. But there's something more than that by going through that, that going along that pathway, it's taken them a very long time. they've encountered experiences, they've, they've got things wrong, they've had to put them right, they've had to deal with all sorts of things, which have led to them accumulating wisdom. And I think it's this word wisdom that really, to me, captures what what becoming expert is all about. Because it isn't just about the things that you can do with your hands or the facts, you know, or that or isolated elements, it's how you put it all together. And you make sense of that world that you've chosen to spend a lot of time developing in. And in those latest stages, I think you also start to, to have a wider sense of what what that that area that you've spent a lot of time in is about and how you can encourage other people who are also interested in pursuing the same, the same line. And so there's something about becoming expert that there's a purely descriptive account of stages doesn't really capture because what's important, I think, is the inside story of, of what goes on inside somebody, it's essentially it's a human process. It's not, it's not a collection of things that you can abstract. And say, here are components of expertise, it's an integrated thing that that happens to people as they as they develop.

James Taylor  

Now, on that wisdom, you mentioned the book, your background is in surgery. And so one things I liked about the book is you have these these stories from from tailors, from surgeons, from musicians from magicians. And, you know, one of the things I think you mentioned in the book was, for example, a surgeon were, you know, at different stages in their career as a surgeon, they're there, their expertise, that path, they kind of get to know what they need to do all the parts of the body and very what things look like and get accustomed. And then they can move to a stage of deciding You know, when to use when it's appropriate to use certain things. And as they get further along the journey, they get to discover when not to use, when to have the skills and when when to pull back and when to say actually, and one of the things you mentioned really nicely, which was about was about airline pilots was this idea of just kind of sitting on your hands. Sometimes.

Roger Kneebone 

That's really interesting. And I thought about this a lot, because in the book, as you say I bring together stories of many different kinds of experts. But I also wanted to get at the kind of the the sort of inner feelings of some of those, some of those parts of the pathway. And so I've drawn my own experience. And at one stage I was a, I trained as a surgeon, I did a lot of trauma surgery, particularly in Africa, so dealing with people who had been stabbed and shot and blown up and things like that. And so I was having to, I was having to, to put together a whole lot of factual knowledge, and a whole lot of skills of doing procedures and, you know, operation, parts of operations, and that sort of thing has happened to put that together. But then I became more and more aware of the need to make sensible judgments about whether to do things at all, or in what way to do them. And also having the having the resources if you'd like to recognize when things were going. Not so Right, exactly. Well, they're sometimes they were but recognizing when they were going off the X of my expected path. And I think when you're when you're just becoming when you're starting to learn how to do something, there's a tendency to want to react quickly if things go go wrong. And in my case, in surgery, one of the things that often happened with people who have been stabbed is that you'd open somebody Tommy up, for example, and it would look fine, but then you just you just dislodge a plot of blood say and all of a sudden wish they'd be there'd be a lot of bleeding and that can be rather frightening. And it's very tempting to sort of take a clip and instruments and try and put it on what you think is the is the blood vessel that's bleeding and stop it. But actually, if you if you do that, too impulsively, without being absolutely sure that you're putting it on the right thing, you can actually cause damage. So I learned through experience really, that the best thing to do was to was to sort of temporizing measure, which in my case was putting a large swab on it and pressing very hard, which would stop bleeding while I was pressing on the swab. When I took the swab away, the bleeding would come back again. But it meant that I could sort of control things and control myself, while I gathered my thoughts, and decided what to do next. And it turned out with a lot of the other experts that I've talked to, over the years that they, they have something similar, they often call it a place of safety that they've, that they've thought through in advance, so that they can go to it in a sort of instinctive reflex way, before even trying to think through why they've needed to go there in the first place, if that makes sense. And a really interesting example was from a fighter pilot I've been working with who gave an example of when he was coming down to land which he'd done 1000s and 1000s of times and gone through the the landing checklist where you you know, flaps down undercarriage down this stuff and the other radios that you're coming in all those things, and he done all those things. Were just as he was coming down to lead, he kind of got a feeling that something wasn't right. And, and he didn't have any other fraction of a second to respond. And the way he responded was instinctively he put on full power and climbed. So instead of landing, he climbed up to to a safe altitude. And once he got there, he started going round in in a square, and then thought through what had happened. And what had happened was that he had gone through his pre landing checklist said all the things, but he actually hadn't done the one that lowered the undercarriage. So although he'd said undercarriage down on his checklist, he hadn't actually pressed a button that had done it. And so if he wanted, of course, he would have crashed. And the interesting thing about that, to me was that he had decided in advance how to get to a place of safety. When he recognized that something wasn't right, rather than spending time at that moment, trying to work out what what wasn't right. And lots of people I've spoken to from polar explorers, to performing magicians and musicians, to all sorts of people have got this sense of how you can get back to something that allows you to, as you said earlier, sit on your hands and count to 10. Or just gather your thoughts before committing yourself to something irrevocable, that you might end up regretting. And I think that's a characteristic of having been through enough experiences and done enough stuff, to realize to distinguish, and to trust that feeling that that something isn't right. And you need to press pause while you collect your thoughts, rather than suddenly leaping into action. Do you think that makes sense?

James Taylor  

Yeah. And and as you're talking about, you mentioned, like the idea of the two checklists where we thought we can go through the checklist, but then there was other thing as you take us through this path to mastery in the book, and you take us through that a more classic, you know, the the person who's just starting so the the apprentice than the journeyman and then that can master although it's obviously not quite in a in a linear way a bit that can have these just as are almost like three acts, I guess, as you take us through in that first one, the apprentice. One of the things that you mentioned there, which I guess is kind of what you talked about, you know, the checklist, and is kind of paying your dues. Um, have you thought about doing the work putting putting in the hours? I wonder you because you work with a lot of younger students now as well at various universities. I wonder is that becoming over something that is to a lot of maybe younger generation is trying to avoid being in that more uncomfortable, more routine? Boring, perhaps, work? Is that a problem? Is that always required in that apprentice stage?

Roger Kneebone  

Yeah, I think it is becoming a problem. In my book, I've called that stage, doing time. And it's an interesting stage because this this this idea of a three stage scene three acts as you put it, and I've used the terminology that's been around for hundreds of years, apprentice gentlemen and master not of course now in any gendered sense, but, but to give a sense of, of transition and development. But that early stage, traditionally, was when you spent years and years and years in your master's workshop. And you're learning to be a stone Carver or you were learning to, to be a leather Tanner or whatever it was. And it took a very long time. And you started off, really having no idea at all of what you had to do or what the thing was about, but you just have to do what you were told. And it was often very repetitive and very boring. And at the time, it's very easy to think, Well, why couldn't somebody else do that? Why do I have to do that? This is really, it's pretty boring, and why am I doing it? And and I mean, I certainly went through that stage when I was sort of hanging on to retractors instruments to hold things out of the way during operation so that somebody on the other side of the table who could get a good view, could see what they were doing. And I couldn't have any view. And I just spent hours crunched up holding these things, wondering why it couldn't be done by a machine or by somebody else. But actually, when you look back over it, you find that, that all those years of very important partly because they they allow you to embed those, those techniques, which, as a more experienced person, you absolutely need to know how to be able to do you have got to be able to make flat stone surfaces or learn how to turn or hide or whatever it is you're you're working to. But also, it gives you an understanding of the world that you're in of the materials that you're working with, and the and the tools and things like that. But also, crucially, it gives you an experience of learning to cope with boring, repetitive work of no apparent value at the time. And I think, I think the feeling that people often have now, which is that they are almost entitled not to be bored. Is, is is it's very unhelpful because in anything that you're not good at yet, but you want to get good at and that is worth the effort of spending years doing it, there is going to be boring work, and there's no way around it. And unless you can find a way of coping with that you will I think be perpetually uncomfortable or restless. And one of the people who was most influential when I was writing this book was it was a spectator called Joshua Byrne, who, who really clarified this for me, he'd been at University studying economics, he decided halfway through his course that actually that wasn't what he wants to do, and he wants to become a tailor. So long story short, he got started an apprenticeship, a long apprenticeship as a jacket maker. And when he started doing that, he said that, at university, it was quite straightforward, you'd learn a concept, it might be difficult, but you grasp it, and then you move on to the next one. And you'd build on the last one. And then you go on, when and it was quite difficult to understand very often. But once you've got it, you've got it. When he became a jacket maker, he could understand pretty much from the beginning, what it was about and what he had to do. But it took him years before he could actually do it. And because it was all about doing physical things with your hands and learning to sew and things and, and the speed at which he understood the nature of the task. And the speed at which his body allowed him to, to become skilled at doing it were completely different. And he said that he went through that stage of finding it boring and repetitive. But he realized that he had a choice. I mean, he'd committed to wanting to be a tailor. And either he could forget about that and go do something he found interest more interesting. Or he could stick with it, and find a way of making what he had to do. Interesting. And I thought that was really interesting, because he's talking about, about having agency to reframe what he had to do anyway, and see it as an opportunity to develop his skills or, or to become more familiar with the textiles or whatever it was, but to find something in it that caught his interest. And I think that that to go back to your point about whether students these days have a lower tolerance for doing boring work? I think they do. And I think it's a, I think it's a sort of, it's something in our culture more widely that that there is a sort of intolerance, of boredom and tedium, which really gets in the way of these processes, these slow burning, gradual processes of embedding in your body, ways of doing that just take a long time to get through that.

James Taylor  

And it's very good not to be generalist as well, because I know younger generations often get criticized or millennials get criticized for having short, shorter attention spans and maybe previous generations. But I always think like watching a Netflix series and you think, you know, people might have gone and watch King Lear three hours. And that, you know, that requires a certain level of attention span. But some of these TV shows on Netflix, the last four weeks, and once I thought, well, actually there, maybe it's not necessary the lack of attention, and maybe maybe the boredom factor is is a more crucial one. Your comment you mentioned the Taylor there. Another part, which is of this apprentice, and it's quite it can define as part of this apprentice is talking about the role of space and the physical environment in which they're working and how they're interacting with other people. And you talked about the Taylor, the Nissan place, understanding the environment, one of the things you mentioned with it, that that progress of that tailor going from apprentice up upwards, even in that apprentice stage. And something I didn't realize was that Taylor, there's three different stages, and then we'll go and spend different times learning these different stages. And some of the stages require a very set type of skills. But as time goes on, it's maybe a different set of skills. And so you mentioned this idea of having that combination between the social and the technical skills, which not every tailor is necessarily required to have depending on the type of tailoring they're doing.

Roger Kneebone 

So I discovered this when I started working with Joshua hadn't realized that they were I knew nothing about tailoring particularly bespoke tailoring, and there are two kinds of tailors, they there are making tailors who who, who construct jackets and trousers and things like that highly highly skilled, and all those many layers of a garment and things and it takes them many years to learn how to do it. And then there is a different kind of tailor which are called cutting tailors. And those are the tailors who, who interact with customers so that the making tailors work out of view, and they never see the customer at all. Whereas cutting tailors are the ones who who meet clients, and then they have a conversation about what sort of clothes they want, and then they'll choose the cloth, they will actually cut out a pattern. But that's only just a part of what they do. And then having done that, they send the cut cloth to the making tailor with instructions. And the making tailor then comes up with a sort of provisional interim garment. And then that then the cutting tailor tries that the customer tries that on. And the process is repeated in a series of fittings. And this is a very interesting distinction, I think, because the most tailors are either a cutting tailor or making tailor, Joshua, my colleague was very unusual entity did an apprenticeship in both, he did two apprenticeships one after the other. But they require different kinds of skills, because the the cutting tailors have to be acutely aware of the person they're with. And it was that's really when it struck home to me what strong parallels there were with my own experience in the world of medicine. Because my first phase of my career was as I said, as a surgeon, and a lot of that not all of it, of course, but a lot of the focus there was on doing dexterous things and you know, cutting out things or saying them or putting them together. And I thought at first that that's where the parallels would be with tailoring. But actually, I discovered, talking to Joshua, that the relationship that he develops with his customers, as a cutting tailor, are very much like the experience I had in my in my next phase, which was as a GP as a family doctor, which I did for almost 20 years. Because the task there for the tailor is to try and get a sense of the person they're with, and what they want a garment to do, and how it fits into their life. And what's it what it's going to make them feel like, and then they have to make judgments that say there has to make a judgement about what a person looks like, what they want to look like, and what it may be possible through tailoring to make them look like and that's a question of often balancing different different perspectives, different wishes. And it made me think that the the essence of what I was seeing was Joshua was not it was not really the suit, or the jacket. That was the visible manifestation of a relationship based relationship of trust and care based on integrity and a sense that that it was the customer's best interest it was at the center, and that making the jacket or the suit was was an expression of that relationship in in a sense, and that that customer might never have anything else made or they might have loads of other things made. And those would be other other sort of outcomes from that relationship. And it made me think that as a GP. You know, I might see somebody with a particular disease and give them some treatment and it might work fine. But actually underpinning that was that related Friendship of trust and care between one person and another person were, were their two worlds of experience intersected to come up with some solution to a problem, whether the problem was, or the challenge was coming up with a jacket that fitted and worked in was just right. Or whether it was how to deal with a small diabetes or blood pressure problems or something like that. And that, actually, the primary thing was a human relationship. And I thought that was fascinating, because I'd never really thought that there would be that point of connection between tailoring and medicine because they seem so very different.

James Taylor  

It's interesting, even, you're talking about GPA, I've got a friend, that's a neighbor as a GP, and some of those when you meet with a with a patient, and they come in and present with one lot of things, and then you ask as time goes on, and, and is there anything else. And in that often throws up a whole bunch of other things, which are not necessarily physical manifestations. But there's other things kind of going on, as well. And so you mentioned about the tails. And but it was interesting, because as I was reading experts, I was also reading another book, I always like to mix fiction and nonfiction. So you are my nonfiction book of the week, am I not my fiction book of the week was actually the tailor of Panama with john licari. And it was actually it's very interesting kind of reading those two things together. And you mentioned mentioned in the book, enjoying the car, and I was astounded to realize this is your first book, solo authored book as well. So I guess this kind of moves on to the second stage second act, going from apprentice to journeyman. And one of the things there was about developing voice. And it's, maybe you can talk, I know, you've mentioned lots of stories in the book, a beautiful Bill Evans story about how he developed his voice as a musician. How did you go about developing your voice as an author? And going from that moving from that apprentice to more of a more of a journeyman and as a writer?

Roger Kneebone  

Yes, that's an interesting one. I mean, you talk about you talk about Luke Carey, and I think he's a, he's a very interesting example of somebody whose voice has become more and more. I don't know how quite how to express it. But But more and more powerful as, as his books have gone on. And I think he's an example of somebody who has really, while ago reached that stage of being of such mastery, that, that, that the, the, the way in which he writes, is almost it's so expert, that it's almost invisible. It's just yeah.

James Taylor  

I'd be reading in bed, and every so often, I would have to attend my office, listen to this line, let's now beautifully crafted this sentence or this paragraph,

Roger Kneebone 

his latest one before he died, which was agent running in the field

James Taylor  

yet? Yes, I have. I did read that. Yeah,

Roger Kneebone  

absolutely spectacular, and it immediately pulls you into the world of another person, and is utterly convincing. And I think that that, that seems so effortless, that that that that mastery conceals decades of, of going through those stages, I mean, you know, his early books are not the same as his later books. And I think he really, I think you can see in his trajectory, that a whole lot of stuff becomes almost invisible, because it's so skillfully woven,

James Taylor  

but but even one of the perfect use in terms like can really understand how you developed that voice. I know, you've probably written for many more academic things as a doctor. But in terms of writing a book like this, each chapter or many of the chapters, use the device of starting with a with a opening story, usually often related to you and your journey, as a doctor as a GP. And you work, I guess, in storytelling, opening a loop, but you wouldn't close that loop until the end of that chapter. So it creates a little bit of tension in each chapter. And then during the course of chapter, you're telling other people's stories, and then you close out the chapter with with closing that loop with the near the completion of that story. And it's like tension and release. So that's not the worker and apprentice doing that. That's, that's more someone that has become skilled in writing. So how did you find how do you develop that? How did you find that? How do you develop that voice?

Roger Kneebone  

Well, thank you. I'm glad I came across you like that. So it's true. I had done quite a lot of writing along the way, mostly for journals and things and so that's or the occasional chapter for textbooks completely different type of writing. But I'd written a number of quite short pieces for medical journals. There's one called The Lancet for instance, which which, which had contributed a number of, of articles, which I felt didn't need to have a clear arc. They were they were more conceptual essays, they weren't, they weren't scientific, scientific journal articles in the, within a constrained traditional format, which scientific articles usually require, you know, as a structured abstract, and you start with an introduction, and you present data, and then you analyze it, then you discuss it, and then you finish. Not like that, but more more sort of essays that needed to have a narrative arc. And so I've been thinking about that, how, in 700, or 1400 words, I could tell a story with a point. And then I, then I had to think about how to how to how to try and achieve that in a much bigger form in in, in a book, it's got about 350 pages, I think, something like that, over eight or nine chapters. So I had ideas about that. But I was very fortunate in, in, in being able to work with an editor, jack RAM, who first of all was, was part of the he was at Penguin, when I first encountered him, and it was he was one of the people who invited me to put forward a proposal for this book in the first place. And we started working together, he then left penguin and became independent and, and so we carried on, we carried on with that relationship, which I think was a, a bit like the one I described, between Joshua and his aunties clans, or perhaps between me and my patients, which was a collaboration between people with, with equally valid but different kinds of expert ways of thinking. And, and his skill as an editor was quite different. He wasn't a co author or anything, but he, he brought a different way of looking at what I was doing, from the one that I was developing, as the person who was writing it, yeah, so from time to time, we would, we would both look at what I'd written, and, and bring our different perspectives together. And he was very good at seeing the shape of something even when the writing itself wasn't finished,

James Taylor  

if that makes sense. He could he could get there was there was that there was a feel, or you mentioned like feel earlier on as well,

Roger Kneebone  

for the balance between the elements, and the threads within each chapter and the and the threads across the whole book. And, and I suppose in in a way, it made me think of a bit like the difference in perspective between between an orchestral I mean, I'm not an orchestral musician, but how I imagined that would be if you're playing the trumpet or the violin, as opposed to the conductor who has a sort of overall view of the, of the whole thing as its emerging. And that was a very, it was a very creative partnership, I don't think it happens. I don't think all authors by any means have the privilege or the opportunity to do that. And we hit it off very well. But I saw it as a sort of conjunction of different kinds of, of expertise, in a way Yeah. And he didn't know anything about the content. And I didn't know what I meant. He didn't know he had a different way of thinking about the content. But he knew a great deal had a lot of experience of working with other authors and other books, of course, which I didn't have. And so those those two perspectives came together in my case in what was a very, I think, a very creative relationship. No,

James Taylor  

I mean that the books one four, is it really beautifully structured and, and thoughtful and as you can have come up to the end of the of the journeymen section of the book, the middle act, I guess of the book, you talk about learning to improvise. This is this is like, as you start going the bridging the Rubicon, like making that transition from journeyman I guess I'm on to master as well. And you told a great story. I mean, you told me about Keith Jarrett, which I'd never heard before, which I thought was a fantastic story. I'm James Taylor, business, creativity and innovation keynote speaker, and this is the super creativity podcast. If you enjoy listening to conversations with creative thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, authors, educators, and performers, then you've come to the right place. Each week we discuss their ideas, their life, their work, successes, failures, creative process, and much much more. You'll find show notes for today's episode as well as free creativity training at James taylor.me. If you enjoy learning about Roger niebo, and the path to mastery and innovations in science, then check out my interview with technology futurist geopolitical experts, and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic cancer, Jamie metal, where we discuss genetic engineering and the future of humanity. Hear my conversation with Jamie metso at James taylor.me. After the break, we returned to my interview with Roger kneebone Why understanding difference between maps and guides can help us achieve mastery in our chosen field. This week's episode is sponsored by speakers, you the online community for international speakers, speakers, you help you grow, launch and monetize your speaking business faster than you thought possible. If you want to share your message as a highly paid speaker, then speakers you will teach you how just go to speakers you.com to access their free speaker business training. You also told a story, which I thought was interesting. You said like a jazz band is like a surgical team. There, they're kind of supporting each other and working with each other. You tell a story about a Portuguese pianist. There's something very I'd love for you to tell that story just now. I actually wouldn't look to the video afterwards, because video exists. And I was amazed. It is this happen. So typically, please tell the story because I think it is it builds upon what you're talking about throughout the book in terms of paying your dues, getting getting those hours during those hours. And then you start to move in this improvisation is an end we talk about classical music here. So it's not just

Roger Kneebone  

in the sense of improvising notes. So this is a story that happened quite a long time ago. Now. The very famous pianist called Maria never quite hard to pronounce it dry periods. And you have Portuguese pianist concert pianist who was giving it I think it was lunchtime concert. In the concert Goodbye, I think in a very famous concert hall with an orchestra conducted by Ricardo Shay, equally famous conductor, and she was playing a Mozart Piano Concerto. So you see her sitting down at the piano. And she sort of starts and, and, and, and the opening bar of the, of the orchestral introduction to this Mozart Piano Concerto, she realizes that it's not the one she prepared. She's not the one she was expecting to play. And you see this, this look of horror on her face, when she suddenly realizes that, you know, she's got a couple of minutes or something before she's supposed to start. And it's, and it's the wrong one. And she you see it has sort of looked sort of panic stricken really, and ricochet he looks after he carries on waving his baton conducting the orchestra. He says, Don't worry, I know you know this other one. And I know you'll be fine. You've played it before, it will be fine. And you see her and she she sort of sits there and she composes herself. And she shuts her eyes for a moment or two. And then she opens them again. And then the moment comes for her to, to start. And she she plays and she gives a flawless performance of that Mozart Piano Concerto that she wasn't expecting to have to play. Now, of course, she could only do that because she knew that Piano Concerto and have played it many times before. But remember that she's playing from memory. And she's playing in the moment in front of a large public audience. out there, sort of on on the platform, with nowhere to go. And I thought that was just a completely extraordinary thing to be able to do. Because she was not only able to draw on that, that sort of knowledge of the of the work and the repertoire and the fingering and actually being able to remember the notes and play them. But she was able to do it at two minutes notice or less under conditions of quite extraordinary pressure. And not only sort of struggled through it, but actually gave a magnificent performance, where nobody would have known that there was anything unexpected about it. And to me, that's that's what improvised session is about not as I say not improvising new notes or anything in that case, but being able to, to read and respond to an unexpected situation and, and draw at very short notice on a whole lot of stuff that was only inside you because you've spent years and years and years going through those stages

James Taylor  

in the book as well, you then also can relate that to a story of you doing a surgery on a young gentleman Syria comes in serious neck wound and you know, very high stakes kind of situation. And you had to improvise you did something using a device which is not normally used in this type of kind of trauma surgery never forgotten this

Roger Kneebone

one. It was very scary. It was it was some you've been stabbed in the neck and that's not easy to deal with anyway because there's such a lot of important structures in the neck. But this young man had blood sort of welling up and I thought I'd found where the blood was coming from and dealt with that. But it turns out that there was more blood coming from right at the back and it turned out that there was a knife wound had found its way through into the space Between two of the vertebrae, I don't want to give listeners the creeps. But the the vertebrae in the neck, the bones of the spine, sort of fuel line them up, there's a, there's a channel down each side, which are very important artery goes up in, called the vertebral artery. But because it's in a Bernie channel, it's extremely difficult to get out. The knife, unfortunately, had got at it. And so blood was was was spurting out of a place, it was extremely difficult to get to. And I really didn't know what to do. But I didn't have time to, I mean, there wasn't anybody else around and they couldn't get there in time to help me anyway. So I had to do something. And I distinctly remember reading or caring somewhere about somebody who'd done had something a bit like that themselves. And they used a little tiny catheter of the sort that's normally used to go into small children, when they've got problems with their bladder, so it goes in through the, through the urethra, into the bladder, and then you blow up a little balloon at the end, so it doesn't fall out again. And so I asked the theatre sister to give me one of those she thought I'd gone completely, never normally asked for a pediatric urinary catheter when you were dealing with a grown man's neck. But she got it for me. And we're able to feed it down into that bony channel and then blow up the balloon, which then put enough pressure on the artery to stop the patient bleeding to death. While in other words, a bit like the the fighter pilot putting on power and getting to a safe altitude. It, it gave time to stabilize the situation and think about it. But that was that was an example I think of, of being able to sort of reach out and capture something that I didn't even know, I knew about. And it might not even have worked. But it it was a sort of I think it was an example of beginning to get the hang of responding in the moment. But thinking more widely than the frame within which I'd learned to do that kind of operation. Because I'd learnt the specifics of surgery for that kind of procedure. I hadn't been taught about thinking sideways to completely unrelated ideas that might be useful later. I think that's a it's a characteristic of nostalgia. As you get

James Taylor  

Yeah, it's like Edward de Bono already got like a guess what lateral thinking, you know, thinking?

Roger Kneebone  

Absolutely. lateral thinking. Yeah, there's something really interesting about

The Future Of Work

James Taylor  

and as you start to finish up when he does, as you start to finish up the the act about the journeyman, and you talk actually, which is something I think is interesting. A previous conversation for the for the podcast with Carl Benedikt Frey from Oxford University, who does a lot of research around the future of work saying that you shouldn't maybe 40% of jobs exist just now are at risk, from automation, from AI, robotics, machine learning, IoT, all those kind of things. And we were having a discussion about well, which jobs what kind of jobs and it's interesting because his work linked a little bit to what you mentioned here about defining two different types of workmanship. So we're talking about whisking to what what was it but this is really, any, I guess, craft craftsmanship, however, you want to describe it as well. And, and it talks about the type of workmanship of, of certainty, and a type of workmanship of risk. I would love for you just kind of like describe what the differences between those two things are, because I think it builds very, can open it up as into thinking potential where we're going to go in this new this fourth industrial revolution just now which jobs are going to be the ones that are perhaps going to be most valuable.

Roger Kneebone 

So this comes from a very well known furniture, furniture designer, and and writer in the act of 1960s, called David Pye, who, who talked about these two kinds of workmanship, the workmanship of certainty, he describes as the as well, all the creative work has already been done, once you've performed, the first thing is created. So you've produced a production line for making my I don't know, chair legs or something like that. And then every single or teapots or something, and then every single one that comes off that production line is exactly the same. That's the workmanship of certainty. And against that he he he puts the workmanship of risk. Now he's not talking about risk in the sense of people getting hurt or, or bad work or anything like that. It's a different use of the word. But by workmanship of risk, he means work where the outcome is not, is not only prescribed at the beginning, you know, you never quite know how it's exactly how it's going to be. And that's, you know, stuff that's done by hand or there are all kinds of all kinds of examples of it. But I think that that it's a useful distinction, because it it points out that there are there are many areas of practice where we're where things can't be guaranteed or precisely prescribed from the outset. And, and, you know, some of them are things like musical performances, for example. And I think I think clinical practice is exactly like that. It's it's one where, where you are constantly having to manage and work with, with parts of the story that you can't completely control

James Taylor 

And it's almost like that idea of performance. I think of, you know, great salespeople, for women, whether they're selling financial products, or whatever the thing is they're selling, there's a difference between them. Because they're going into, and they're reacting, and they're improvising. And they're doing all the things you mentioned, they're responding to the environment, and they're responding to, and thinking and thinking maybe laterally, like you're talking about, as opposed to going on a website and saying, Okay, I need this financial, this ISO, or this financial product, whatever it is, I think, naturally, advisors

Roger Kneebone 

are a very good example, I think they're really good financial advisors, do something rather like really good GPS, and really good for spectators, where they, their starting point is, is, is is trying to work out what the person they were the person they're with is coming from, and who they are. And it when I talk about this, this, this change a little bit earlier on in the pathway from being an apprentice from, from learning to do stuff, and thinking and your primary focus being on showing people that you've learned that stuff, or taken exams or, or whatever, to becoming responsible for your own work and going out into the world in the journeymen phase, to use the old terminology, one of the crucial, one of the crucial transitions I think you have to make is what the magicians I've worked with, talk about this, it's, it's, it's not about you, it's about them. And that's getting back to the to the magic from the business thing, realizing that, that the whole purpose of your work is for somebody else, it's not just to show what you can do it is, it's about where it lands with your patient, or your audience, or your customer or your client. And that requires you to, to throw your attentional focus into a different place to move it away from yourself, and to recognize how it lands with somebody else, and respond accordingly. And when I started thinking about the clinical consultation, for example, as a close up live performance with a very small audience. I think doctors don't normally think of themselves as performance in quite that way. But but but once I thought about that, it made a lot of sense. Because Yeah, because then an encounter was a financial advisor is a close up live performance as a very small audience. or indeed, someone in a garage when you take your car, and you want to know what's wrong, all those things. And that requires you as somebody becoming expert, to listen and attend, to saw how somebody else is responding. As well as just putting into effect, the skills and the knowledge that you've spent a lot of time acquiring. And that's a difficult thing. And as you become as you get to the mastering stage, you are able, I think, to make sense of how you read your audience, and then bring in these natural things that we've just been talking about when we were talking about improvising.

James Taylor  

And one of the things now Good move on this kind of final stage of mastery stage. You said it's interesting, we were talking earlier, about performance and the role of performance. And I think myself as a keynote speaker is a is a type of performance. And we spoke about the difference between whether you're performing in front of an audience of say, 500 people as opposed to performing, doing a virtual conference where you're in a small screen, you're using different body language, different facial, your eyes are doing different things, you're getting different responses. And so you're, you're having to improvise, which is the thing we're speaking about, there's not certain what the outcome will be is not not a prescribed thing. But you can have as you were talking about it in this third stage of business mastery. You talked about this idea of thread management. And and I thought this was very interesting, because I could see how this could apply to not just in the context of you were talking about how so many of us if we're doing any type of performance, we can be learning from other crafts and other skill sets and other experts in a completely unrelated fields, and use it to deepen our own work and maybe come up with some of those those innovations. So first of all, can you describe what this thread management is? Because I just think it's a fascinating concept.

Improvisation Skills, Thread management, Innovation, ZPD theory.

Roger Kneebone

So thread management was an idea that was suggested to me. Well, I've been working with it the art workers guild in London, which is an extraordinary organization in in, in central London, where people for many different kinds of expert crafts come together. And they invited me to show what surgeons do so on one occasion, I invited my colleagues. I do a lot stuff with simulation with presenting sort of representations of operations and things using models and and artificial material but real surgeons and the nice statistics and nurses to show how operations happen. And we will show how a surgeon joins two pieces of intestine together with with sutures with threads. One of the artwork, as they're called Fleur oaks is a very distinguished embroiderer textile artist said when I watched that, I saw thread management, I have to teach my students about thread management, because otherwise they get their threads tangled up when I'm teaching them embroidery, I have to say to them, for instance, you know, you must have a piece of thread longer than the distance between your fingers and your elbow because otherwise it'll get snagged up. Or if you're if you're sewing around the corner, you have to untwist it every so often. Otherwise it gets it gets twisted around like an old fashioned telephone wire. And so I thought this is a really interesting idea of thread management. Because I'd never thought about, I'd thought about threads in surgery as just an incidental part, just how I joined bits of intestine together and my focus was the intestine. For Fleur, her focus was the threat. So we organized a series of events, which brought together people who use threads in different ways. So, Fleur herself, a number of surgeons, we had some puppeteers who use threads with marionettes had a fisherman fly fishermen who, who ties, little threads and also casts using long threads. We had one of my colleagues who does computer modeling of threads in computer programs, various people who use threads in different ways. Somebody who does knitting and, and that led to well to two things ready. The first was that I saw that there are different points of connection that lead to insights that you might not have thought of. So medical people usually connect up with other medical people in medical related fields, or orbits or areas of science that relate to medicine, I think. So the idea that you could see as your point of contact threads, and then the viewpoint of a surgeon, and, and an embroiderer and a fisherman would be equally valid, if that makes sense.

James Taylor  

Open your eyes, your eyes highly skilled.

Roger Kneebone 

All these people were very expert in what they did. So they'd all been through these stages. And they'd all become extremely skilled at what they did. And we discovered that when we tried to do what other people did when I tried to cast a line or or, or do a bit of embroidery, I discovered right away that I was not even at the beginning. And these people who made it look so effortless, were very, very skilled. And that led interestingly enough to Fleur Oaks, who was sitting next to a consultant vascular surgeon, dealing with blood pressure, blood vessel surgery, called colon Bicknell. It led to flow spending two years as the lacemaker in residence in the vascular surgery unit at St. Mary's Hospital, part of Imperial College, London, the University where I work. And that was that was a fascinating, fascinating sort of residency because there was Fleur, and Colin both in the operating theatre, so they were both in the same place. Colin, like me, he's a consultant, vascular surgeon. So he was thinking in terms of an individual patient, and their anatomy and the disease and the procedure, all that kind of thing for a fine artist who'd never been in a hospital knew nothing about anatomy at that stage or disease or techniques. But what she saw was, was colors and consistencies, and materiality, and she saw how people were working together in a close knit group, to do things that require dexterity and precision and care and response to one another. She saw all sorts of things that the surgery pre trained people had either never seen or had stopped noticing. And so it made me think that, that you can see, you can see different things. I mean, I know that sounds obvious, but but it hadn't really struck me how different were the things that you could see in an environment that that you can easily come to take for granted, that are important to notice. But that often escape attention. So when I think about my later work as a GP, thinking about that, in terms of performance was rather a similar thing. Instead of thinking about, you know, the diagnosis of pneumonia or whatever. I was thinking more more about how people who haven't met establish a connection that will allow them for the next 10 minutes to come up together with a joint idea of what the problem is.

James Taylor  

Yeah. And guess what, you're also starting to go into a new topic towards the end of the book as well. Is that classic kind of boundary crosses, you know, they have to find people win Nobel prizes, they have a core competence in one particular area, but they cross over, they've got a curiosity about another area. And they study this other area as a side part of what they do. And then they bring in some of the learnings from that and apply. So one of the ones you mentioned was Professor john Whitman, and his team. And I thought what was interesting about that was because so much of we think about creativity, or innovation, just being about very, but the eye or the individual or the ego. I thought what you described within john wickman, in the keyhole surgery was the role of the team and how the team works together.

Roger Kneebone 

Yeah, absolutely. So john Wickham, who died two years ago at the age of 1889, I think, was it was a pioneering figure in, in keyhole surgery, in the development of keyhole surgery, particularly around the 1980s. He was a urologist he studied, I mean, he worked with people with kidney and bladder disease, and particularly focused on, on treating people with stones, kidney stones. And he'd always had this idea, he said that, you know, that time to take out a kidney stone from somebody from the tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder, the ureter, you'd make a great big, enormous incisions size of around a beam, as he put it, in some of it is somebody's side, to take out something that was the size of a lentil. And he'd always thought that this was crazy, but he didn't really know what to do about it. And then at that time, when he'd become he gone through the stages in the book, he'd become a master. He was an expert, consultant, urologist, other things were happening. At the same time, there were developments in technology, there was fiber optics, beginning imaging techniques, CT scans, new forms of ultrasound, and x ray, all sorts of things were happening. And, and a lot of technology, developments around lenses and things. And so he, he brought together, people from very different perspectives, he brought together instrument manufacturers, he worked with an interventional radiologist and X ray specialist at a time when traditionally, surgery was something led by the surgeon who told everyone what to do. And he completely challenged that way of thinking about things. He brought together people from all kinds of backgrounds to work together to try and address this problem of having to make large holes in people that took ages to get over to do something that actually needed a tiny little bit of work at the end, to fix the problem. And, and so he framed this in a way as a problem space, I think. And he invited different people to come and bring different solutions. And so the instrument manufacturer, he worked with Stuart Greengrass for many, many years, was not medical at all, but was an expert in designing equipment and operators. And so they would work together to come up with ideas and try them out and see if they work they did. And he gathered around him john wick among a group of younger surgeons, and he would give some challenges, he'd say, they'll come up with some sort of new ideas by Monday, next week, and then they'd all come together next Monday, and they'd share these ideas. And, and they would try a lot of things, which didn't work. But some of the things they tried did work. And that led to a radical change, that the introduction of keyhole surgery, which is hard to think about now, because it's so much part of what surgery routinely is these days, that, that it's easy to lose sight of how radical this was, and how radical not only in terms of technology, but in terms of how people work together. And that invitation he gave to people to to contribute from very different perspectives, which I think is a bit like floats, the the lacemaker being in the vascular surgery unit and coming up with solutions to problems that the surgeons hadn't even seen as problems. And I think that that's something that I mean, we've seen it quite a bit recently, haven't we, with the early days of the COVID pandemic, with with C pap working with racing car t Yeah, with people from the world of textiles coming up with new technologies for making masks, you know, we're seeing it all around. But But I still think it's, it's, it's more unusual than routine, I think it I think there's a lot more that people can do in terms of thinking outwards and making connections.

James Taylor  

So that that that final stage, which is the mastery, and we've been talking about changing direction and the role of the team and the people around you, and you can finish the book up with this idea of passing it on. And, and so you said a number of different interesting things that I thought were which I hadn't heard before z PD. I'd never heard this term before. So I'd love to know what there was epd In its role, and if someone has achieved a level of mastery and whatever their their thing is passing on to nature and the idea of heightened, CPD, and what how that refers to it. And then

Roger Kneebone 

also, this other idea begins to kind of relate, which is, maps and guides. The difference between these two, two things, because a lot of the things you see, I'm sure probably lots of you will be learning how to make sourdough bread on over the pandemic, or play guitar and things. A lot of those are very tick box, you know that the instructions of how to do things, and it's only much later when you can feel it and you're working with those materials, you start to develop the mastery and you can move this between this idea of maps and guides. So please, first of all, tell me that the role of passing it on why that is important for mastery? And what is the PD and how does that relate to so I think the passing it on is I talked about when the gentleman stage when you have to change from thinking about it's all about you to it's it's all about who you're doing it for your patients are your customers, your audience, I think something similar happens when you at the mastery stage where you again have to make a shift to thinking that, that your focus of attention is not just you, it's the people who are who are following following you. And, and, and not just how to make sure that they know what they need to know or can do what they need to do. But you also develop a sense of responsibility for guiding them into where they're going. And to, to being aware of them as a person and helping them not just in specific aspects of technical work or something but but making the right decisions about how they develop their own career, their own individuality. So this idea of the deputies, it stands for zone of proximal development, and it comes from a Russian psychologist called left Vygotsky, who was very who's working in the in the Soviet Union in the 20s and 30s. But his work became widely known in the West any decades later. But in a nutshell, the stuff that you that you know how to do. There's a load of stuff that you just don't know how to do. But in the middle is stuff that you can do with somebody who's helped that you can't do on your own. And that's the zone of proximal development, as he calls it. And that's an area where we're where learning really happens. But it's an interesting area, because it needs to be treated sensitively. If you I mean, if you imagine you're learning to do something you don't know how to do you're learning to tie a bow tie or something like that. So first of all, you you can't do it. Somebody shows you how to do it, you start to get the hang of it, you try it out. They correct you. They say no, no, no, actually, it'd be easier if you if you turn this hand that way or something like that. But then they get to a point where you no longer want them breathing down your neck, you want to just be able to practice it in front of a mirror for a couple of hours yourself until you actually really get it. And so that is your zone of proximal development. And the role of a teacher then is to know I think, how to get you to know the basics, but then when to back off. And then when to come back in again. And when to support you when you need and when to go away again, and when to have an overall view of what you're learning fits with where you started, where you want to go. And that idea of the zone of proximal development, I think is very helpful. And because it's a way of thinking about where of joining somebody where they already are, rather than expecting them to know stuff that you know, but they do get and yet, and it fits into the maps and guides, I think because sorry, did you want to

James Taylor  

know, I was just gonna say so there's no I will probably find that the Russians have a word for it now, but it's almost we're like, teacher, coach, mentor, advisor, it's like where the some of these overlap these Venn diagram of these things. I

Roger Kneebone 

think all of these ideas come come in. And the maps and guides idea i was i was thinking about what what is this process? And I started thinking about what is the difference between you know, Sat Nav instructions that have a narrow focus and, and they they tell you what to do. And if you do it, you usually get to where they where you want to go, but you have no idea how you got there. And you've got no sense of the bigger picture of what's going on around you. If you're going on a cross country walk actually what you really need is a is a map so that you know what the terrain is like. But you need to be able to read that map and you you very often actually need a you need somebody else you need somebody else who's able to to take you and help you deal with it when you can't see the landmarks because the fog comes down or something like that. But then there's also that bigger picture of deciding where you want to go in the first place. Do you want to go to the Cairngorms Do you want to go to Did you know that that whole question of, of deciding what the journey should be for you. And for that, you need somebody who's able to understand you who might know things that might be able to see things about you that you might not even have noticed. And that although you say you want to go to Cancun, and they might say, well actually, for for where you are, at the moment, it might be actually better to go to a temperature or something like that. And that's, that's a different thing that's more like, I think, like being a summer where we crossover between being a mentor and, and a coach, and someone whose primary focus is you, and where you've got to on that path, and how they can help you navigate the next step, and very often be there to point out pitfalls. And when there's a sheer drop on either side, but you can't see it, because it's foggy, you know, there's that aspect of it. But there's also the aspect of helping you work out where it is you do want to go, and maybe suggest possibilities you hadn't thought of and sat nav doesn't do that. And I think that these that sort of rather restricted formal courses have that there is a possibility of spending a lot of time learning stuff and finding out it's the wrong stuff.

James Taylor  

And then I guess we come back around that virtuous loop again, because the master teaches that brings under the apprentice underneath her or him and we'll move on

Why Having Expertise VS Being An Expert

Roger Kneebone  

the world turns and, and so. So I think one of the interesting things that came out to me from all the experts and many experts I've talked to is, is when I asked him, you know, when they became experts, and most of them say, Well, I haven't become an expert. I mean, I don't think and this idea that that path, you can pretty much tell where it begins, although actually I think it begins a lot earlier than you asking me about when I about learning to write. And of course, I started learning to write when I was at primary school, you know, so it's, it's something that's built up over many, many years. It's not something that that I just started recently. But But let's say you can, you can pinpoint the beginning of the expert, but but you really can't. You can't say where it ends. And several of them Joshua, the data said this, a wood engraver I spoke to said this, Joshua said, I know there's no such thing as a perfect suit. But I'll never stop trying to make one. The wood engraver I've worked with said there's no such thing as a perfect print. But I never stopped trying to create one as well. They all give a sense that they know they are perhaps quite a way along the pathway. But they certainly haven't reached the end, partly because there isn't an end. And partly because it's a continual human process that in a way, if it did have an end, it would be less attractive, because they all of them feel that they are simply getting closer towards an unattainable game goal, but that the process continues to be worthwhile.

James Taylor  

Well, one for that. I mean, this is such a fantastic book, Roger, expert understanding the path of mastery. If people want to get their get their book, and also actually to learn more about you and your other writing your other projects, you do lecturing as well, where's the best place to go and find out about that?

Roger Kneebone  

Well, the book is published by Penguin, Penguin, Viking. So if you go to the penguin website, or indeed any any bookseller, there's also an audio book version, which I recorded myself reading the book aloud over several days. And that's available to again through the either through the penguin website, or through any good chain or indeed independent booksellers. If you're interested in the ideas behind the book, my own podcast series counter currents. We've I've recorded and released I think 135 quite long conversations with many of the people in the book and lots of others besides. And so if you put in counter current or one word, and my surname D, Ben KNWEV o n e into your search engine that will come up with that it's, it's on iTunes and other areas free but you just have to pick up and then if you put my name into the search engine, again, you'll find a lot of publications and things particularly in journals like the Lancet medical journal, a couple of nature when the scientific journals and and lots of other ones exploring these ideas around around crossing boundaries and what it is to become expert.

James Taylor  

Well, Professor Rajan Ebro, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I wish you all the best in your continued research and your continued writing. I work as well and I'm, I'm definitely I think I'm next suit. I'm going to get made. I'm going to go to that tailor that you mentioned as well. So thank you, Roger today.

Roger Kneebone  

Well, it's been a great pleasure to take part and thank you so much for inviting me. You can

James Taylor  

You can subscribe to the SuperCreativity podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave us a review. I really appreciate it. I'm James Taylor, and you've been listening to the SuperCreativity podcast.