I was so taken with this talk just an hour later and discussing ETS’s Opportunity in America Initiative, I used Tobias’s image of a complex problem not lending itself to taking itself apart — an approach which we tend to use in problem solving. My colleague Irwin Kirsch said that this reminded him of a recent speech by David Brooks in which Karl Popper was cited. Some years ago Popper gave a rather famous lecture in which he contrasted problems that are like clocks — mechanical, easily fixed through taking apart and then putting them back together — and problems...

Hi all — I saw this quote recently on Maria Popova’s wonderful weekly Brain Pickings Newsletter. I seemed an interesting idea to play off the ideas we heard from Wendy Wood on her habit research. “…paying attention top-down, intentionally counteracting the brain’s urge to automatize routines.” sounds a lot like a superhabit.   Here’s a link to the full article: Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence