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Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

Geoff Colvin · 7 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
“Excellent.”— The Wall Street Journal Since its publication ten years ago, businesspeople, investors, doctors, parents, students, athletes, and musicians at every level have adopted the maxims of Talent Is Overrated to get better at what they’re passionate about. Now this classic has been updated and revised with new research and takeaways to help anyone achieve even greater performance. Why are certain people so incredibly great at what they do? Most of us think we know the answer—but we’re almost always wrong. That’s important, because if we’re wrong on this crucial question, then we have zero chance of getting significantly better at anything we care about. Happily, the real source of great performance is no longer a mystery. Bringing together extensive scientific research, bestselling author Geoff Colvin shows where we go wrong and what actually makes world-class performers so remarkable. It isn’t specific, innate talent, nor is it plain old hard work. It’s a very specific type of work that anyone can do—but most people don’t. What’s more, the principles of great performance apply to virtually any activity that matters to you. Readers worldwide have been inspired by this book’s liberating message: You don’t need a one-in-a-million natural gift. Better performance, and maybe even world-class performance, is closer than you think.
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I'd recommend reading "Talent Is Overrated" [0]

While I agree that innate talent exists I disagree that it cannot be made up for.

[0] - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class...

lazyant
Not in professional sports, see http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Higher-Stronger-Generation-Supe... or http://www.amazon.com/Sports-Gene-Extraordinary-Athletic-Per... (similar ideas in both books)
vixen99
So which great performer, a pianist for instance, 'made up' for lack of talent?
0xdeadbeefbabe
Donald Fagan
None
None
mentos
Well the idea is what you perceive as talent is actually a lot of hard work.
tetraodonpuffer
the talent part is being able to convert hard work in meaningful ongoing gains: if you get to the point where you work hard for your maximum amount of productive hours a day and you can't improve any further, there's nothing else you can do. This is applicable to music, sports, anything really.

As much as the genetically blessed people like to say that there is no such thing as luck or talent, in the end we are not all born equal, and some people have something that others don't and can use it to reach levels that others can't, and some people that have it don't have the luck to have had the right parents and environment to be able to develop it fully.

Now this is not saying that one can't usually become reasonably competent at something via hard work, that is definitely possible, it's how we're all making a living after all, we are reasonably competent at our jobs. However for fields where the only paying jobs go to the absolute best, being reasonably competent is not enough.

According to wikipedia in 2007 there were only 117 US orchestras with a bugdget of 2.5 million US dollars (which to me implies being able to offer a reasonable yearly salary to their members, and even then I am sure most players still have to hustle for lessons and so on to make rent), now assume you are a harp player, that means that there are only about 250 full time professional positions for your instrument in the whole country, or a bassoon player, that would be maybe 400.

Now imagine that there were only 400 software jobs available in the US, do you think that being 'reasonable competent' at programming would be enough to get that job?

That's where talent comes in, talent alone is not enough, you also need hard work, but hard work alone will never get you there, just like hard work alone will never get you running a sub 10 second 100m or a 4 minute mile.

This does not fit well in the "everybody can do it, if you work hard enough" narrative (which has the unfortunate flip side of "you didn't make it, therefore it's your fault"), but in the end unfortunately that's how it is, we are not all born equal or with equal chances, we can do our best, but we all have to accept that sometimes our best is not just going to be as good as somebody else's for reasons not under anybody's control.

waterlesscloud
Great. So who is your example of that?
None
None
Tenhundfeld
What? If you accept the premise that talent is actually the capacity/inclination to work harder and practice more, then no, you won't find anyone at the top of their field who overcame a lack of talent. That's the point.

If you're defining talent as some type of natural ability to be good at a learned skill, like playing an instrument, then I think there are many examples of people who weren't especially good at first but became great.

For example, Michael Jordan was good but not outstanding at basketball in high school. He wasn't actually "cut" from his high school team, as the urban legend is told, but as a sophomore, he was put on the JV team when at least one other sophomore was put on varsity. He worked harder and practiced more than others to get better. There are many anecdotes of other players, team trainers, etc., describing him as the "hardest working" and "most competitive" player they've ever met. Did he have some natural ability at basketball? Probably. But people who are close to him attribute his talent to his drive to be better than absolutely everyone else.

Another example is Jimi Hendrix. As a young boy, he carried around a broom and would pretend to play it as a guitar. When he finally got a guitar, he did not immediately belt out Purple Haze. He initially struggled with it as all new players do. Supposedly, he'd practice for several hours every day, often repeating a single note until he could make it sound exactly like a song on the radio. He slept with his guitar. He took it with him everywhere, practicing scales in any spare moments. He'd often go see blues musicians and pepper them with questions about technique. So, did he have some natural ability for the guitar? Probably. But stories from his early life point to his talent being a love of the guitar and a strong desire to master it, in part to escape poverty.

I think the point of all of this is that learned skills take time to master. There are obviously people for whom learning it is easier or harder, and there are physical and intellectual traits that can limit or promote mastery. But for most people, the key differentiator is practice and hard work.

Not everyone can become a concert pianist, but every concert pianist has worked extremely hard to achieve mastery. And most people who practice for hours every day can become very, very good – good enough to play in a band, learn (almost) any song they want, enjoy the experience of entertaining friends and family, good enough for the average person to watch them play and think, "She's so talented at the piano."

coldtea
How about the talent is exactly in being able to put the hard work?

That (determination, persistence etc for a particular task) might be something people are born with, or something people develop young and can't much change it.

mentos
>How about the talent is exactly in being able to put the hard work?

And maybe part of putting in the hard work is coming to realize that its not all about talent..

RogerL
I'm me. I'm more talented at some things than other, even the same domain: I'm far, far better at piano than classical guitar despite having worked far more on the latter.

So, is the theory that I work hard than me? Or, maybe I work less hard than me?

Doesn't make sense. There are talent differences independent of levels of work. This is trivially true.

coldtea
>So, is the theory that I work hard than me? Or, maybe I work less hard than me? Doesn't make sense.

Looks like you missed the whole (emphasis mine):

"That (determination, persistence etc FOR A PARTICULAR TASK)"

You might have worked more hours, but with less effectiveness (because guitar doesn't inspire you etc).

Retric
Talent is more important the more competitive a field is.

The bar for being a Doctor, Programmer, Quant, or most other fields is actually fairly low. What confounds the issue is many things have a random selection process. The number of girls physically capable of becoming an Olympic gymnast is restricted not just by talent but also by family situations. Getting the right trainer early is less about talent than luck.

So, it’s a question of the talent pool making a serious effort plus how fair the selection process is. Which is why getting into the NFL in 2015 is vastly harder than it was in 1970. Superstars in 1970 might not even make it into the modern NFL because the talent pool is vastly larger and the number of slots have not increased much. It's not really a question of size, it's speed that's really changed the game.

As well as the extensively reviewed, recommended, and appraised "Code Complete" [0] by Steve McConnell

I'm working my way through it now (1+ year of professional experience) and it is a magnificent way to improve the quality of your code. I read it off and on, my goal is only 40 pages a week so that I'll make sure to find the time to do it (I'm doing a masters program and enjoy living in NYC too so setting huge goals doesn't work well for me).

Every time I crack it open, I find myself inspired to write better, clearer, and more concise code. Sometimes you just need a nudge to get back into doing things you already know you should be doing.

Finally, constantly learning, I think, is the best way to become a proficient, and then skillful professional software engineer. Many programmers become proficient and then level off. And that's good enough. But if you truly wanted to become one of the top 5% in your field you need to do something called deliberate practice. Reading 'Talent is Overrated' [1] really exposed me to the theory of constantly challenging yourself in order to grow. I really recommend it, I find myself trying to apply the theories to all areas of my life.

[0] - http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Const...

[1] - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class...

This was probably taken from the work of Carol Dweck[0]. I recently read a book she wrote (Mindset[1]) that was recommended on a thread here. The book title sounds like some corny self-help book, and honestly some of the stories in it seemed a bit sappy to me, but I think the underlying idea is solid and I definitely see it myself a lot in my day to day life (full disclosure: recovering fixed mindset person :)).

The basic premise is there are two types of mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Those with the fixed mindset are those that believe that intelligence, ability, etc.. is basically fixed. You have some certain amount and that's that. The growth mindset believes the general range of these things may be strongly influenced ('fixed') by things like genetics, life circumstances, etc... but improvement within this range is definitely possible and the key to that is hard work and honest assessment of where you are relative to where you want to be.

This relates to the achievement vs. hard work thing because she claims children who are praised for 'being smart' or 'being good at X' tend to gravitate towards the fixed mindset (i.e. 'I get praised because I am smart, I am smart because I can do X well/X comes easily to me, if something doesn't come easily to me it must mean I am not smart/talented'). This causes them to not put in effort when the going gets tough and in fact to avoid challenges because if they fail they view it as a judgement on their core self/competency (not simply an indication of an area for growth).

The growth mindset folks (children praised for doing well because they worked hard at it as opposed to some natural talent or 'smarts') tend to seek challenges as they view them as the engine of growth/improvement.

Using these frameworks as a lens on which to view human behavior can be interesting. I have definitely seen both mindsets in action (in myself and others). I definitely , consciously, try to stay in a growth mindset now, but I think our culture heavily pushes a fixed mindset where someone either has 'it' or they don't, they are smart or they are not, they are talented or they are not. We prefer the 'instant success due to massive talent/smarts' story over the 'worked their ass off for years to build amazing talent and then succeeded due to that hard work'.

The book Talent Is Overrated[2] also touches on this and points out most people that we generally consider 'naturals' at things, if you interview them/study them/look at their past, all have something in common, a tremendous amount of effort in learning/training, above and beyond what most people put in. This also veers towards the 10,000 hour theory of Anders Ericsson[3]

EDIT: Fixed a bunch typos/misspelling I saw in re-reading. Originally typed in IE with no spell check. Area for improvement: spelling.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-World-Class-Performer...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Anders_Ericsson

mailshanx
One a related note: Aaron Swartz wrote an article series he calls "raw nerve". One of those articles expands on Carol Dweck's work: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck
pretoriusB
@ScottBurson

>The problem I have with this is that in real life, it doesn't matter how hard you work on something; what matters is the quality of the result.

What makes you think the two are unrelated? If one is hopelessly incopetent maybe, but for most people hard work equals better results.

It's something that has been stated time and again regarding geniuses / very productive people et al, in the form of, say, the "10,000 hour rule", or the "99 perspiration, 1% inspiration".

greenyoda
Results may be correlated with effort if you consider a single person. However, in real life, you're usually competing with someone else.

Let's say we're comparing two employees: X works hard 80 hours a week; Y works only 40 hours a week and takes long lunches. But somehow, Y still ends up producing more results of a better quality. A rational manager should pay Y more than X, since it's only the end results that are of value to the company.

ScottBurson
The problem I have with this is that in real life, it doesn't matter how hard you work on something; what matters is the quality of the result. While I understand that praising kids for being smart causes problems, as Dweck suggests, I'm concerned that the approach she recommends will encourage the belief, already widespread, that effort alone is deserving of reward. This belief encourages struggle and mediocrity.
hosh
How is the quality of results what matters?

When you focus exclusively on the quality of results, you stop growing.

It's not about "effort", so much as the deliberateness in which you go about things. (The word "effort" is weighed down with a number of baggage and connotation). Or to put in different words, how mindful are you as you are doing whatever it is you are doing?

Aardwolf
> what matters is the quality of the result

Actually, I think what matters is the right mix of quantity and quality. Too much perfection wastes time for nothing. And sometimes I am too perfectionist unfortunately.

WalterSear
If you are simply focused on that task in front of you, sure, it looks like that. The change is in the person and how they approach future problems and tasks.
ryanmolden
Yes, I likely oversimplified her message, sorry. She never advocates praising effort in isolation from outcome. She advocates praising effort as the key factor in successful outcomes, and analyzing failures to understand what caused them and how you can grow your skillset to avoid them in the future. Her concern with a fixed mindset is that a loss/setback simply means someone else was better/smarter than you and there isn't much you can do about it. That or, to protect your ego, perhaps they cheated or the judges liked them better, or they were born to wealthy parents and had advantages you didn't or whatever other excuse people come up to explain a loss when they feel a loss labels them as a loser for all time. If you have the mindset that you can learn/improve from these experiences then a loss/failure isn't something to be hidden in shame, but something to be analyzed and used to make yourself better.

She has a story about a parent whose daughter was competing in gymnastics and at the local level always did pretty well without much practice. She went to a regional meet and did well relative to her skills but was outperformed by others and ended up not winning any medals/ribbons. On the way home the dad basically told her she didn't win because she didn't deserve to, i.e. the other competitors had put in more practice than she had and it showed in their performance. He didn't say 'they beat you because they are more talented' or 'they beat you because they are superior athletes', those are the kinds of statements that imply there is some core quality that the winners had that his daughter didn't have and thus she could never be better than them. Instead he basically said 'they buckled down and put in the long hours, if you did that you would have had a better chance'.

Dweck pointed out that he wasn't saying this to be a dick, and of course feedback like this much be couched correctly for people to hear it, but he wanted his daughter to know that to compete you have to put in the effort to learn/practice. If others put in more effort than you then they deserve to win, all else being equal. The story ended with her doubling down on her effort/practice (since she realized her local competitors which she could easily beat were only indicative of her talent vis-a-vis them, not some absolute barometer for her skills) and going on to compete successfully at a national level.

You are right that if I try and deliver some project at work and it fails I can't tell my boss 'but I tried really hard!' :) That said, if you look at most successful projects/people you see a LOT of hard work at some point to deliver on things. Some people make it look easy, but that is likely because they have done all the hard work years earlier building their skillsets. If they have done more of that than you then it shouldn't be surprising that their skills seem so superior to yours. They weren't born being masters of anything (hell, babies can't even manage to not shit themselves for a few years :)), but they put in time and effort even when there was little/no reward for that investment (in the immediate here and now, obviously there is reward later when you are able to do seemingly super-human things easily).

ScottBurson
Ah. Thanks for the clarification.
rdtsc
I think the hidden assumption is that "hard work" is also applied to learning not just pure rote doubling of effort to pick twice as many apples in a day. Rather the key is "persistence" and even more saw "persistence in learning".

This can make a huge difference if a breakthrough occurs on a meta-level and eventually you get better at learning, by repeatedly trying to learn something, you learn how to learn better, then learning anything is easier.

Two important issues to take into account: 1) The use of "worse" or "better" keeps the conversation very subjective. Better in what sense? What metrics are you using to measure the skill?

2) Deliberate Practice: same as with physical training if you practice in ways that strain your capacity, it will grow as long as the necessary amount of time is put into the activity.

Highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-World-Class-Performer...

I'd also say it's worth taking a look at the book Talent is Overrated. It explores HOW you practice, a step beyond the 10,000 hour rule. http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-World-Class-Performer...
hosh
There is also Talent Code, http://www.amazon.com/The-Talent-Code-Greatness-Grown/dp/055...

It has interesting framework, divided into two. The first part is what you can do. The second is how you can create an environment that keeps you on track.

It is actually Anders Ericsson's[1] theory, popularized by Gladwell. Feel free to read Ericsson if you like, but he says basically the same thing, though neither he nor Gladwell ever said "put in the 10,000 hours and you will be the Tiger Woods". Ericsson has studied the realm of expert learning (for quite some time) and tries to tease apart what makes Tiger Woods, and those like him, able to attain the things they do. He has a lot of evidence that it is not some inborn talent but rather (shockingly) a shit-ton of hard work (and the quip "You'll never be Tiger Woods because your dad wasn't Earl Woods"). The book Talent is Overrated[2] is also a decent read on the topic. It also tells the somewhat humorous story of László Polgár[3], who wrote about how he was going to turn his yet to be born children into chess stars through rigorous training/practice, and then proceeded to do so.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Ericsson

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-World-Class-Performer...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

Here's a whole book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842948/ref=as_li_tf_tl?...

spottiness
I read this book and although I enjoyed it and found it interesting, I think that the author undervalues the importance of innate talent. According to the author, almost everybody can become great at anything given the right motivation, hard-work, and coaching. I find this principle wrong, based on what I've heard experienced coaches say, and my own experience through 19 years of schooling. In other words, a lot of (non-scientific) evidence suggests that great performers have above average innate abilities in what they do. These abilities are common in the population but in no way general to most people. So, those born with the "extra" in a particular field, paired with great couches, family support, and an emotional fabric that keeps them focused for a long time, will have the chance of making it to the highest.

(I have a friend that thinks otherwise and I tell him: "Remember when you were in first grade, try to remember your classmates, what percentage of them could have become Nobel Prize winners in Physics given the right nurturing conditions?". According to the author of this book, almost all of them)

Isamu
> I think that the author undervalues the importance of innate talent.

Several recent books are doing that. But I think the common claim is that people who have become great have done so through training, and the effect of innate talent seems to be secondary at best.

They don't claim the opposite - that with the right training anyone will be great. Only that greatness is primarily due to the right training. It implies that a person of normal natural abilities has a shot at becoming world-class, but it's not a guarantee.

spottiness
>>It implies that a person of normal natural abilities has a shot at becoming world-class

The key lies in the definition of normal. Does it mean no less than 1 standard deviation below average? Does it mean above average? Above 1 standard deviation and less than 2? See, people in all those ranges are normal, and just by reducing a little the scope of "normal" a lot of people are filtered out.

My conjecture is that at least above average innate abilities are required, which by definition leaves out half the population.

kenjackson
I find this principle wrong, based on what I've heard experienced couches say

Maybe less time on couches and more time with coaches would change your perspective?

With that said, there is a guy, Dan, who is testing this theory with golf. We still have a few more years to see if it works.

http://thedanplan.com/

"Remember when you were in first grade, try to remember your classmates, what percentage of them could have become Nobel Prize winners in Physics given the right nurturing conditions?". According to the author of this book, almost all of them

I haven't read the book, but have read articles. I thought the goal was "expert level", not Nobel Prize level. There's a pretty big gap between being a Chem expert and winning the Nobel prize in it.

spottiness
>>Maybe less time on couches and more time with coaches would change your perspective?

:) funny... (fixed the typo, thanks.)

>>there is a guy, Dan...

Is this Daniel Coyle? I read his "Talent Code" book too. Similar to "Talent is Overrated" but doesn't neglect innate talent as much as the other.

>>I thought the goal was "expert level", not Nobel Prize level.

Expert level in the book is as good as one can get after 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" with great coaching. The author doesn't make any distinction between expert level and super high achievers.

kenjackson
Not the same Dan. This is just some guy who read about the 10,000 hour thing and decided to test it on himself.

Regarding how good can one get -- the term used by the research is expert. But, at least in the papers I read, they don't make it clear what expert is. For example read:

http://www.ida.liu.se/~nilda/Anders_Ericsson/Ericsson_delib_...

But in my own personal theory... you become Michael Jordan by doing the 10,000 hours+ and having innate gifts. You get a basketball scholarship (D1-D3) by doing the 10,000 hours.

spottiness
Thanks for the pointers. I'll read it later tonight...

My own personal theory is similar to yours: among the genetically very tall males, there is a lot of people with the innate abilities of Michael Jordan (let's make it 40% of the original set). From that subset, those that put the 10,000 hours with great teachers plus other things will become the likes of Michael Jordan.

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