Books Everyone Should Read, Really

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin


Okay, so this book isn’t on College Media Adviser’s list of books journalists should read, but this is definitely a book everyone should read—journalists, communications professionals, educators, athletes, musicians, you name it. Everyone will find the tools needed to be the best in this book. And as the title indicates, it isn’t talent.

So what is it that separates the so-so performer from the good to the truly excellent world-class performer? Deliberate practice.

Yes I know. We’ve all heard the axiom, “Practice makes perfect.” But that’s not what Colvin means. What Colvin means is deliberate, meaningful, planned, systematic and difficult practice that allows you, the performer to practice a skill over-and-over-and-over.

It’s doing as Benjamin Franklin did to practice his writing…It’s finding prose superior to anything he had seen. In this case, the Spectator by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. He read an article. Took brief notes on the meaning of each sentence. A few days later, he would look at the notes and try to express the meaning in his own words. He would then compare his words to the original to discover his faults. His discovery: a poor vocabulary.

Franklin discovered that he could improve his vocabulary by writing poetry, which required a large stock of words with extensive knowledge of meaning and hue. So he rewrote the essays from the Spectator into verse. Then, he would rewrite the verse into prose after he had forgotten the meanings.

Not content to just work on vocabulary, he discovered a method to improve his organizational skills. He would write notes on each sentence in the essay on separate pieces of paper. After a week, he would put all of the pieces together to form the essay and compare to the original. Each time, Franklin would review his work for faults and start all over again. Sounds like a lot of work.

This is precisely why most of us don’t make it to expert. It’s a lot of work. Work isn’t fun.

Deliberate practice isn’t fun, but it does produce the truly world-class performer, with or without talent.

Another such example of deliberate practice at work was one of the most prolific professional football players of all-time, Jerry Rice, who played until age 42. His personal training regime was one that the 49ers’ trainer wouldn’t release for fear that others might hurt themselves.

Here were the hallmarks of Rice’s training regime, as analyzed by Colvin:
• He spent very little time playing football.
• He designed his practice to work on his specific needs.
• It wasn’t fun.
• He defied the conventional limits of age.

So according to Colvin, deliberate practice changes people in fundamental ways, turning people into experts who exhibit these qualities:
• They understand the significance of indicators that average performers don’t even notice.
• They look further ahead.
• They know more from seeing less.
• They make finer discriminations than average performers.
• And they remember more.

What does this mean for all of us? Well we can be superstars without talent.

All it takes is several hours (read about 8 hours per day if you haven’t started in your youth) to become prodigies. Good to know I can still become a world-class concert pianist.

Well, maybe I’ll just learn to play cool music…Maybe that won’t take as much practice time. So pull up a bench. Where’s my metronome?