The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else

by Daniel Coyle

Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways—operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes—makes you smarter.

experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them—as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go—end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.

“Things that appear to be obstacles turn out to be desirable in the long haul,” Bjork said. “One real encounter, even for a few seconds, is far more useful than several hundred observations.”

“The Jordan Rules” fit as an example here. The undesirable experience was valuable to the ultimate success of MJ in pursuit of his early championships.

The trick is to choose a goal just beyond your present abilities; to target the struggle. Thrashing blindly doesn't help. Reaching does. “It's all about finding the sweet spot,”

Seven years later, World War II began, and with it the need to transform thousands of unskilled youth into pilots as quickly and safely as possible. That need was answered by ten thousand Link trainers;

This man literally was instrumental in the world not speaking German!

Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective? A: Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement.

Struggle is not optional—it's neurologically required: in order to get your skill circuit to fire optimally, you must by definition fire the circuit suboptimally; you must make mistakes and pay attention to those mistakes; you must slowly teach your circuit. You must also keep firing that circuit—i.e., practicing—in order to keep myelin functioning properly. After all, myelin is living tissue.

The firing of the circuit is paramount. Myelin is not built to respond to fond wishes or vague ideas or information that washes over us like a warm bath. The mechanism is built to respond to actions: the literal electrical impulses traveling down nerve fibers. It responds to urgent repetition. In a few chapters we'll discuss the likely evolutionary reasons, but for now we'll simply note that deep practice is assisted by the attainment of a primal state, one where we are attentive, hungry, and focused, even desperate.

Myelin is universal. One size fits all skills.

myelin doesn't care who you are—it cares what you do.

every expert in every field is the result of around ten thousand hours of committed practice. Ericsson called this process “deliberate practice” and defined it as working on technique, seeking constant critical feedback, and focusing ruthlessly on shoring up weaknesses.

But myelin doesn't care about who you are. It only cares about what you do.

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery,” Michelangelo later said, “it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

There is, biologically speaking, no substitute for attentive repetition. Nothing you can do—talking, thinking, reading, imagining—is more effective in building skill than executing the action, firing the impulse down the nerve fiber, fixing errors, honing the circuit.

Deep practice, however, doesn't obey the same math. Spending more time is effective—but only if you're still in the sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities, attentively building and honing circuits. What's more, there seems to be a universal limit for how much deep practice human beings can do in a day. Ericsson's research shows that most world-class experts—including pianists, chess players, novelists, and athletes—practice between three and five hours a day, no matter what skill they pursue.

As I traveled to various talent hotbeds, I asked people for words that described the sensations of their most productive practice. Here's what they said: Attention Connect Build Whole Alert Focus Mistake Repeat Tiring Edge Awake*5

Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking out a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions. Pick a target. Reach for it. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach. Return to step one.

“Sometimes the [Japanese] teacher will purposely give the wrong answer so the kids can grapple with the theory. American teachers, though, worked like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class kept gliding along. But you don't learn by gliding.”

deep practice isn't a piece of cake: it requires energy, passion, and commitment.

language that affirmed the value of effort and slow progress rather than innate talent or intelligence.

phrases like “Wow, you really tried hard,” or “Good job, dude,” motivate far better than what she calls empty praise.

“When I teach, I give everyone everything. What happens after that, who can know?”

laws of learning (which might be retitled laws of myelin): explanation, demonstration, imitation, correction, and repetition.

“The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated,” he said in You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned, authored by Gallimore and former Wooden player Swen Nater. “Repetition is the key to learning.”

years of work go into myelinating a master coach's circuitry, which is a mysterious amalgam of technical knowledge, strategy, experience, and practiced instinct ready to be put to instant use to locate and understand where the students are and where they need to go. In short, the matrix is a master coach's killer application.

If you spend years and years trying hard to do something, you'd better get better at it. How dumb would I have to be if I didn't?”

“I am not going to treat you players all the same. Giving you the same treatment doesn't make sense, because you're all different. The good Lord, in his infinite wisdom, did not make us all the same. Goodness gracious, if he had, this would be a boring world, don't you think? You are different from each other in height, weight, background, intelligence, talent, and many other ways. For that reason, each one of you deserves individual treatment that is best for you. I will decide what that treatment will be.”

This is both gross and vulgar.

On the macro level, the coaches I met approached new students with the curiosity of an investigative reporter. They sought out details of their personal lives, finding out about family, income, relationships, motivation. And on the micro level, they constantly monitored the student's reaction to their coaching, checking whether their message was being absorbed. This led to a telltale rhythm of speech. The coach would deliver a chunk of information, then pause, hawkeyeing the listener as if watching the needle of a Geiger counter. As Septien put it, “I'm always checking, because I need to know when they don't know.”

Septien's skill is not only her matrix of knowledge but also the lightning-fast connections she makes between that matrix and Kacie's efforts, linking where Kacie is now with actions that will take her where she ought to go.*2

Small successes were not stopping points but stepping-stones.

“One of the big things I've learned over the years is to push,” Septien said. “The second they get to a new spot, even if they're still groping a little bit, I push them to the next level.”

drama and character are the tools master coaches use to reach the student with the truth about their performance.

“When something goes wrong, ask WHY five times.”

“Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining,” he said. “The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you to feel better. But you don't get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.”

failure, which doesn't feel like a setback or the writing on the wall anymore, but like a path forward.

The first were given an eight-week workshop of study skills; the second were given the identical workshop along with something extra: a special fifty-minute session that described how the brain grows when it's challenged.