The Little Book Of Talent: 52 Tips For Improving Your Skills (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
In an extremely slim volume, Daniel Coyle outlines 52 techniques to improve skills. The basic premise states talent originates from hard work rather than instinct. Through concise, efficient tips and suggestions, he describes achievable methods to improve any form of skill, though he focuses mostly on artistic and athletic.Any productive student of music (or athletics) would already know most of these tips - either through the right teacher or self-discovery in the absence of a teacher. What Coyle does nicely is articulating some of these concepts, such as Smallest Achievable Perfection. Most of his examples are directly related to music and/or athletics but can be easily applied to any craft. What was most surprising to me were the concepts that he suggests undermine progress in practice, such as luxurious surroundings, game-ifying a practice session, or even as simple as sharing your goal with others. Solid, very fast read for anyone looking to improve a specific set of skills or for a refresher for those of us who are interested in productivity. Chock-full of easily implementable tips to cultivate both hard (those that have a specific way to be performed, like free throws) and soft (those that are more situational, think sports plays) skills.$2: Engrave skills in your mind 15 minutes a day. Watch the skill being performed, with great intensity, to build a HD mental blueprint. Feel yourself performing the skill.#5: When you push the boundaries, falling down is inevitable. Building new connections in your brain requires reaching, which entails the chance of falling.#7: Hard skills require consistency, soft skills require pattern recognition.#8: Learning fundamentals well saves a lot of time and trouble down the line.#11: Ignore early success, keep pushing yourself. Never settle.#12: Coaches should scare you, push you, gives clear directions, and loves the fundamentals.#13: The highest rate of learning occurs at the sweet spot, the edge of ability.#17: Embrace struggle. Discomfort is equal to growth.#21: Think in images. They are easier to remember and relate to.#22: Take mistakes seriously, but never personally. After you make one, open your eyes wide and analyse them.#29: Catch the feeling when you hit that perfect rep. Burn it into your consciousness. Practice begins when you get it right.#31: Exaggerate when learning new moves. One can always dial back later.#32: Make positive reaches. Focus on what you want to do, not what you want to avoid.#33: To learn from a book, close the book. Learning is reaching.#37:R: Reaching (as many as possible, as often as possible)E: Engagement (Raise the stakes, challenge yourself)P: Purposefulness (Train as you fight)S: Strong, speedy feedback (Correct on the spot)#49: When you plateau, mix it up.#52: Think like a gardener, work like a carpenter. Talent, like plants, don't grow overnight. Work steadily, slowly adding on to the whole.
What do You think about The Little Book Of Talent: 52 Tips For Improving Your Skills (2012)?
Many tips in this little book is quite useful and when I used these tips I succeeded.
—XANIA4
Good tips, would be a good book to have lying around and be able to refer back to.
—Luminita
Good one to read... It will help ur self talent to explore
—ltackett10
