The Talent Code

To write a book, even a tiny one, is to play a particular kind of game. Rules must be formed and obeyed. Characters must be conceived and constructed. Landscapes must be described. Lines of narrative must be puzzled out and followed. EAch of these can be thought of as distinct action, the firing of a circuit that's linked to other circuits.

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The four Virtues

1. The Matrix: the vast grid of task-specific knowledge that distinguishes the best teachers and allows them to creatively and effectively respond to a student's efforts.

2. Perceptiveness:Though the gaze can be friendly, it's not chiefly about friendship. It's about information. It's about figuring you out. On the micro level, they constantly monitored the student's reaction to their coaching, checking whether their message was being absorbed. This led to a telltale rhythm of speech. The caoch would deliver a chunk of information, then pause, hawkeyeing the listener as if watching the needle of a Geiger counter.

3. The GPS reflex. Most master coaches delivered their information to their studetns in a series of short, vivid, high-definition bursts. They never began sentences with "Please, would you"; instead they spoke in short imperatives. “Now do X" was the most common construction, the "you will" was implied.

concise, locating mistakes and their solutions in the same vivid stroke. It was more like probing, strategic impatience.

4. Theatrical honesty. Truly great teachers connect with students because of who they are as moral standars. There's an empathy, a selflessness, because you're not trying to tell the student something they know, but are finding, in their effort, a place to make a real connection.

Skills like soccer, writing, and comedy are flexible-circuit skills, meaning that they require us to grow vast ivy-vine circuits that we can flick through to navigate an ever-changing set of obstacles. Playing violin, golf, gymnastics, and figure skating, on the other hand, are consistent-circuit skills, depending utterly on a solid foundation of technique that enables us to reliably re-create the fundamentals of an ideal performance. (This is why self-taught violinists, skaters, and gymnasts rarely reach world-calss level and why self-taught novelists, comedians, and soccer players do all the time.)

He can walk up to someone he's never met, in an atmosphere thick with unknowns and money and wariness, and forge a connection. He can use that connection to find the truth about someone whose talent is yet to be known to the world and maybe even to himeself.

I feel it in a changed attitude toward failure, which doesn't feel like a setback or the writing on the wall anymore, but like a path forward.

We tend to think of our memory as tape recorder, but that's wrong. It's a living structure, a scaffold of nearly infinite size. The more we generate impulses, encountering and overcoming difficulties, the more scaffolding we build. The more scaffolding we build, the faster we learn.

Myelin's vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. they are purposely operating at the edges of their ability, so they will screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better. How?

'vision' -- this word seems very vaguecertain behavioral patterns improve performance!1. Build better brain: one real engaged action > thousands of times shallower experiencetry 100% hard, practice even 600% more! pay deepest attention. construct your neurons in your brain. establish the pathways (e.g., mathematical, logical)summary: 1) eliminate passive learning; 2) use the 15% rule: 15% of time to do own project not others; 3) sweat once a week, put yourself at risk, so that you can improve your ability; 4) practice openness; 5.shrink, compress, and repeatneural marketing: 1) building from, connect new knowledge to existing knowledge, 2) ask, don't tell, 3) create a positive reach/fire to find the solution2. Motivation:see the image of someone you would like to become! (the power of the role model), star at that person, and unconsciously connect, then bring that energy to your current work. Who do you wanna be?1) take filed trips; 2) fewer speeches to big groups; more 1-on-1 conversation!; 3) be a detective.author's presentation: http://webcast.conferenceboard.ca/EPRE_3945/index.asp