This episode is presented by eBay.

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Then when you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals

on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

sellers.

Welcome to Science Talk, the podcast of Scientific American for the seven days starting August 2nd. I'm Steve Murski. This week on the podcast, we'll reveal the secret of how to get really good

at anything with Phil Ross, the author of The Expert Mind in the August issue of Scientific American,

and we'll also hear how you can bicycle to Pluto from Sheldon Schaefer, the curator of the solar

system. All will be explained. Plus, we'll test you on some recent science in the news.

First up, Phil Ross. He was a contributing editor at Scientific American when he wrote The Expert Mind and has just become the web editor for the publication I-Triple-E Spectrum. I called him at his office in New York City.

Hi, Phil. How are you?

Hi, how are you?

Good. So you have the cover story in the August issue of Scientific American, the expert mind.

And so let me ask you this. How do I get to Carnegie Hall?

Well, practice, practice practices the standard answer. And a lot of people have thought it was not quite true. They thought talent played a role.

And they may be right. It's hard to disprove that hypothesis. But the current

belief, it seems, is among people who study expertise, the experts on expertise, is that there's

no good reason why any one of us could not become a recognized expert.

Practice really does make perfect rather than an innate kind of

talent for a field but it has to be the right kind of practice yes imagine um a good

analogy for anyone is to take the one thing that we are truly expert in which is

...