Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

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Have you ever found yourself in awe of someone's extraordinary talent? Maybe it was a musician effortlessly playing complex melodies or an athlete effortlessly winning championships, leaving you wondering how they achieved such remarkable skills. It's easy to attribute such exceptional abilities to innate talent, assuming that these individuals were simply born with a gift that sets them apart from the rest of us. However, what if I told you that there's a different theory that challenges this conventional wisdom? In his groundbreaking book "Talent is Overrated," Geoff Colvin explores the notion that true greatness is not solely the result of natural born talent, but rather a product of focused practice and deliberate learning. The increasing rise of standards in different domains has laid more demands on people with exceptional abilities and performance. For example, sports records keep getting broken every year. The winner of the men’s 200-meter race in the 1908 Olympics ran it in 22.6 seconds, today just kids in high school finish the race in less than 20 seconds. The same goes for Usain bolt. In the academic world, Roger Bacon, the English Scholar, wrote that it will take a person more than thirty years to study calculus. Nowadays, calculus is taught to millions of high school students and they understand it in hours or in extreme cases in months. Do you know that Mozart’s father-Leopold Mozart- was a famous composer and performer? Tiger Woods's father, Earl Woods, revealed he loved to teach in his book “Training a Tiger”? It has been discovered that practice in childhood causes the myelin to build up more than practice in adulthood. The body adapts easily at childhood after which bones calcify. A marvellous exposition on the realities of motivation and excellence. Colvin masterfully highlights how exceptional performers are distinct from average ones. Many people often use the excuse of talent as a foundation for excellence and Colvin explains how this is simply not the case. He argues that exceptional performance is achieved by deliberate practice - practice which forces one outside of their comfort zone. Though it sounds straightforward, there are some caveats to this form of practice. It will require: intense concentration, a mentor and finally an individual who must be willing to exhaust their time and ego.

Colvin brings up the examples of Mozart and Tiger Woods. Neither of them was born with innate talent. They were both born to fathers who were both experts in their respective fields (music and golf), and started teaching their boys at a very early age. Lots of hard work and specially designed practice were the keys to their top-notch performance. We can’t disregard its influence as being among the leading factors that will build our career arc, but it is ignorant to say that your future depends strictly on it. Deliberate practice is repeated over time. According to the author, there is a ten-year rule before great performers are produced. Even though there is some sort of truth in this, I personally believe we do not have to wait ten years to be good at a thing. You need time, a great deal of time spent practicing.

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But what if the entire concept of "talent" was incorrect? What if there was no such inherent concept as talent? At least as it exists in its current paradigm. What then could be responsible for the competence of high-level performers?? I know we all have that one friend that was not a high academic performer but still turned out to be eventually more successful than others. Also, It is important to note that good memory, just like muscles in the body can be developed if trained. What then makes excellent performers? But if they all built up the same amount of experience and no one was particularly talented, how come there were such big differences in how people performed? No one can easily disregard the talent. However, although it is still a relatively important matter, hard work is what pays off, and it is much more significant for achieving personal goals than talent.

Colvin supports his argument by providing numerous examples of individuals who have achieved exceptional performance through deliberate practice and hard work, despite not possessing natural talent. One such example is the famous golfer Tiger Woods. Deliberate practice helps performers to remember more details. It also helps build the physical nature of one’s brain (myelination) and body.

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Expanding on a landmark cover story in Fortune, a top journalist debunks the myths of exceptional performance.