Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

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As an example, my eldest son used to take part in weekly football coaching at a local sports centre. He was one of the younger players (being a late August baby) but was always willing to learn, and paid attention to what the coach was trying to get across. There were apparently more talented players there, but few of them were willing to learn. The coach pointed out that over time the abilities of the players would tend to average out - those who were willing to learn catching up and indeed over taking those who had a head start. China and Ping-Pong, Brazil and soccer; all the successful systems have one thing in common: they institutionalize the principles of purposeful practice. Purposeful practice s about striving what’s just out of reach and not quite making it; it is about grappling with tasks beyond the current limitations and falling short again and again. Excellence is about stepping outside the comfort zone, training with a spirit of endeavor, and accepting the inevitability of trials and tribulations. Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the essential paradox of expert performance. The pattern of success is not genetic despite being specific to certain populations. Social and economic factors are the primary factors driving the success of Kenyan distance running. The top Kenyan athletes are predominantly from areas of high altitude, even relative to the rest of Africa.

We should praise effort, not talent we should emphasize how abilities can be transformed through application; we should teach others and ourselves to see challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; we should interpret failure not as an indictment but as an opportunity. A very interesting read, that, as I said at the start, helped confirm some ideas I have about how life works, while challenging others I've held. 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! Mozart is considered by many to have been the greatest composer who ever lived. Traditionally, most people would assume outstanding achievements like his are due to natural abilities, or even divine inspiration or fate. This assumption holds especially true for child prodigies like Mozart who already had the world mesmerized with his musical talent at the age of six. 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

“Bounce” Quotes

Motivational jolts: A group of student was divided into two parts. One part were given a small detail that could be associated to themselves when studying a report of a person – such as that the person had the exact me birth date as the students. The motivational level showed to go sky high for the students who had the same birthday. Anticlimax: we might feel miserable after a triumph. This is so that we are able to disengage from our triumph, enabling us to focus on the next challenge. If goal fulfillment induced indefinite periods of contentment, we would be robbed of all future motivation. For an award-winning writer, it is the melancholy that provides the creative impetus for the next literary adventure. When I first read the title ‘Bounce’ by Matthew Syed, I was more intrigued with the name of the author than on what the book was about. Different things motivate different people, but the best part of it is – some of them are even trivial. For example, for Mia Hamm, that something was her coach telling her to “switch on.” For South Korean female golfers, it was Se-ri Pak winning the U.S. Open at the age of 20.

The figure skater champion fell and fell. Why did she not give up? Because she did not interpret falling down as failure. Armed with a growth mindset, she interpreted falling down not merely as a means of improving, but as evidence that she was improving. Failing provided her with an opportunity to learn, develop and adapt. Matthew Syed is a British journalist and fairly successful former table tennis player, becoming English champion on four separate occasions and being its top ranked player for nearly ten years.Here, and again in junior football generally from my experience, it is very clear that age has a major part to play - something that Syad only briefly covers, and which would I think bear more examination. Players born in the first half of the UK academic year tending to be the ones who progress, with the younger ones being relegated to reserve teams. Swimming appears to get past this by having age cut offs for each gala through a season, so very child has a point where they are in the oldest cohort, and gain an advantage. In my view this is key to maintaining their motivation. Example of the transition between brain systems: when you learn to drive a car. Starting out, you have to focus on all the separate things; gears, brake etc. After you have been driving for a while, things have changed. Your skills have moved from the explicit to the implicit, from the conscious to the unconscious, and your ability has graduated from novice level to proficiency. Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. He covers familiar territory discrediting the talent myth, but also goes into how the talent myth can actually impede success (if I'm not naturally good at it, why try?). He also goes into some areas in the end that was more sports-centric, which at first I didn't find that interesting but he turned me around. Primarily talking about steroid/performance enhancements in sports - which I thought was a bit of a tangent at first, but raised good questions and for the first time actually got me interested in the issue (not a sports guy). He also talks about myths and self-fulfilling prophecies around race and athletics that was extremely informative and also got me thinking about the issue in a new light. Essential reading for an astounding summer of sport; If you’ve ever wondered what makes a champion, Bounce has the answer.