Talent is Overrated Book Summary - Talent is Overrated Book explained in key points

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Talent is Overrated summary

Name: Talent is Overrated
Rating: 4.5 (94 reviews)
Author: Geoff Colvin

Geoff Colvin

What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

4.5 (94 ratings)

21 mins

Table of Contents

Talent is Overrated
summarized in 9 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Discover the crucial differences between mediocrity and unparalleled greatness.

With standards rapidly rising in virtually every discipline, the understanding of where great performance comes from is more important than ever before. In order to gain an edge on the competition, it’s crucial to know how to refine your skills in the smartest way possible.

The first step is abandoning the belief that greatness is something people are born with.

In the following blinks, you’ll learn about one man’s strange quest to breed his very own chess prodigies, what motivated Benjamin Franklin to skip church on Sundays, how tennis players know where to run to return a serve without even looking at the ball, and why you don’t have to be a genius to know which horse to put your money on.

Most importantly, the book will give you the tools necessary to turn your average performance into world-class performance, while driving home the hard truth that there are no shortcuts on the path to world-class performance.

Contrary to popular belief, neither inborn abilities nor experience alone determine extraordinary achievement.

If you’re like most people, you spend most of your waking hours at work. And, like many others, you probably perform your work just fine without being world-class at it. For example, if you’re an accountant, you probably don’t rank among the very best at your job even if you’ve been crunching numbers eight hours a day for the past twenty years.

So if we devote most of our waking hours to our jobs, why aren’t most of us amazing at what we do?

Surprisingly, because extraordinary achievement isn’t determined by experience!

Extensive research shows that many people don’t improve at their work even after many years of experience; in fact, some actually get worse as they gain experience.

Studies have shown that experienced doctors score lower on tests of medical knowledge than their less experienced peers. This trend also seems to hold true across many other professions: the same goes for auditors detecting fraud and stockbrokers recommending stocks. Those with a wealth of experience often perform no better than their less experienced peers – and some perform even worse.

And great achievement doesn’t derive from inborn talent, i.e., the natural ability to succeed more easily, either.

This was shown in a study that sought out talented individuals, conducted in England in the 1990s. Researchers gathered vast amounts of data on 257 young people, all of whom had studied music. Surprisingly, they found that those who exhibited the greatest performance didn’t seem to have any more inborn talent than the other students!

The top performers exhibited no signs of extraordinary achievement before they started their intensive music training, which would have otherwise indicated a natural talent. Nor did top performers benefit from greater gains with the same amount of practice, indicating that talent didn’t manifest itself in the form of rapid improvements, either.

In many fields, the link between intelligence and performance is weak or nonexistent.

What is an “intelligent” person? Someone who can solve complex math problems? Someone good at synthesizing information? Although there are different ways of being intelligent, we do have one especially popular method of measuring general intelligence: the IQ test.

It’s a widely held belief that a high IQ score correlates with greater success in life. One reason might be that, overall, the average IQ of employees does actually increase with the complexity of their tasks. And, since complex tasks are generally better rewarded, it seemingly accounts for this success.

Contrary to popular belief, most great innovators spent years in intensive preparation before making their breakthroughs.

What did your last “aha” moment feel like? A sudden stroke of genius out of nowhere? If so, you’re not alone, and that’s because the notion that creative ideas ostensibly strike us out of the blue permeates our culture.

Think, for example, of the story of Archimedes, who realized, upon settling into his bath, that he could measure the volume of an irregular object by measuring how it displaces water.

Deliberate practice is the key to achieving world-class performance.

We all know the saying “practice makes perfect.” If we want to improve at something, we have to practice, and practice often – whether we’re working on our putt or trying to do better at work.

And it’s an undeniable fact that there’s a powerful correlation between the time spent practicing and increased performance.

Deliberate practice makes the performer perceive, know and remember more – and even alters the brain and body.

Have you ever watched an extraordinary performer, like an acrobat or ballerina, and had the feeling that they must be superhuman – someone fundamentally different from you and everybody you know – to be able to perform those feats?

Although they aren’t superhuman, in a way, your feeling is true: the deliberate practice that exemplifies these great performers actually does make them fundamentally different from most people in a number of ways.

Beginning deliberate practice early in life has clear advantages.

Have you ever wondered why the theory of relativity wasn’t conceived by a college physics student?

When we talk about “great achievements” in the realm of physics, we usually mean new discoveries. But to be able to make new discoveries, you first need to have an understanding of all the existing laws and theories. In other words: you need a lot of knowledge.

Motivation to perform develops over time and eventually has to become a self-driven force.

Getting in the amount of deliberate practice it takes to become a world-class performer is grueling work; without the proper motivation, it would be impossible to achieve. But where does our passion and motivation originate?

Let’s start by examining a mechanism called the multiplier effect. The idea is that a small initial advantage in some field can create a snowball effect – e.g., receiving more support and better coaching – which in turn produces greater advantages. Imagine someone with a strong forearm and quick reflexes who takes pride in having a slight edge over his peers in baseball.

Choose what you want to achieve and practice in the areas necessary for getting there.

Unfortunately, we can’t travel back in time to reap the benefits of an early start. However, we can still apply the principles of deliberate practice as adults to help us reach our goals.

First, since achieving exceptional performance is so demanding, you must know precisely what your goals are and be committed to reaching them even when the circumstances aren’t ideal.

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

Most people believe that people’s natural talents are what turn them into world-class performers. But, in fact, as this book shows, talent has virtually nothing to do with performance. True world-class performance is built over a long period of time using deliberate practice, i.e., zeroing in on the critical aspects of a skill with laser-sharp focus, practicing them repeatedly and getting quality feedback. With the proper motivation, you too can use deliberate practice to improve in any field.

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What is Talent is Overrated about?

Talent is Overrated explores the top performers in a number of fields to get at the bottom of just what makes them great. Contrary to what most of us intuitively think about skill, this book offers enticing evidence that top performance in any field are not determined by their inborn talent, but by deliberate efforts over many years.

Who should read Talent is Overrated?

Anybody who wants to discover the secrets of what makes a world-class performer
Anyone interested in applying the principles of great performance to their own life
Anyone who believes they “just aren’t cut out” for greatness in certain fields

About the Author

Geoff Colvin is an editor and columnist for Fortune, and a highly regarded commentator and lecturer on subjects like business trends and leadership. He also contributes daily with business commentary on the CBS Radio Network.

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