DELIBERATE PRACTICE is for everyone who dreams. To engage consciously, developing and refining your skills is one of the most powerful ways to improve the effectiveness of your practice. Focus, concentration and instant feedback are crucial. A hallmark of an expert performer is one that constantly strives to improve their technique. Expert performers develop their special abilities through years and years of DELIBERATE PRACTICE. There are no shortcuts. No born prodigies, not without intense, constant feedback, extended practice. The emphasis is on the skills versus knowledge. You pick up the necessary knowledge while developing the skills. Knowledge is never the end in itself. The student is step by step kept out of his comfort zone. Plenty of repetition and feedback is necessary. It is estimated to have 10,000 hours of DELIBERATE PRACTICE to master a skill. How much you improve is up to you.

People are trained in the business world by focusing on knowledge at the expense of skills. One of the reasons is because it is easier to present knowledge to a large group than it is to set up conditions under which individuals can develop skills through practice. Attending lectures, mini-courses, and the like offers little or no feedback, and little or no chance to make mistakes and gradually develop a new skill. Professional schools focus on knowledge rather than skills because it is easier to teach knowledge and then create a test for it.  DELIBERATE PRACTICE can supplement or replace the knowledge-based approach that is the norm now in many places.

The brain is adaptable, and training can create skills. DELIBERATE PRACTICE remains the gold standard for anyone in any field who wishes to build new skills and abilities. These advances are accomplished through trial and error and immediate feedback. The goal is not to just reach your potential but to build it.

This DELIBERATE PRACTICE method is what I have been using, to teach successfully, for over 25 years.  It is an incredibly rewarding experience for me to work with “students” on a regular basis for years and watch their feeling of progress, growth and self-satisfaction. From the deepest part of my heart I thank all my past, present and future students for this extraordinary gift they give to me on a daily basis.

Categories: PERSPECTIVES Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.