You Are Special!

David Shenk's new book The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong gives an overview of the newest research on nature, nurture and talent-- he is covering some of the same ground as Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers and Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code-- but he has new examples and goes more in depth about genetics, which is far more plastic than what was once though (even Lamarckian at times . . . the section on epigenetics is really interesting) and in the end the lesson is this: if you want to do something, don't worry about if you have an innate talent for it, just start practicing, but make sure you practice, often, obsessively, and under the best tutelage you can . . . and if this happens, you don't have to worry too much about genes . . . if you want to read more, especially on the sporting aspects of the book, head to here to my post at Gheorghe: The Blog.

7/6/2009

It's frustrating to read Daniel Boyle's book The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How at age thirty nine, when my myelin production is soon to wane, and realize that I could have been whatever I wanted, a cartoonist, a guitarist, a ballerina, if I had only practiced deep enough and long enough-- that there really is no such thing as talent, only perseverance, failure, time, and persistence-- and that if you put in your 10,000 hours practicing the right way, with the right motivation-- you need to be in a situation that keeps telling your brain better get busy, as opposed to "better watch TV" or "better be well rounded"-- then you will be a world class talent, and people will look at you and think you are "gifted"-- so since it's too late for me to truly master anything (and judging by this rambling sentence, I could use 9000 more hours of writing practice) all I can do is start torturing my kids and it's never too soon to start . . . so what do I want them to master?