Notes from The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle
by commutes_downstairs_with_coffee · 78 things on Twos
- "Whatever talent you set out to build, from golfing to learning a new language to playing guitar to managing a startup, be assured of one thing: You are born with the machinery to transform beginners' clumsiness into fast, fluent action. That machinery is not controlled by genes, it's controlled by you. Each day, each practice session, is a step toward a different future. This is a hopeful idea, and themes hopeful thing about it is that it is a fact."
- Getting Started 1-12
- Improving Skills 13-42
- Sustaining Progress 43-52
- Stare at who you want to become.
- Spend fifteen minutes a day engraving the skill on your brain.
- Steal without apology.
- Buy a notebook.
- Be willing to be stupid.
- Choose spartan over luxurious.
- Before you start, figure out if it's a hard skill or a soft skill.
- To build hard skills, work like a careful carpenter.
- To build soft skills, play like a skateboarder.
- Conor the hard skills.
- Don't fall for the prodigy myth.
- Five ways to pick a high-quality teacher or coach
- Avoid someone who reminds you of a courteous waiter.
- Seek someone who scares you a little.
- Seek someone who gives short, clear directions.
- Seek someone who loves teaching fundamentals.
- Other things being equal, pick the older person.
- Find the sweet spot between the comfort zone and survival zone.
- Take off your watch.
- Break every move down into chunks.
- Each day, try to build one perfect chunk.
- Embrace struggle.
- Choose five minutes a day over an hour a week.
- Don't do "drills". Instead, play small, addictive games
- Practice alone.
- Think in images.
- Pay attention immediately after you make a mistake.
- Visualize the wires of your brain forming new connections.
- Myelin is an insulator that grows in response to practice.
- Visualize the wires of your brain getting faster.
- Myelin also accelerates the brain's impulses by as much as a factor of 100.
- Shrink the space.
- Slow it down (even slower than you think).
- Close your eyes.
- Mime it.
- When you get it right, mark the spot.
- Take a nap.
- To learn a new move, exaggerate it.
- Make positive reaches.
- To learn from a book, close the book.
- Use the sandwich technique
- Make the correct move.
- Make the incorrect move.
- Make the correct move again.
- Use the 3x10 technique.
- Practice something three times,, with 10 minute breaks in between.
- Invent daily tests.
- To choose the best practice method, use the R.E.P.S. gauge.
- R: Reaching and repeating
- E: Engagement
- P: Purposefulness
- S: Srong, speedy feedback.
- Stop before you're exhausted.
- Practice immediately after performance.
- Just before sleep, watch a mental movie.
- End on a positive note.
- Six ways to be a better teacher or coach:
- Use the first few seconds to connect on an emotional level.
- Avoid giving long speeches--instead, deliver vivid chunks of information.
- Be allergic to mushy language.
- Make a scorecard for learning.
- Maximize reachfulness.
- Examples are leaning forward, stretching, struggling, and improving. Also the flipped classroom. Think like a designer.
- Aim to create independent learners
- Embrace repetition.
- Have a blue-collar mindset.
- For every hour of competition, spend five hours practicing.
- Don't waste time trying to break bad habits--instead, build new ones.
- To learn it more deeply, teach it.
- Give a new skill a minimum of 8 weeks.
- When you get stuck, make a shift.
- Cultivate your grit.
- Keep your big goals secret.
- Think like a gardener, work like a carpenter.