Dr. David Eagleman

And this is why they became champions.

And this is obvious, but this is the same way you find with chess champions and golf champions like Woods and so on.

You have to really spend the time doing it.

Now, I find this interesting for a few reasons.

One is that.

And cognitively, you can understand how to, you know, what a forehand or a backhand, you know, is a hit in tennis.

But to actually get good at it, you have to burn it down into the circuitry.

So actually, let me back up for one second, which is the reason that we have brain plasticity is because this is how a brain makes things that you do fast and efficient.

So when you're doing a task a lot, like serving tennis or something, you're taking that from the software to the hardware of the brain.

Let's say I'm an amateur tennis player and there's Serena Williams.

I'm playing against her.

It turns out, surprisingly, when we're playing, she's beaten me like crazy, but my brain's the one using all the activity.

I'm the one burning all the calories with my brain.

Why?

Because she has burned tennis into the hardware of the brain, so it's fast and efficient.

I, on the other hand, am trying to simulate lots of things and figure out where I should go and all that.

So the brain does this for reasons of efficiency.

Obviously, the brain's main job is to save energy because we are mobile creatures who run on batteries.

And so this is one of the big things about plasticity.

So people get extraordinarily good by doing things over and over.