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

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Item Weight : 14.4 ounces


Hardcover : 288 pages


ISBN-10 : 055380684X


ISBN-13 : 47


Dimensions : 5.72 x 0.99 x 8.6 inches


Publisher : Bantam; 1st edition (April 28, 2009)


Language: English


Best Sellers Rank: #42,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #74 in Popular Psychology Creativity & Genius #87 in Anatomy (Books) #109 in Sports Coaching (Books)


#74 in Popular Psychology Creativity & Genius:


#87 in Anatomy (Books):


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Top Amazon Reviews


  • The book to read
If you have a desire to become better at an activity, this is the book to read. This includes all manners of human endeavors, i.e, musicians, sports, teachers. The first half of the book has given me knowledge on how to make the most of the time I have to practice the clarinet - and actually improve! The book is written for young people and their teachers and coaches. However, I have found that the techniques are working for me also, even though I am 74. Yes, it is probably harder but I am making progress. Actually, no matter how old you are, you can presue a desire you had no time for as a young person, if you are willing to work at it. I the one negative for me in the book was the huge amount of time spent on sports. I am not a sports fan as t all. Part of the time I had no idea what he was talking about. However, if you are into sports, you probably will love this book. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2019 by Cmg

  • Greatness Isn't Born - It's Grown
This brilliantly written book is one of the most impactful I have read this year. Author Daniel Coyle has done an outstanding job of taking research into myelin, a substance that insulates nerve cells, and turning that scientific breakthrough knowledge into a prescription for achieving greatness in a variety of fields, from music to athletics to business. Using powerful case studies, Coyle has identified three distinct key elements that determine how individuals achieve greatness: Deep Practice, Ignition, and Master Coaching. Deep Practice involves short burst of energy - perfecting, identifying errors, repeating. Each time an individual - violinist, tennis player, soccer player - engages in this kind of Deep Practice, the nervous system generates new layers of myelin to further insulate and streamline the flow of electrical energy within neural synapses. In order for an individual to have the motivation, persistence, and determination to engage in this level of Deep Practice, there needs to have been an Ignition event. In the case of Korean women who now dominate the LPGA, the igniting event was Se Ri Pak winning the McDonald's LPGA Championship in 1998, and becoming a visible symbol and role model for young Korean girls. Five years later - enough time for Deep Practice to have made a significant difference - Korean women began to dominate women's golf. The third key element is Master Coaching.. Mr. Coyle calls these master teachers "The Talent Whisperers." Common traits are patience, nurturing spirit and the ability to use years of observation and pattern recognition to know just the right word to say to encourage and motivate the person being coached. IConic UCLA coach John Wooden is cited as a prototype for this kind of Master Coach. The implications of these three key elements that lead to greatness are far reaching. They can be applied to the realm of parenting, teaching, coaching, and business leadership. This is a MUST READ book for anyone who aspires to greatness or to lead others in achieving greatness. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2017 by Alan L. Chase

  • You're not fated to be mediocre
Coyle brings an empowering, exciting message to us: that we can grow our own greatness. That our skills are not fixed; they're not inherited or inherent inside of our DNA. I can't help but wish my parents had known the concepts of this book when I struggled with my baseball swing in 8th grade. But, I'm thankful to have this message known to me as a 31-year old -- both for my own growth of talent, and for how I will raise my future children. After writing a draft of this glowing review, I decided to read the most helpful critical review of the book, as penned by Ronald Forbes. In many ways, his review was accurate, and also somewhat persuasive. In light of his review, I have tempered my own review and rating, down from 5 stars to 4 stars. To summarize, Forbes rightly points out that Coyle's book is more "pop journalism" (which I have no problem with...it helps keep this book interesting, and from being bogged down in scientific jargon), and he says the book's claims are nothing new. But if an author can present old ideas in a fresh way that can help us change our behaviors, then he should be commended for it! This is the kind of book that you cannot help telling your friends and family about. Over the several weeks during which I read this book, I brought aspects of the book up in at least half a dozen conversations. It's a fun book. And you learn a lot. I'm not skilled in science, so I'm not going to try to summarize what the heck myelin is. Basically, it's stuff in your brain that grows as you develop skill in ANY given area of life. So, Coyle tries to help us explain how to grow more myelin in our brains. Coyle's three keys to growing talent: 1) Deep Practice - when I go out and play 18 holes, this is about as far from deep practice as you can get. Why? Because deep practice is all about fixing mistakes. You can do that on the driving range or the putting green, but not on the course (well, not easily, anyway). Think about it: how much time does the average golfer spend playing vs. practicing? 5-to-1? 10-to-1? Or any other sport or skill, for that matter. The concept of deep practice is not about practicing for countless hours each day; instead, most of the talent hotbeds profiled in the book had pupils training less than e hours per day. But the 3 hours of practice at these hotbeds has exponentially greater yield than regular practice. Deep practice is about struggling to get better. When we have to grapple with a weakness in our game, we can get to a point of breakthrough. "Experts practice differently and more strategically. When they fail, they don't blame it on luck or themselves. They have a strategy they can fix." (p 86). 2) Ignition - at some point in each of our lives, we watch a friend or colleague shoot to the moon (in some specific area of life or work), and we wonder, "how did he do that?" What switch was flipped in his brain? When we see it happen to someone just like us, it gives a sense that we could acquire that particular talent, whether it be a tennis swing, an ability to remodel a home, or learn to play the violin. Coyle writes, "Ignition is about the set of signals and subconscious forces that create our identity; the moments that lead us to say that is who I want to be." He looks all over the globe to study how talent hotbeds were ignited: South Korean female golfers, Russian tennis players, Brazilian soccer players, Curaçaon baseball players, to a charter school that started in Houston. These are great stories; fun to share with friends. 3) Master Coaching - this doesn't mean you need some expensive, elite, impossible-to-access, famous coach. Nope, you just need a coach that has loads of experience, plenty of passion, and a knack for connecting interpersonally with his students. "Master coaches aren't like heads of state. Their personality--their core skill circuit--is to be more like farmers: careful, deliberate cultivators of myelin." (165) My 3 greatest takeaways from the book: 1) Praise your children for their hard work, not for their intelligence or their innate abilities. If they make the connection between hard work and increasing skill, they will be increasingly motivated to work hard, which therefore leads to more talent. An upward cycle, if you will. 2) Savor the struggle. When my slice is really acting up on the golf course, view it as a mountain to be conquered. Zone in and do whatever it takes to correct that circuitry. 3) Don't complain and envy those with more talent than me. Instead, use it as motivation and say, "If he can do it, so can I." ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2014 by Mike Earl

  • Outliers-lite
Anyone who's read any Malcolm Gladwell book will recognize the narrative strategy (seemingly diverse vignettes illustrating different steps in an allegedly unified process), but author Coyle makes it more than a rip-off by using his breezy charm to skate through each anecdote before it gets preachy or overstays its welcome. Any reader who (like me) is in the teaching or coaching field will come away with some new approaches to consider. Special note for football fans: there is a brief JaMarcus Russell section that aged hilariously, though that's not the author's fault. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2017 by Steven Jones

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