Talent is overrated by Geoff Colvin: Summary and Personal notes

Talent is overrated by Geoff Colvin is one of the most practical and most exciting books I have ever read, it is not just that “motivational” book or “you can do it, it is in you” books. This book contains practical lessons and series of researches to back up each idea or theory which I cannot cover but I will try as much as possible to run through a few examples and communicate the heart of the author.

The author Geoff started by dispelling two myths that we have considered as secrets to great performance.

1) The experience trap: the number of years you spend on a job doesn’t make you an exceptional or a world-class performer. People work at their jobs for more than ten years and they are just okay at what they do.

2) A greater majority belief that some people possess special talent, skills, and abilities that were given unto them by gods, God, Spirits, or muses before they came into the world. This is a safe way to make excuses for some of our shortcomings.

Let’s start with why: Why exactly do you need to be a great performer?

1. The increasing rise of standards in different domains has laid more demands on people with exceptional abilities and performance. For example, sports records keep getting broken every year. The winner of the men’s 200-meter race in the 1908 Olympics ran it in 22.6 seconds, today just kids in high school finish the race in less than 20 seconds. The same goes for Usain bolt. In the academic world, Roger Bacon, the English Scholar, wrote that it will take a person more than thirty years to study calculus. Nowadays, calculus is taught to millions of high school students and they understand it in hours or in extreme cases in months.

The baseline is the world is moving faster and people are doing a lot more with the little they have.

We see videos of little children on social media with powerful skills and abilities that we didn’t have when we were younger. We now have access to more information than ever.

2. Colvin argued that contrary to the belief that the scarce resource is money or capital, he argued that human ability remains the scarcest resource. He backs this up by saying that Microsoft has used $30billion dollars financial resource and has generated about $221billion of shareholder wealth while Procter & Gamble used $83 billion and has generated $126billion. Bill Gates says that if you took the twenty smartest people out of Microsoft, the company will be insignificant. Microsoft and Google are two companies that are known for investing heavily in human capital. They hire only the best guys. If you want to be in this category (the hired or the hiree), you had better be a world-class performer. People live in Nigeria and work for companies in China, the USA, or even faraway Australia. These days, we are not bound by physical distance or space or even time zones.

The world is smaller and millions of workers in developed countries are competing for jobs with workers all over the world.

3. The increasing need for creativity:

In the digital age, any products that can be compared will be compared and any directly compared product will be commoditized by reverse auction (i.e. become a cheap commodity). Products lifespan are shorter than ever, the competition is increasing.

Therefore companies need more creativity and innovation to keep their products in the market. Apple took an existing product (iPod) and gave it a more elegant design, created a simple and intuitive user interface, and added the iTunes store. The result became that they have over 75% of the market share.

Lastly, being so good at what we do is the deepest source of fulfillment we can ever know as a human being.

What is Talent?

Talent is a buzzword we use every day most times to describe one's exceptional ability. When we think talent, we think Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Tiger Woods, Serena, Bill gates, some chorister in your church, or the best student in your class. We don’t pay so much attention to the word but the truth is it affects our perspective on things. You will understand this better if you have been dropped out of a team or if you really liked to do a particular thing but stopped because you thought it didn’t feel natural or if you have been categorized at work/school into a group called “average”. After several findings, Geoff concluded that if there is something called “Talent”, it has little or no part in becoming a world-class performer. I know some of us would raise our eyebrows at this as I did. Just stay with me on this.

Is Precocity a Prerequisite?

Maybe.

Do you know that Mozart’s father-Leopold Mozart- was a famous composer and performer? Tiger Woods's father, Earl Woods, revealed he loved to teach in his book “Training a Tiger”? It has been discovered that practice in childhood causes the myelin to build up more than practice in adulthood. The body adapts easily at childhood after which bones calcify.

Earl started teaching his son golf before he clocked two and they practiced regularly for years.

The business manager of the century, Jack Welch, didn’t show any skills in his early years that suggested that he was going to be a good manager. And even though Warren Buffet claims he was born with investing skills, research points us to precocity too. Besides researchers haven’t found any particular gene for chess, golf, medicine, painting, etc.

But is it too late for us who didn't get a chance at precocity? Nope. These thoughts on precocity can help parents nurture their children into becoming world-class players.

How smart do you have to be?

So a lot of people have defined what “smartness” means to them.

According to the research high IQ is not a prerequisite for exceptional performance because whatever the IQ measures, it does not measure the ability to engage in cognitively complex forms of multivariate reasoning which is what we do in most cases.

I know we all have that one friend that was not a high academic performer but still turned out to be eventually more successful than others. Also, It is important to note that good memory, just like muscles in the body can be developed if trained.

What then makes excellent performers?

Deliberate practice makes excellent performers according to this book. Deliberate practice does not mean doing the same thing over and over. It is finding the right practice and channelling all your energy into it.

The following points highlight some characteristics of deliberate practice

1. Deliberate Practice has been specially designed to increase performance. Designed being the keyword. I found out in the process of reading this book that much of what we call practice are actually activities that don’t have any effect. Most times this deliberate practice is designed by teachers, mentors, or some others that possess some superior knowledge.

Ronaldo would not just do any kind of exercise, he does the ones that are channeled to enable him to play the number he wears. He would have pieces of training that are different from the goal keeper’s.

2) Deliberate practice is repeated over time. According to the author, there is a ten-year rule before great performers are produced. Even though there is some sort of truth in this, I personally believe we do not have to wait ten years to be good at a thing. You need time, a great deal of time spent practicing.

4) Deliberate practice is highly mentally demanding. It needs focus and effective concentration. Deliberate practice takes you beyond the comfort zone into the learning zone and prevents you from entering the panic zone. Deliberate practice isn’t much fun. It can be demanding and tiring. I think this is why a lot of people fall out.

THE RESULT

Some of us have met experts in different fields that can spot little details that we don’t even see. For example, some people can tell if a tennis player will miss the ball just by looking at some things before the player even hits the ball.

Deliberate practice helps your brain to spot information that is not obvious; you can see farther and be prepared for future obstacles.

Deliberate practice helps performers to remember more details. It also helps build the physical nature of one’s brain (myelination) and body.

These are the results we see that make us conclude that one person is talented.

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO ME?

The principle of deliberate practice can be applied in different aspects of our lives and the author tried to give practical examples of how to achieve this.

1. Find the aspect of your life you want to improve on and identify the next steps. Some have laid down curriculums already but in most cases, you have to do the research on your own.

2. Choose the skills and abilities from previous research, practice directly. Practicing directly could involve learning the textbook basics, watching videos effectively, and try to recall after or even putting yourself in pseudo situations.

3. Metacognition-knowledge about your own thinking is an important skill needed during practice. Sometimes you have to step outside yourself and critically examine yourself. Stretch yourself beyond your limit but don’t overstretch yourself.

4. Put in the time and the work.

FINAL WORDS

There is certainly a path that leads us from the state of our abilities to the path of the greats. This path is extremely long, demanding (ask Ronaldo and Messi) and no matter how much I write or how much you read, only a few will follow this path all the way to the end.

Sometimes and most times you need to let that desire overwhelm you and let the passion consume your heart. You need to be crazy enough to want it because it will cost you a lot. It might cost you your relationships, time, and even money. It is this passion that keeps you motivated in the days when you feel like giving up. The question is not whether you have what it takes (Talent or whatnot).

The question is: How thirsty are you? How passionate are you? Do you want it? Are you willing to pay the price?

ps: There is luck and there are opportunities that give us leverage. But luck only comes to the prepared

PSPs: Please share your thoughts in the comment section. I want to know what you think.