The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

by Daniel Coyle

Book Overview

What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? The perfect graduation gift, this groundbreaking work provides readers with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055380684X
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

Amazing!!

I loved this book... its so motivating and inspiring... the wording is very impressive and getting it for half the normal price was an added bonus. Definitely a top buy!

It'll work if you try it

With 34 reviews already written for this book I can only justify writing another if I think I have something to say that hasn't been said by other reviewers. I have spent most of my adult life teaching, in universities and in industry. Through it all I have always sought better ways to perform the task of getting a concept or a bit of understanding from my head into that of someone else. And I've also often struggled with getting it into my own head, and many times I have struggled with getting from the novice stage to one of mastery of a concept or skill. Bear with me as I attempt to set the stage for your understanding what I am trying to say. Being a scientist I'll approach the topic from the viewpoint of a scientist. In science research, or the organization of existing research, is usually done either to (a) support (i.e. to "prove") a hypothesis or (b) to disprove a hypothesis. Coyle's approach in "The Talent Code" is the former - he is assembling evidence in an attempt to prove that myelin is the "key" to developing talent. That's fine, but what I am most interested in is that he has assembled a large amount of data concerning development of talent. We don't have to accept his hypothesis to make use of his data. The myelin sheath effectively makes some neuronal connections more effective than others; that is undeniable. Thus it is unarguably an important factor in speed of transmission. That, along with details of the chemistry of neurotransmitters, neuronal connections, the function of glial cells, and an infinitude of factors unknown collectively make up the "key" to developing talent. I'm heading toward a strong recommendation of this book. How can I get there when I've just buried the author's theory, the basis for the book, in a pile of other factors that I consider to be of potentially equal or greater importance? The answer is simple. Coyle has assembled a sequence of steps that he argues does lead to maximization of talent. And he backs up that assemblage of steps with enough examples to leave little doubt about the general "correctness" of his argument. Whether one accepts or rejects Coyle's explanation the steps that he argues leads to talent development clearly work. Who will benefit from reading this book, and why? If you are a teacher or a learner you can benefit greatly in the direct application of his observations to your daily work. If you want or need to develop a talent in yourself Coyle gives a blueprint for how to do that. If you are interested in the "myelin viewpoint" you'll get a reasonably complete view of that. If you want to know the "answer" to the question of the biology/chemistry of how talent is developed, this isn't the place to find it though you'll see one such hypothesis developed in some detail. In short, I recommend reading the book with the mindset that if you follow the prescription you'll get the desired results. If he's correct in that myelin is the magic ingredient so be it. If he's wrong, you

Interesting and Practical

This book by Daniel Coyle addresses the fundamentally important topic of how we can become better skilled in any field of endeavor (intellectual, artistic, athletic, etc.). The ideas presented in the book are similar to other recent books on the subject, such as Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell and especially Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin (which I think is actually better than Coyle's book). The book is written in a journalistic style and has lots of stories whose ideas tend to be somewhat repetitive, so the book could be greatly compressed. However, the stories are at least entertaining, and the book is still a relatively quick read, so I guess I didn't really mind the stories too much, although I still prefer a more systematic and streamlined presentation. Here are the key points from the book: 1. Becoming really good at something is a matter of skill, which is a matter of practice. Inborn talent might help, and a basic minimum level of talent might even be a prerequisite, but practice is the more important factor. 2. Becoming really good almost always requires a LOT of practice. Some researchers suggest 10,000 hours of practice as a general benchmark to attain expert level of skill (which takes about a decade at 20 hours per week). 3. Practicing up to several hours per day is effective. When you try to practice more than that each day, returns diminish. 4. Effective practice needs to be "deep" in the sense of involving a high level of focus and working at or slightly beyond the limits of your current ability. In other words, you have to continually stretch yourself. One way to do this is to spend part of your practice time in situations similar to, but more difficult than, the actual performance situation (eg, using flight simulators to practice flying in extreme weather and with aircraft failures). By contrast, practicing what you're already good at won't help much; you'll just stay that good without getting better, or you will improve very slowly. 5. During practice, you should aim for perfection and should be very alert to errors. Further practice should then work to correct those errors, going in slow motion and breaking the task into modules if necessary, and then speeding up and connecting the modules as the errors diminish. 6. Coaching can be a huge help. A skilled coach will know how to connect personally with you, spot errors, and offer targeted advice to help correct those errors, all on an individualized basis (by contrast, "one size fits all" coaching will be suboptimal and maybe even detrimental). 7. Deep practice isn't easy, and therefore often isn't fun, so you need strong motivation to do it. Many sources can provide such motivation, such as compelling role models. Committment to long-term goals can be an especially powerful motivator. And practicing in a dilapidated environment can also highlight the difference betwe

"We are myelin beings." OK, but so what?

In recent years, there have been several books and even more articles written in response to research conducted by Anders Ericsson in these subject areas: the structure and acquisition of expert performance, experts' ability to expand working memory and access to long-term memory with training, and use of Protocol analysis as a rigorous methodology for eliciting verbal reports of thought sequences as a valid source of data on thinking. These books include Geoff Colvin's Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success. In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle gratefully acknowledges the importance of Ericsson's research, agreeing with Colvin and Gladwell that greatness isn't born; rather, it is developed by a combination of luck (i.e. being "given" opportunities); ignition (i.e. self-motivation activated by one or more "primal cues"), what Coyle calls "deep practice" (i.e. 10, 000 hours of focused and disciplined repetition, requiring an energetic and passionate commitment), and master coaching provided by "talent whisperers" who "possess vast, deep frameworks of knowledge, which they apply to the steady, incremental work of growing skill circuits, which they ultimately don't control." At one point in his narrative (Page 72), Coyle declares, "We are myelin beings." OK, but so what? When tapping into a neurological mechanism in which certain patterns of targeted practice builds skills, we create entry to "a zone of accelerated learning that, while it can't quite be bottled, can be accessed by those who know how. In short, they're cracked the talent code." What about myelin? According to Dr. George Bartzokis, professor of neurology at U.C.L.A., it is "the key to talking, reading, learning skills, being human." It is a neural insulator that, Coyle claims, some neurologists now consider to be "the holy grail" of skill acquisition because every human skill "is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse - basically a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin's vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way - when we practice swinging that bat or playing that note - our myelin responds by wrapping layers around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become." Better yet, "we are all born with the opportunity to become, as Mr. Myelin [viewed as broadband] likes to put it, lords of our own Internet. The trick is to figure out how to do that." As Coyle's uncommonly detailed "Notes on Sources" on Pages 223-232 indicate, he consulted the results of dozens of different surveys. Moreover, he seems to have read almost all

Nurturing Greatness is the Tricky Part

After recently reading and reviewing another book written by a Ph.D--- Paul Herr, Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance---which deals strictly with employee motivation, I found this book's findings similar to those Herr uncovered. Herr concluded that employees have five "social appetites" that need to be satisfied by their employers if they are to be happy, motivated, and of course, productive employees. Coyle's The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. is more condensed but packs a similar, significant message: (1) Deep practice. This explains why so few of us are really very good at golf. Our practice is shallow and sporadic, and what we're practicing is for the most part, our mistakes; so we stay at a 15 handicap, or worse, for life. Of course, the pros, like Vijay Singh, for example, practice (the deep approach) so much it makes you think he's trying to make a living at being a PGA professional or something. He must have so much myelin running through his veins, he'd experience serious withdrawl symptoms if he was forced to go bowling for a few hours. (2) The ingition, which is simply motivation, may seem mysterious, but I think it's sparked by having a positive role model in your life, or in the world of business, having a boss who treats you with respect and dignity. Of course, with a guy like Tiger Woods, for example, his ignition switch is wired in a way that is very mysterious, indeed. How else could a guy accomplish so much, so quickly, in a sport filled with great players? And even win the US Open in a playoff, with a broken leg? Now that's an ignition switch very few possess. (3) Mentor coaching---Even a professional, like Tiger, who is clearly on that highest possible level of performance, is constantly striving for perfection; and he keeps seeking the advice of the Butch Harmons of the world; geniuses who can somehow find the slightest flaw in a superior player and convey the necessary adjustment to that player in a manner that doesn't mince words nor bruise egos; that's really tough to do, but it explains why Tiger is so great. He has the intelligence and humility to realize even he can't always figure things out on his own. I'm sure we've all met a lot of people in our lives who are very good at what they do, but perhaps think they're a little better at it than actual reality. They never seek mentoring because they don't think they need it; unfortunately, most of them do need mentoring. This explains why true greatness is so rare. Not only do "the great ones" have to be exceptionally proficient at what they do, there must be relevence in their abilities; to attain "relevent greatness" in a world filled with self-absorbed people who are only "great" at getting in the way; that's the tricky part! Coyle's work in defining "the talent code", and presenting it in such a concise, straightforward manner makes it, not surprisingly, a great book.

Want To Be Great? Better Get Busy!

How do people get good at something? Wait a minute, that's the not the right question, how do people get great at something? Well, frankly, there has been a significant amount of research on the matter of human performance and the development of skill/talent. Author, Daniel Coyle, has looked at the research and he also went on a road trip to what he calls "talent hotbeds", places where great talent has been produced out of proportion to their size and perceived stature; for example, a Russian tennis club, a music school in Dallas, a soccer field in Brazil, and others. Coyle shares what he learned in this excellent book, "The Talent Code". The Talent Code covers three basic areas: 1) Deep practice. Practice is important to world-class performance. I guess everyone knew that already, huh? Well, sometimes, it doesn't hurt to remind of everyone of the obvious. What might be a little more helpful is the understanding of "how" to practice. What constitutes "deep practice"? This is the kind of practice that separates the great from the not-so-great. The understanding of "deep practice" involves an understanding of a substance called "myelin". Myelin is the insulation that wraps around nerve fibers. According to Coyle, myelin turns out to be a very big deal in the development of skill. Myelin is increased through deep practice and, in turn, increased myelin affects the signal strength, speed and accuracy of the electric signals traveling through nerve fibers. This increase of myelin and its effect on neurons has more to do with skill development than had previously been realized. 2) Ignition. If a person is going to invest the amount of time and passion and concentrated, difficult practice that produces high-level skill, that person will have to be deeply motivated. This is the aspect of skill development that Coyle refers to as "ignition". Coyle writes, "Where deep practice is a cool, conscious act, ignition is a hot, mysterious burst, an awakening." This deep passion is a necessary part of the attainment of great skill. 3) Master coaching. World class talent requires help and feedback and guidance from disciplined, committed, coaches. Think of this as the wise, older sage who can tell the student what he can't tell himself. The development of great skill seems to require the help of people who have the ability to grow talent in others. Much of the content of "The Talent Code" reminded me of the book, "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin, they contain many of the same insights regarding the development of talent. I loved both of these books and they are both worth reading. One of the encouraging and motivating truths that these books reveal is that great skill can be attained by virtually anyone who is willing to sincerely and passionately make the necessary commitment to its development. But, as one of the lines in the book suggests . . . "Better get busy." Dan Marler Oak Lawn, IL