Monday, September 24, 2012

The Origin of Talent

A national radio broadcaster regularly receives music singles from would be musicians who feel they have the talent to become stars and who just need to get discovered. This broadcaster said that he receives more singles than he can listen to on a daily basis which, spanning his entire 26+ years in syndication, is potentially hundreds of thousands of songs.

In over 26 years and hundreds of thousands of songs from aspiring musicians only once did he receive a single that he believed to have star quality. Most of what he received was bad to average at best - some was even good - but only one in one hundred thousand plus songs stood out as being distinctively exceptional.

The broadcaster’s name is Howard Stern and the one in one hundred thousand plus talent independently went on to become the acclaimed musical artist Kid Rock.

The point being that truly exceptional talent is as rare as it is vivid, and when channeled correctly, it is irrepressible.

A Star is Formed
Anders Ericsson is a professor of psychology and a pioneer of the “Expert Performance Movement” who spent years studying the progression of talent in top performers across varied pursuits. Mr. Ericsson offers that regardless of the field, expert performers are almost always made, not born. He even suggests that talent is overrated as a trait.   

Mr. Ericsson theorizes that the reason talent is so rare isn’t because the potential for it is in such limited supply. Rather, exceptional talent is rare because it takes substantial time and practice to realize it. If you aren’t doing something that you are truly passionate about, then you most likely won’t possess the desire to undertake the extreme work required to be exceptional at it.

Mr. Ericsson also believes that, far from being innate, talent is actually something that everyone can acquire through deliberate practice. Deliberate practice, beyond excessive repetition of a task, involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback on the actions used to achieve those goals and concentrating on the technique that goes into achieving the goal as much as on the goal itself.

That is not to say that all people have equal potential. Instead, deliberate practice can make mediocre talent good, good talent great, and great talent exceptional.

Average to Exceptional
Hitting a baseball is widely considered to be one of the most difficult things to do in all of sports. It takes exceptional eye-hand coordination, a high awareness level, strong intuition and years of practice. Even then a good hitter will only succeed roughly 30% of the time.

There was once an athlete who at 30 years old wanted to chase his lifelong dream of playing baseball professionally. It had been at least 15 years since he stepped onto a baseball diamond as a player. More so, when he had played he played as a pitcher, a position that commonly doesn't hit. Now, attempting to enter baseball as an outfielder, hitting would be essential to his game.

To make up for his 15 year absence from the game this player woke up every morning before sunrise to practice hitting. He was always the first player to arrive and the last to leave. He would take batting practice for hours before “official” team batting practice began, then take it again in the time between team batting practice and the game, and finally one last time for a few hours after the game.

Every single day he practiced in this manner, sometimes until his hands were bleeding.

The player played wound up hitting .202 with 51 RBIs and 114 strikeouts in 127 games. Poor stats by most measures, but when you consider this was done in AA minor league ball against some of baseball’s top prospects after 15 years away from the game, they look less so.

Furthermore, all of his coaches noticed marked improvement from spring training to the end of the season. In the Fall League that follows the minor league season he batted .252 - a decent average for any player. And that against pitching prospects that most considered to be professionally bound.  

Through disciplined hard work and deliberate practice this player, in just 1 year, went from not playing baseball in 15 years to being decent at what many consider to be the most difficult athletic skill of any sport.

The players name was Michael Jordan and anyone who has ever coached or played with him consider him to be the hardest working athlete they have ever seen. Is he a great athlete - sure. But it was his unparalleled work ethic and his use of deliberate practice that made a poor baseball player average, and an exceptional basketball player the greatest that has ever played the game.  

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