Nancy: Hi, Linny! Linny: Hi, Nancy. Nancy: Welcome to episode 70 of the Front Porch Book Club. Linny: The Front Porch Book Club is a podcast that meets twice a month. Nancy: We like to dig deep into the relationship between characters and the worlds they live in. Linny: Grab your book and iced tea and join us on the front porch. Nancy: I'm so excited. Today we interview Dr. Kenneth Kiewra, and he will give us a further examination of Adam Gopnik's book, The Real Work. We wanted to talk with Ken because he's a researcher on talent development, among other things, and we knew his work would be an interesting complement to Gopnik's focus on mastery. Linny: What I think listeners will be interested in is learning more about the science of teaching and learning, which has been the core of Ken's professional scholarly research. Dr. Ken Kiewra is a John E. Weaver Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is an expert on talent development, the developer of SOAR teaching and learning method, a book author, and an international public speaker. He is among the top 2% of the most cited researchers worldwide. Nancy: Wow. Linny: In 2021, he received the coveted Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award from the University of Nebraska. Nancy: Here's someone who knows this stuff. Linny: Yes! Nancy: He has written five books and numerous scholarly articles. His books are Soar to College Success and Beyond, Nurturing Children's Talents: A Guide for Parents, Teaching How to Learn: The Teacher's Guide to Student Success, Learn How to Study and SOAR to Success, and the fifth Learning to Learn: Making the Transition from Student to Lifelong Learner. He has an upcoming book being published by Cambridge University Press called Be a More Productive Scholar. Linny: Well, Nancy, I think we found a good expert on mastery to talk to. So, let's get to our interview. Nancy: Great. Nancy: Welcome, Ken, to the front porch. Ken: Thanks for having me. Delighted to be here. Linny: Welcome, Ken. We're really interested to hear about your research on talent development. Can you tell us how you got interested in this line of work? Ken: Sure. Well, first off, talent development is not my only line of research. As an educational psychologist, I'm interested in teaching and learning. So for many years, I studied study skills, particularly note taking and how students should review for tests. But after our first child was born, his name is Keaton, maybe when he was about four or five years old, he showed a real penchant for skill games. He was virtually unbeatable in Tic Tac Toe and Connect Four. And we knew we had something going here. So it was at that time that I introduced him to chess. Now I knew virtually nothing about chess, but I had an old chess set from my youth. So I got the pieces out and we started to play a little bit. And he took an interest in it. And I realized very quickly that I really couldn't teach him. I didn't know anything really about the game. So I bought some books and I would read those books and I would try to teach him some lessons from those books. He certainly wasn't all that good at it at the start. I remember, he had been playing for a few months under my tutelage and we went to a local tournament and in his very first chess game, he got checkmated in four moves. Linny: Oh. Ken: It was the old four-move checkmate that we knew nothing about. So I decided at that point that he needed a teacher and we did find him a local teacher. But that wasn't sufficient for me. You know, being an educational psychologist, being a researcher, I decided to don my researcher cap. and find out what it is that makes people good at something, particularly young kids, and in particular, what parents can do to help cultivate their children’s talents. So with that, I set out to interview the parents of young chess masters to find out what it is that they were doing. And that led to me interviewing dozens and dozens of parents and child prodigies in many, many domains as far ranging as rodeo, volleyball, speed skating, art, spelling, I mean you name it, I've been there talking to people in those different fields. Nancy: The result of that was your book, Nurturing Children's Talents: A Guide for Parents, wasn't it? Ken: Yes. Nancy: Yeah. You report the results of this research. What role do parents play in cultivating their children's talent development? Ken: Well, yeah, before I answer that, one of the things I found in talking to parents is they didn't know any more than I did. Nancy: Ha ha ha! Ken: They were just sort of flying by the seat of their pants. It was a lot of trial and error. And all of them said the same thing. I wish I had a book. I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing. We're doing all that we think we can. but we don't know if it's enough, we don't know if it's the right things at all. So it was really through this research that I talked to enough people and got a good sense of what parents were doing to cultivate children's talents. Nancy: So what are some of the things that parents should be doing? Ken: Well, I think there's maybe four or five major things and I'll run through those. In the research, I found that in almost all cases, children began early. Of course, I was studying child prodigies, so that's not surprising, but they began early and often they began the talent development in their own homes. And we could almost say that they were born into the talent domain. In one of the studies I did where I interviewed the parents of 24 precocious talented children, 22 of them had learned about the talent area in the home. Many of them were starting young among the young chess masters, which was my first study, the average age for beginning serious investigations into chess was about age six. Very often it was a family thing I studied Olympic speed skaters, gold medal speed skaters Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair and they both grew up in homes where the whole family skated this is just what they did after in the afternoons and on weekends they stated they went to skating competitions and so forth so we see a lot of that were kids are just involved right away in the talent domain. That doesn't have to be the case. I certainly have studied a lot of people that were introduced to the talent area later and certainly outside the home, but typically it starts in the home. A second thing is practice, but it's not the mindless practice that I might do. You know, if I go to the driving range at the golf course and hit a bucket of balls. People who are serious, practice in what we call a deliberate way. They are practicing highly specific skills over and over again. And they're practicing a long time. The people I've studied, national high school rodeo champion was practicing five or six hours a day in her, at her ranch in Broken Bow with her parents by her side. Stephanie Lien, here from Lincoln, many times a twirling world champion was practicing four or five hours every day. So lots of practice and very specific, deliberate, intentional kinds of practice. A third thing is mentors. People need good instruction and they find a mentor and they typically find a mentor pretty early. Oftentimes it's the parent that's the first mentor. The first mentor is usually somebody that makes the talent area fun, exciting for the child, gets them hooked into it. But once the child outgrows that initial mentor, often at the encouragement of that mentor, they find another mentor, one who's more skilled. And there may even be a third and fourth mentor who could be somebody who really develops the skill and even hones an artistic style for that person, be it in music or baton twirling or whatever, they begin to develop their own style. A fourth thing is centers of excellence. People who are really good at something find others who are really good. They go to these talent hot beds, they go to these meccas. So you know if it's chess, you know back in the in the seventies it might be New York City which was a hot bit for chess the speed skaters I mentioned earlier they all flocked to Milwaukee because they had a beautiful all the only Olympic size all in the united states so all the skaters congregated there all the best coaches congregated there so these people sort of sniff each other out of the findings centers of excellence You know, they'll move to Colorado where there's good snow and an Olympic training center for skiing or skating. A fourth thing would be a singleness of purpose. This is the motivation, the rage to master. I've studied elite talent and people who are elite have an absolute rage to master, a singleness of purpose. This is what they want to do. You don't force them to do it. We've heard about tiger moms and, you know, overindulgent parents. No, no, it's the kids that are pushing the parents for help and resources because these kids are so single-minded about what they do. It doesn't mean that they're one-dimensional. I mean, I've studied people who are national champions in rodeo but are also the point guard on their basketball team, or somebody who's a chess player who actually plays football as a football star as well. But they are super focused on their talent area. I remember talking to one parent who unfortunately had to take chess away from the child as a punishment for a brief time. And the parent remarked, "'It was like yanking out the soul for the child to not to have chess even for a few days.” And then the last thing, because you asked, what is it that parents do? Well, they do all these things that I just mentioned. They find the mentors, they sit in on practice sessions, they help their children practice, they seek out these centers of excellence, and get their kids associated with that. But on top of all that, they are the managers of this talent expedition, if you will. They are in it every step of the way. Because of course, it's not enough for the child to commit to the talent, the family must commit as well, certainly the parents. And so some of them talk about, this is like a second job. Nancy: Mm-hmm. Ken: Because, you know, they're traveling and they're doing all the sorts of things that I just mentioned. But they all call it a labor of love. I love my child, I love the talent, what else can I do? And some of them talk about it like, if my child had a special need, of course I would be providing all these resources and attention well I see this as a special need as well. Nancy: So you have basically written that book that so many parents wished that they had when they were navigating this. Ken: Yeah, I believe so. I believe so. Linny: That's really fascinating. Our January book is The Real Work by Adam Gopnik. And he differentiates a little bit between achievement and accomplishment. He says parents focus too much on the achievement aspect of it. Pushing the kids to get the good grades and where are you going to go to school next and kind of those achievement things. Versus accomplishment and accomplishment is less of an obvious reward or a goal that would be set. What do you think of our overemphasis on achievement at the detriment of accomplishment. Ken: Yeah, that's a good question. I remember years ago writing a couple columns for our local paper, the Lincoln Journal Star, bemoaning the fact that schools inundate kids, inundate families with homework. Because when they do, it robs parents and kids of that mutual time together to pursue something of interest and to actually accomplish something. So I'm a big advocate that the schools relent a little bit and allow parents to get involved in the real learning that can take place in a child's life. I'm not somebody that believes we need to turn every kid into an all-star, not at all. In the book I talk about talent being a continuum and everybody, everybody is on some sort of talent continuum and our and our and we should look at talent as a process of growth of being better on Friday than we were on Monday And I don't think the outcome needs to be Carnegie Hall. It could be community band Because I think it's the pursuit of talent that is really the prize. It's fun to be involved in something. It's fun to get better at something. And it makes people better. It gives them confidence. I remember talking to a colleague at the University who said, you know, I was in college, I was in a class on calculus, I was over my head, I didn't think I could do it. And then I remembered I mastered chess. And if I could master chess, then I could master this too. So anyway, I do believe that accomplishments are wonderful personal things, and we should, if we can, try to help kids find their niche, their area, their element, and help them pursue that to whatever end. Nancy: Well, that's really fascinating. So let's talk more specifically about adults. I think one of the common misperceptions people have had is that talent is born. And without it and without the nurturing that you're talking about, adults just cannot achieve mastery of anything. And this is a very fixed view of human development. But you say “talent is not born but made. Whatever biological hand we are dealt can be greatly enhanced as we draw new environmental cards that support or even trump biology. Through practice and training, we can alter our bodies and our brains. We make talent. None of the famously talented people you know or I studied could have been who they became without a constellation of environmental factors firing in sync.” So for those of us who are adults who never had an early inborn talent, is it worth it to us to try to pursue mastery in the way that Gopnik describes in his book? Ken: Yeah, let me take that on as two parts. And the first part, the most fundamental part, is talent doesn't just appear genetically, whether we're three years old or 83 years old. Talent is made. We think of certain people as being prodigies. They were born somehow with these incredible talents. We think of Mozart, who was playing violin and piano at three and four and was composing at six. Certainly, talent must have been born. Or Picasso, who was painting like a master as a child. Or Bobby Fischer, who won the United States Chess Championship at the age of 14 and became the youngest grandmaster at the time at age 16. It certainly seems like talent is born. But let's look a little bit behind the curtain, a little deeper into the lives of these people. Mozart was raised by Leopold Mozart, who himself was an accomplished musician, composer, and concertmaster, who literally wrote the book on violin instruction in the year that young Mozart was born. And he worked with Mozart every day, every day, every day. Practicing, practicing, practicing. Mozart, as talented as he was, largely it was due to his environment, to his parent teaching. So the other thing to know about Mozart is that when you think about his real extraordinary gifts, they really didn't come on display until he was about 16 years old. That's when we believe Mozart produced his first master work. That was a good 10 years after he began sustained, intensive musical training. Picasso's first outstanding painting is considered to be La Vie. I believe he was 28 or 29 when he painted that. I should mention Picasso's father was an art teacher. Fischer, Bobby Fischer didn't have parents who were excellent in chess. but he had New York City, the mecca for chess. So every night he was at one of the local chess clubs, rubbing elbows with grandmasters, pushing pawns with grandmasters. In every case, their talents were made. And Bobby Fischer, by the way, as talented as he was as a youth, didn't claim the world title until he was 29 years old. In psychology, we call it the 10-year rule that really nobody gets really good at something until they've engaged in intensive practice, deliberate practice for 10 or more years. Nancy: Huh. Ken: So we'll take this to adulthood. Yeah, an adult can probably be good later on, but they're going to need the same amount of commitment and practice. And when you're 45, you're not as likely to have the time and the energy and teachers that would become available to you when you're four. When you're four and you're showing this sort of promise, people want to help. When you're 44 and showing some promise, you're probably not going to get as much help. Nancy: Ha ha Ken: But is it possible? Absolutely. Absolutely possible for people in their older years to develop supreme talents as well. Nancy: We've talked a little bit about children. We've talked about maybe more middle-aged adults. You've done some fascinating research on people who, Gopnik has called this later middle age or retirement age, perhaps. Tell us what the wisdom years article. about people who are pivoting in later years of their life to pursue a passion or even to just really sharpen their focus on something that they have been exemplary at. Ken: Yeah, so this is another area of research for me, and it's one that's really just sort of unfolded recently, and that is to study people in their wisdom years, what's often thought of as their retirement years. And if I could just take a moment for a segue way, I think throughout my career, I've been a bit of a me-searcher, always researching things of interest to me. My first research area was note-taking because in graduate school there was a professor who outlawed note taking. And this didn't make sense to me. And I wanted to know is note taking an effective means for learning. And it had been barely studied. And so I was among the first to do that. And then came the talent development because of my firstborn and his interest in chess. Later, when I wanted to up my own productivity as a scholar, I began studying productive scholars in my own field of educational psychology. And that's what my forthcoming book is about, Be a More Productive Scholar. And then this, as I'm staring down retirement, I was wondering what people do and how. they handle that? Do they continue to stay active? Do they stay active in their own area or other areas? And what's the key? What's the key to being successful in the wisdom years? And so yeah, do you want to hear a few conclusions maybe about that? Linny: we do, because guess what? We're in the wisdom years. Ken: Well, it's all bleak. Linny: haha Ken: Well, I interviewed six leading people from around the country, and one of whom was our own Nancy Shank here. Nancy: Thank you. Ken: And one of the conclusions that came out was retire to something. You know, don't just retire and hope you find the next thing or sit around watching TV and eating popcorn. And Nancy Shank’s, the exemplar here, she had a wonderful job in higher education here at the University of Nebraska, but she had this undying itch to write, to be a playwright, and so she retired in her 50s, and dedicated her full-time life to writing. and couldn't be happier about it. So one needs not to be afraid to change course. Among the six people I interviewed, three of them stayed the course and three of them changed course. So I think it could go either way. But Nancy, as I mentioned, it was a great exemplar of somebody who knew that she loved what she was doing, but she loved something more and she needed to follow that bliss. Speaking of following your bliss, Rich Mayer is in educational psychology like I am, and he's the 600 publication man. He's, yeah, Nancy: Wow. Ken: or scholar. He has published over 600 works. Many of these are books and just top research articles in top journals. And so he's somebody I've interviewed a few times. One of the things that really intrigues me about Rich Mayer is he's in his 70s now and his productivity is doing nothing but going up. If you look at the last three decades, each decade his productivity has increased. And what's particularly interesting was maybe about five years ago, he could have retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara, from their state education system at full pay, full benefits. And yet for the last five years or so, he has continued to work basically for free. And when you ask him why, he loves his job. I've got a quote here. Mayer says, “I have no interest in retiring. I simply don't like the idea of retirement. I just don't understand it and it rubs me the wrong way. My entire life I have tried to work hard and be productive. So then to suddenly say, I'm gonna stop producing now, just doesn't seem right.” Linny: Very interesting. Ken: Yeah. It's still hard work. These people are not slowing down. They're working hard. A good example of that is our volleyball coach at the University of Nebraska, John Cook, who has won numerous national titles. And if you ever read about Nebraska women's volleyball, you'll just be dumbfounded by all the wonderful things they did. They just set a world record, over 92,000 people watched them play volleyball at our football stadium. But he is a tremendously hard worker. I believe he's 68 years old now and it just doesn't stop. He's waking up in the middle of the night with ideas about how to run practice. He's meeting with coaches. He's meeting with players. He's practicing. He's on the recruiting trail, he's traveling. His life would knock down somebody 30 years younger. And yet this is what he does. And, and, and that's what it takes to continue to be, uh, productive in your area. Some of them have also found role models, Judy Woodruff, PBS news correspondent, White House correspondent, one of the most famous people ever in the news industry gets her inspiration from other news icons who were in their 70s and 80s. And just when I interviewed her, she was only retiring then into her 70s. But she was somebody else who was just working all day long to put on these one-hour news programs solo. And then the other thing I'd say is keep an eye out for the universe conspiring. Nancy: Ha Ken: You know, if you're familiar with the book, The Alchemist, you know, the hero Santiago, gets a number of signs that leads him to his eventual treasure. And with everybody I've really interviewed in any capacity, it seems like there's always a little bit of universe conspiring like some wonderful things that have happened. In this wisdom years research, one of the people, one of the groups of people I studied are called the Wander Women and these were women who were hiking basically the world. They were doing a lot of these through hikes that were over 2,000 miles long, 2,000, 3,000 miles long, where you go out with your stuff on your back and you go for 6, 8, 10, 12 months on a hike. But the way this all started, there was a pair of women, they were a couple and they were in their 60s, I believe. And they went to a financial advisor to find out what they should be doing with their money as they move toward retirement. And they were overwhelmed with a bunch of data and pie charts and they left there kind of shaking their head. That same afternoon, they met some friends at a coffee shop, which was also a little bookstore. And right on the shelf there, they see a book that says, basically quit your job. And they get the book and they're and they're looking through it and the book basically says, quit your job go out and find your passion and seek your passion and that day That's what they decided to do Nancy: Wow. Ken: and in the next couple years. They took care of all their business they sold their home They sold all their possessions and they've started what's now become like a six or seven year odyssey where they have just been out hiking, biking the world and they're just the sweetest and strongest people you could imagine, but it's a bit of universe conspiring that sent them on their way. Linny: Hmm. They're inspirational to me. Reading your article about the people that you interviewed and hearing their story just provides inspiration for me to keep trying and doing different things. Ken: Yeah, my wife's a professor and she played a video to her class in human development on the Wander Women and people wrote reactions and that's exactly what students were saying. These are the most inspirational people I've ever met or ever heard about and so I was able to pass some of those comments along to them on the trail just a month or so ago. So Linny: Aww. Ken: I'm in complete agreement, Linny. They are. an inspiration. They are a wonder as they wander. Linny: Hahaha Nancy: We know you read The Real Work and you are a scholar, a professional in this world. He's giving us an experiential version of mastery. You have a scholarly version of this. What did you think about the book in general? Ken: I enjoyed the book. I went through it rather quickly. through quickly because I was enjoying it so I read it quickly. I agree with your podcast that it's not a book that somebody's going to pick up and know necessarily how to do it. It's not a how to book. Nancy: Yeah. Ken: But I think it gives us a lot of optimism. One of his points is that mastery is widely available. Yes, there's some people that are supremely talented but you don't have to be supremely talented to master an area of interest. And he does that again and again. And I think that's an encouraging thing for all of us. We see too that he masters several things. You know, some of us are content to have made our mark maybe in a certain area, but he says, well, Hey, you know, don't be afraid to branch out and try new things. And it is possible in a relatively brief time to become a master of many things. We see the importance again and again of having teachers. He never did this on his own. In every case he had a skilled teacher and very often he was involved with centers of excellence that helped him to improve his skill and his mastery. One of the things I've not mentioned, he talks about talent being an additive process, a slow carpeted, Heidi said that word, carpentering of fragments through deep practice, I think is what he said. And it's really true, and this is what the deliberate practice idea was that I was talking about. you know, in the end we see things that are just magnificent, that are just so automatic and seem so natural. And that's sort of the finished product. But the underlying product is really through much, much deliberate practice, mastering little bits, little fragments, and then chaining those together. And that's what really takes so long to build that kind of mastery. He talks about how the hummingbird and the whale have the same number of heartbeats over a lifetime and he encourages us to make sure we're not wasting our heartbeats. I love that too as I study the people in their wisdom years, they're certainly not wasting those heartbeats. I'm very impressed by his writing. At the end of the book, he talks about being devoted to making shapely sentences that still make sense. Nancy: Yeah. Linny: Hahaha! Ken: And he's always so good at turning a phrase. The book is masterfully written, and you can see that that's, in the end, really his truest virtue, his truest talent. Nancy: Yeah. Linny: You're a parent, you're a scholar. Tell us how you've applied your research findings to skill development in your own life. Ken: Yeah, so I set out to learn about talent development because our oldest son, Keaton, was interested in chess. And when I went out there to uncover what talent parents were doing. I certainly started to apply, getting him mentors, having him involved in centers of excellence, making sacrifices in my own life to manage his chess career, if you will. So yeah, I took the lessons to heart and, you know, and they paid off. You know, he became an outstanding chess player, chess master. Still it's his livelihood today. He still coaches chess. Linny: Really? Ken: He's yes, Linny: Oh my Ken: he, Linny: goodness! Ken: yeah, yeah. He's in his young thirties now and he's a renowned chess instructor who's worked with a lot of national champions. When he was a kid, he won six national champions, scholastic championships, Linny: Oh wow. Ken: was a long time Nebraska state champion, as a kid. So yeah, in his case, it worked. And it was such a passion and it was such an experience for our family to join in on this. It really did make us very much a chess family. As a result of that, I got involved in chess teaching. He and I taught several chess clubs together in Lincoln schools. We put on chess festivals. We put on summer camps. So we actually built a culture of chess in Nebraska as a result of this and that was a nice side benefit. I definitely applied some of these same ideas when our youngest son, Sam, became very interested in high school basketball. So, again, many of these same kinds of things. In my own life, for many years I was a competitive runner and the idea of working out with other serious runners, better than me, who could bring me along, you know, having those kinds of running partners, those running centers, and the kind of practice that I did was just off the charts crazy, but it was the kind of thing that helped me to do the best I could as a competitive runner. Nancy: That's fabulous. I love that. So, Gopnik has said that he hopes his book, The Real Work, will help readers contemplate themselves throughout our engagement of learning new things. So after reading this book, Linnie and I have been inspired to continue to try to gain some mastery in areas of our life. Lynnie's continuing to improve her pickleball game, very important, and in resurrecting her interest in writing poetry and music. I'm going to try to continue to build my writing, tennis and French skills. So I'm wondering whether there are any new skills you're looking to develop or sharpen in the coming year, perhaps inspired by this book or your wisdom years research. What's does the future look like for you in terms of talent development? Ken: Sure. Well, first I think I'd just like to paint the family room. Nancy: HAHA Ken: My wife's busy learning how to make bread, which is from the book, right? Nancy: Yeah. Ken: So I am, you know, pondering retirement now. And I think when that happens, in some ways, I'll probably write more, because I won't be burdened with the... I love my job, but I won't be burdened with the other aspects. I remember reading about one professor one scholar who quit his job so that he could write full-time Nancy: Yeah. Ken: And so I imagine I'll continue to do a good deal of that. I Like pickleball. I'm just starting to If my back and hip, you know cooperate I would love to be playing more pickleball in retirement. I am a lifelong golfer and I'm awful at it. So this is an area where I really need to apply what I know about learning. I need to get back with a coach and play more and, you know, because it's something that's enjoyable, but it is more enjoyable when you do it better. Nancy: Yeah. Ken: Nancy, I love tennis. I'm a long time tennis advocate, but Nancy: What? Ken: The pickleball thing seems a little easier. Linny: I'd agree with you there. Not as much running. That's Nancy: Oh, that's great. Linny: Well, those are some really interesting goals that you have set up for yourself. What are you working on now? You mentioned a more productive scholar, some research there. Ken: Yeah, so the book that's coming out in April, I believe, is called Be a More Productive Scholar and the publisher is Cambridge University Press. And this is a compilation of 20 years of research on highly productive scholars worldwide in my field of educational psychology. And I just completed a five-part webinar that I did through a company called Lumivero. and they were the host for these five webinar sessions on Be a More Productive Scholar. And we had, I believe, 2200 people around the world registered for these webinars. Nancy: Wow. Ken: And I think this is such an important topic because we call it the hidden curriculum. People go to grad school. But people don't really tell them the secrets, the behind the scenes kinds of things you need to do to be a successful academic, a successful scholar. Some people don't even really know. And so of course they can't pass this wisdom along. But by interviewing dozens of people and drawing from some of my own thoughts and ideas and experiences, I've put together this book with about 100 pieces of advice on ways to be a more productive scholar and have more fun doing it. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, I don't know. In terms of research, I'd like to maybe occasionally stay with doing some more talent research. For example, I often think about the Jeopardy champions and how did they get to be so good? Nancy: Yeah. Ken: And that's always been my question in the study of talent is, how did those people get to be so good? And I would certainly be interested in studying the Jeopardy champions, knowing about their childhoods, their growth. And when they answer a particular question, I wanna know, where did that information come from? When did you encounter that information? How did you encounter it? So I think that would be an interesting study. And then... Other things, just more personal projects like Nancy wanting to move to being a playwright and working on a novel, those are interests of mine too, writing a story. Nancy: Nice, very good. Ken: Yeah. Linny: You have a lot of things that you're thinking about doing. A lot of areas. Ken: Yeah. Nancy: Well, I think people will want to keep in touch with what you're up to. How do people best do that? Ken: Okay, well my website is cehs.unl.edu slash Kiewra, my last name, K-I-E-W-R-A backslash. But I think if you just Google me through the University of Nebraska, you'll find my university website, and from there you can hop on to my personal slash professional website. Nancy: Excellent. Linny: Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was interesting hearing about how your research really married quite nicely with this book. I really appreciated your insights into it. Ken: Thank you, Linny. It was nice to meet you. Linny: Good luck with your pickleball. Ken: Alright, you too. Nancy: it was so good to see you again. And I'm going to try to lure you from the pickleball courts back to the tennis courts. Linny: Hahaha! Ken: Okay, well I'll need a doubles partner so. Nancy: I'm your woman. Ken: Well thank you for inviting me appreciate the opportunity, Linny: Thank you. Nancy: Bye bye! Linny: you. Ken: Okay, bye Linny: Well, Nancy, another fascinating. person to talk to about our book. Nancy: Yeah. Linny: He really added a lot of insight that really married well with the book, a lot of the same principles holding true from what his research found and what this author was talking about from his personal experience. Nancy: Yeah, isn't that interesting that Adam Gopnik through this George Plimpton-esque sort of journey really arrives at some conclusions that research has borne out. I think that is really interesting. Linny: Yeah, it was fascinating. And from him just talking to him, he's a guy that is continuing to grow and develop. And he is learning a lot. And he's an inspiration to me, Nancy, I need to get on the stick a little bit. Nancy: Hahaha! Linny: Do a little bit more than just pickleball maybe. Linny: Get some other irons in the fire? Nancy: He called himself a me researcher. And what is so interesting about that though, is his insight and curiosity about his own experience and then doing the research and then making his findings available to everyone. And then that final step of then applying his own findings to his own life. Linny: Ha ha! Nancy: I mean, he really is displaying this mastery of the whole research enterprise in a way. Linny: Yeah, yeah. Learning from his own research and applying it. He's amazing. Wow. Nancy: Yeah. Linny: Fascinating man, fascinating subject as we look at the new year and people are often making goals and self-analyzing and figuring out what next steps are. So we talked about that a little bit last time. Nancy: Yeah, don't you wish that we had read his parents’ guide for kids when our kids were about one year old? Linny: Yeah, I think that would have been helpful, Nance. Ha ha ha. Nancy: I think a lot of parents would probably find that helpful. I like how he talked about talent being on a continuum because all kids do have talents in various areas, but so many times parents don't really know exactly how to nurture those talents, what their role could be to be helpful. And he's done the research, he's written the book. I feel like I just need to get that book for everyone who's having a baby now. Linny: Yeah, Nancy: Hahaha! Linny: it would be helpful. I think it's helpful to know that a lot of parents are just kind of winging it, you know, and Nancy: Mm-hmm. Linny: taking their child and figuring out along the way. But in researching what they knew, then he could draw some helpful information for other parents so they don't feel like they're just winging it. Nancy: Absolutely. Linny: Okay. Well, next month. Stop by the front porch because we are going to read Remarkably Brave Creatures written by Shelby Van Pelt. Nancy: This will be very exciting. Remarkably Bright Creatures is my city's one book for the year, Our One Book selection, One Book, One Lincoln, and exciting news, Shelby will be joining us on the front porch for our second episode in February. So we have that to look forward to. Linny: Yeah, we're excited to meet with her. Nancy: Well, everyone, thanks for listening. Our website is frontporchbookclub.com Linny: Our episodes come out twice a month on the first and third Wednesday of every month. Nancy: All right, Linny, we're gonna go start doing disciplined intentional practice. We're gonna continue to work with our mentors. We're gonna take those incremental steps. We're not gonna get discouraged, and I'll see you next time. Linny: Okay, I'm gonna drink some ice tea while I do all of that and sit on my front porch just saying There's got to be some front porch time Nance. Nancy: That's true. Linny: Okay, see you next time Nancy: Bye bye. Linny: bye