Bounce: The of Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

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There is an amazing story about Laszlo Polgar, a Hungarian educational psychologist. He was an early advocate of the practice theory of expertise. His central thesis was that areas of expertise can be open to all, and not just to people with special talents. He was not believed, so he devised an experiment with his yet unborn daughters. He would train his children to play chess, a game where he was not an expert. He took care to allow his three daughters to become internally motivated to love the game, and to practice it frequently. Polgar himself was not a good chess player, but he thought that the international rating system would help to objectively quantify the level that his children would ultimately attain. To make a long story short, each of his three daughters became world-class chess players. The Greatest: What Sport Teaches Us About Achieving Success (John Murray, 2017), ISBN 978-1473653665 He is a three-time men's singles champion at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships [1] (in 1997, 2000 and 2001), and also competed for Great Britain in two Olympic Games: at Barcelona in 1992 and at Sydney in 2000. [2] However, that doesn’t make him a better driver. In an everyday car crash, he wouldn’t hit the brakes any faster than you or me. Still, it’s easy to see why the message of Bounce (and Outliers) is so compelling. Talent is elusive and exclusive: you’re either born with it or you’re just a regular schmoe. There’s nothing mysterious about repetition, though – all you need is the determination to keep going.

Every second of every minute of every hour, the goal [of purposeful practice] is to extend one’s mind and body, to push oneself beyond the outer limits of one’s capacities, to engage so deeply in the task that one leaves the training session, literally, a changed person”. Furthermore, Syed delves into the field of surgery to demonstrate how deliberate practice can shape expertise. He highlights the work of renowned surgeon Atul Gawande, who explains that deliberate practice in surgical skills is essential to reducing errors and improving patient outcomes. Through specific training programs, surgeons can engage in simulated surgeries and deliberate practice that allows them to hone their skills, build muscle memory, and develop the ability to make split-second decisions during complex procedures. This deliberate practice not only improves surgical proficiency but also boosts surgeon confidence and reduces stress, ultimately leading to better patient care. Because once you reach a certain level – say, the level of your peers – you usually stop challenging yourself. High-level performers know better: they keep inventing new obstacles and beat them. They’re in a league of their own from the start!Dare to be You: Defy Self-Doubt, Fearlessly Follow Your Own Path and be Confidently You! By Matthew Syed - Books". Hachette Australia . Retrieved 5 August 2021. Embracing a growth mindset, where failure is seen as an opportunity for growth and improvement, is essential for achieving high levels of success. And Matthew Syed was able to learn this best from a direct competitor: Desmond Douglas. Even though tests proved that he was one of the table-tennis players with the slowest reaction times, he was lightning fast on the field! It sounds like a blasphemy, but, according to Matthew Syed – it’s true: Mozart was just a regular child! We think of him as someone extraordinary – that is: a child prodigy – because we compare him to the wrong group of people. But what the crowd see is the present moment, he explains, and not all the falls and hard work in the past. If they could have seen it - Talent was out of the dictionary.

Well, because, he trained his brain to be perfect for table tennis! Namely, to select only the information relevant to the game; after all, he didn’t need to be able to react fast when someone threw food at him. Douglas mastered something sociologists call deliberate practice. However, this requires so much effort that only those with proper motivation will ever be able to succeed. Of course, the concept of ‘practice makes perfect’ is nothing new: “dedication’s what you need,” as jazz musician and TV presenter Roy Castle crooned in the 1970s. The only difference is that the author makes a foray into the topic of sports more than his predecessors but I found it to be interesting but impractical.Syed stood as the Labour candidate in the 2001 UK General Election in Wokingham, coming third in a safe Conservative seat. [16] Syed won a place on the Labour Party's shortlist to succeed Ashok Kumar for the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency in the 2010 UK General Election. However, the party selected Tom Blenkinsop, who had worked in Kumar's constituency office for six years. [17] A great book – should be compulsory reading all parents and teachers. It has changed the way I think about encouraging my children and work teammates – praising their efforts and hard work rather than their innate "skill". As an advisor to owner- managed businesses, I see the 10,000 hour/10 year experience rule being lived out in many ways. For example most professionals spend their 20s and early 30s mastering the technical aspects of their profession, and the next decade mastering management and business skills so that by the mid to late 40s they are at the height of their powers. This book could be called The T-Myth (with apologies to Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth)- the T standing for talent of course. It explains in scientific terms of some of the principles set out by Gerber in his book and it has helped me to understand why some of my most successful clients have done so well, often after years of struggling and learning from their mistakes (i.e. "purposeful practice" in Syed's words). And, sometimes, motivation is a strange thing. For example, there are many Brazilian soccer greats, mainly because there were always many before them! If you don’t believe that, take for example the phenomenon of female K-golfers dominating the sport. Until 1998, when Se-ri Pak became the first South Korean golfer to win the U.S. Women’s Open – there was basically none!

Now, you have to agree: not many books can put such names next to each other and walk away from it unscathed.Talent is overrated! Practice can’t be! You Need Motivation to Succeed – and Sometimes It Can Be Something Trivial No wonder talent seems most apparent, or most encouraged, in children: setting aside 10,000 hours gets tougher when you have a family or a job.

Mathew Syed - a British Journalist and Broadcaster was, as it turned out was born of a British Pakistani father and a Welsh mother. To his credentials he was a Five times Men’s Single Champion at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Champion and represented Great Britain for two Olympic Games. Few things in life are more satisfying than beating a rival. We love to win and hate to lose, whether it's on the playing field or at the ballot box, in the office or in the classroom. In this bold new look at human behavior, award-winning journalist and Olympian Matthew Syed explores the truth about our competitive nature: why we win, why we don't, and how we really play the game of life. Mozart was able to be so good not merely because he spent so much time practicing – but because he found the motivation to do this! If we believe that attaining excellence hinges on talent, we are likely to give up if we show insufficient early promise”.

Most of us can’t find any motivation for well, anything but building Lego castles – when we’re children! When we get older, our success depends on it. His book Bounce thus turned out to be a book that focused on excellence in sports. It is always a great literally contribution when you have an expert with hands-on experience share their insights in a manner that is clear, easy to understand