There is an increasing amount of evidence that talent is not as innate as most people believe. Skillfulness is actually acquired through practicing and how one practices. In The Little Book of Talent, Daniel Coyle offers some 50 tips on the best way to get really good at anything.
Coyle purports to have visited a great number of centers of excellence, or places that have produced a high ratio of world class performers, be they musicians, athletes, artists etc. He studied how the students train at these centers, and came up with a list of recommendations for others to follow as they seek to improve their skills.
I found the suggestions quite useful, and have incorporated some of them into my own practices as I currently seek to learn how to play the guitar. Of course, it's hard to know if the suggestions, which all make perfect sense, actually do help. This type of book undoubtedly suffers from a sort of Halo Effect, as it's quite possible that centers of nincompoops also use many of these same suggestions, but without the success.
Still, the book offers some tips worth trying, and if you can experiment with them, you may find some that work quite well for you.
Enjoy!
1 comment:
Hahaha .... centers of nincompoops...I like it
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