Daniel Coyle's Blog, page 22

Why Being Terrible is Kind of Wonderful

If tomorrow you were given the chance to be great at every single skill in your life — I'm talking world-class level, in each of your various interests — would you do it?

For many of us, the answer comes easily: Yes. Being tops at everything is considered Life's Big Goal. Accordingly, we spend a lot of our time fervently traveling toward the promised land — shoring up weaknesses, honing strengths, targeting where to excel.

But I'd like to point out that this way of thinking misses out on a...

The Learner's Dictionary

It's a beautiful moment we've all experienced: a teacher or coach says something and all of a sudden – like sunbeams cutting through a cloud – we get it. We understand deeply.

The question is, how do we make these moments happen more often?

I think one of the best ways is by using more precise language.  Too often, teachers and learners alike settle for vague instructions, like "do it like this," or "try it again."  These are well intended, perhaps, but in essence they are squishy, meaningless ...

The 0.25 Second That Makes All the Difference

When it comes to errors, most of us share a passionate and simple opinion: we don't like them very much. We strive to avoid them, to conceal them, to avoid repeating them.  As a species, we are all essentially allergic to mistakes.

But there's another way of thinking about error, and it begins with a story I heard recently about Marina Semyonova, a master teacher at the Bolshoi Ballet in the fifties.

The story goes like this: Every year, Semyonova would hold a tryout for the Bolshoi, which was ...

Boosting Innovation Velocity

So here's my problem: my innovation velocity varies too much. Way too much.

When it's up, it's way up – lots of fresh ideas arriving and connecting, leading to new projects, articles, even books. When it's down, it's pretty flat. If you were to draw a chart of my generation of good ideas over a given stretch of time, it would look like a map of Montana – large stretches of vast, windswept plains, leading to a few clusters of tall peaks where the majority of good ideas occur.

I'm interested in t...

3 Principles of Goofing Around

I heard a couple good stories the other day about the value of daydreaming, playing, fiddling, futzing, noodling, tinkering – that age-old, hugely underrated activity known as goofing around.

Story #1 takes place in the seventies, at an international ski race in Austria. The world's best racers are all training on a course that possesses a slightly unique feature: after the finish line, skiers must traverse a long, flat section that leads back to the chairlift.

Now most competitors do exactly w...

Rules of Ignition

Beneath every big talent lies an ignition story – the famously potent moment when a young person falls helplessly in love with their future passion.

For Albert Einstein, that moment happened when his father brought him a compass. As Walter Isaacson wrote in Einstein: His Life and Universe:

Einstein later recalled being so excited as he examined its mysterious powers that he trembled and grew cold…. [Einstein wrote:] "I can still remember – or at least I believe I can remember—that this...

The Importance of Being Simple

I just came across a letter from 1998 that made my day. Here's the backstory: Amir, a 14-year-old aspiring cartoonist, sends some of his drawings to John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy. Here's Kricfalusi's response (edited for space).

Dear Amir,

Thanks for your letter and all your cartoons to look at. Your comics are pretty good, especially your staging and continuity. You might have the makings of a good storyboard artist. I'm sending you a very good how to draw animation book by...

Building a Leader's Brain: The Underdog Plan

Leadership is fascinating because it's rooted in mystery. What makes certain leaders great? What makes them tick? How do they know the right thing to do?

One way to approach the mystery it through the window of a small question: why did so many mailroom workers rise to become CEOs?

Here's a partial list:

Dick Grasso (NYSE)Barry Diller, Michael Ovitz, and David Geffen (William Morris)Mike Medavoy (Universal)J. Lawrence Hughes (William Morrow)Ned Tanen (MCA)Jeffrey Katzenberg (Paramount)George...

Vision Improvement

Vision is the greatest of talents, because it looks so much like magic. We see it in sports, when a basketball player surprises an entire arena by delivering a last-second pass to a waiting teammate. Or in business when a smart investor spots a tiny, vital pattern and leverages it to a massive advantage. Vision dwarfs other talents like accuracy, persistence, and strength because it operates on a higher plane. It changes the game by creating new opportunities where none existed.

When we see...

Identifying Talent: What Really Matters

At my recent trip to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, I spent a lot of time talking to coaches about a small but profound question: can we identify talent?

In other words, can we assess a bunch of young performers when they're 14 or so, measure certain qualities, and figure out who will likely succeed and who will likely fail?

To our conventional way of thinking, the answer seems obvious. Of course we can. It's what coaches do – spotting the magic spark, the X-Factor.

But...