Thursday, January 29, 2009

Talent is Overrated

Author Geoff Colvin is Senior Editor of Fortune. This book has reach the bestseller list in New York Times. The book explore talent. Talent implies natural ability or capability. The analysis of the smart and successful famous people like Bill Gates, Jeffery Immelt(CEO of GE), Tiger Wood, etc and found that all them put in a lot of work in a special way called deliberate practice. It is hard work of repetition and feedback. Over time and only over lot of time in practice before one can become a master. It usually takes at least 10 years of practice and mostly about 20 years of practice before great performance occurs. Starting young gives you a head start. As I review this book, I realise it is like world class Olympic athletes. The kids are screen and then put on a daily regimes of training for many years before they compete in the games. This is like sitting for exams except it is many years for a few minutes of performance and only one winner.
The key conclusion from the book is anyone can be trained for outstanding performance. It is a lot of hard work and practice. The price for success is indeed high.

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