You would think so, right?
So let’s make Tiger Woods, Exhibit A.
Let’s sit down with a coffee and 20 minutes and listen to Geoff Colvin talk about why Tiger is not a natural talent (as you thought after all). And that in fact, talent is just a “reduction of mistakes”.
It’s on this blog.
Have a look.
http://q-ontech.blogspot.com/2008/12/gladwell-deliberate-practice.html
I could drone on about I.Q. Or you could do a bit of your own weekend reading on I.Q. (Note: Your parents, friends, teachers, colleagues won’t agree with you about this topic you’re about to read).
And the book he references 🙂
You can be anything you want.
There’s no such thing as talent.
Talent is merely this: Elimination of mistakes.
The fewer mistakes you make in anything, the more talented you are.
So as individuals, we need to focus on making mistakes.
And that’s the curse of our lives. Our schools are designed to prevent us from making mistakes. Our parents tell us not to make mistakes. Imagine a world where you were allowed to make a mistake on purpose.
We have such situations in our workshops.
It’s called a red-herring assignment.
I give an assignment that can’t be done.
Or at least has to be aborted, because otherwise it will go all wrong. Yet most folks complete the assignment. And then when they get back to the room to present their solution, they realise that they’ve made a mistake.
Now the brain is in super self-correct mode. It’s made the mistake and can fix it. Without making the mistake it can’t fix the mistake. Something in our brain requires the mistake to be our own. I can see you making a mistake and try to avoid making the mistake, but more often than not I will make the mistake myself.
And this mistake-making is a good thing.
Because talent is just the elimination of mistakes. The more mistakes you make—and fix—the more talented you become.
But what of those people who seem spectacularly dumb?
What about those who make the same mistake over and over again? Surely they must learn from their mistakes, so why aren’t they super-talented?
It’s not just about making mistakes. It’s about elimination. Without elimination, all you have is a portfolio full of mistakes. And zero um…’talent.’
How amazing is your brain? What if someone took away your eyes? Could you possibly see with your brain?
Ha, ha, ha…judge for yourself. This video below is not a trick. He’s actually seeing with his brain—the eyes you and I have are just tools. It’s the brain that does all the grunt work.
On May 25, 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the only blind man in history to reach the summit of the world’s highest peak – Mount Everest. On August 20, 2008, when he stood on top of Carstenz Pyramid, the tallest peak in Austral-Asia, Weihenmayer completed his quest to climb the Seven Summits – the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. Erik is joined by fewer than 100 mountaineers who have accomplished this feat. Additionally, he has scaled El Capitan, a 3300-foot overhanging granite monolith in Yosemite; Lhosar, a 3000-foot ice waterfall in the himalayas; and a difficult and rarely climbed rock face on 17,000-foot Mt. Kenya
In September, 2003, Erik joined 320 stellar athletes from 17 countries to compete in the Primal Quest, the richest and toughest multi-sport adventure race in the world: 457 miles through the Sierra Nevada’s, nine days, sixty thousand feet of elevation gain, and no time-outs. Averaging only two hours of sleep a night, Erik and his team surged past the finish line on Lake Tahoe, becoming one of the 42 teams to cross the finish line out of the 80 teams that began.
Ok, so I’ve ranted about this, but I think Mo Willems has a fantastic angle.
Here’s a brief take on Mo’s angle:
Willems is obsessed with why adults don’t draw — and he wants to do something about it.
“One of the interesting things about cartooning and doodling and drawing,” Willems tells Michele Norris, “is that people stop when they decide they’re not good at it. Nobody stops playing basketball when they realize they’re not going to become a professional. The same thing should apply to cartooning.”
Willems says just sitting and drawing a character brings out empathy in people, and that’s something the world could use more of right now.
One of the biggest reasons children stop drawing is that they see that adults don’t do it, Willems says.
When he goes into classrooms, he says, teachers often ask him to get the kids to draw. But when he does, many of the teachers don’t participate.
“Well, now the kids realize that this is just a baby activity,” he says.
He reminds us that parents are actually cool in kids’ eyes — for a while — and kids want to imitate what they do. “If your kid comes home from school and you say, ‘I’ll be right with you; I’m just finishing a doodle,’ the kid’s going to go, ‘Dude, I want to do that, too!’ ”
He suggests doing what his family does: have a family draw. His family gets a large piece of paper, picks a theme and then everybody draws. They went so far as to paint a wall with chalkboard paint.
Full Interview and Audio at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103818071
You’ll often find people who say they don’t learn well via audio.
That they need to read a transcript instead to understand something better.
That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.
And there are three reasons why.
1) The way in which we process audio separate from reading.
2) The way in which we ‘sit down’ to listen to audio.
3) So-called ‘audio learners’ find reading as well as audio just as easy.
The way in which we process audio separate from reading.
Till very recently there was this crazy myth that we somehow mishmashed the data and stored it in our brain, no matter if it was audio, or video, or text. That information was information, and it just got stored in one area of our brain. Modern research (because of better measurement tools) have shown that different areas of the brain light up when we listen to the exact words in audio, and another part of the brain lights up when we process video. And then quite another when we process text.
The brain actually creates ‘brain maps’ that make richer connections when it can process greater depth and range. So instead of one source of information, the brain accesses many sources almost simultaneously. And those that stubbornly stick their ‘I’m a reader’ not a listener, are just losing out for their stubborness factor.
But how do we know they’re being stubborn?
Because we know how damaged brains work. So in autistic children for instance, the brain does learn better via audio than learning. But most of us don’t have damaged brains. We have biased brains. This means we’re not willing to push our brains outside our comfort zone, and hence the brain will do what you get it to do.
The more you avoid audio, the more your brain favours text. It indeed makes you faster at processing text, but gives the text a single dimension. So that which you gain in processing power and speed, you lose in dimension and depth.
Which takes us to the second point: The way in which we ‘sit down’ to listen to audio—and is flawed from the core!
The way in which we ‘sit down’ to listen to audio is exactly the way we read
When was the last time you went for a walk or dusted furniture while reading? You’ve been trained since you were a child to sit in one place and read. So like an obedient 40-year old you sit in one place and listen to audio.
Well, guess what?
Audio is not a medium that is kind to listeners who sit in one place. The brain is able to process words in speech faster than on paper. So when it has to sit in one place and do nothing else, it gets ‘bored.’ You feel sleepy, restless and of course, you sincerely believe audio-learning is not for you.
Audio learning requires movement and action. That’s why we get bored and tired after listening to speakers (even good ones) drone on for two-three hours. The best speakers know the way audio is processed, and hence get you to do stuff, or take breaks. Or whatever.
But I digress.
Because the third point is coming up quickly.
Have you noticed that audio-learners aren’t quite as stubborn?
They’ll happily read a book. Or a document. They don’t need you to take your book and turn it into an audio file. They may prefer audio (because they’ve worked out what we’ve discussed in Point 2), but they have no overwhelming desire to get everything in audio.
Compare this with ‘readers’ and you’ll see a marked difference. ‘Readers’ are militant about transcripts. They’re militant about books. They don’t want to go near audio if they can help it.Yet they have conversations and listen to the radio without any problem. When was the last time they wrote to their radio station or tv station asking for transcripts?
This is why I’m calling ‘readers’ stubborn.
They are so comfortable with speed, that they miss out on true learning.
The point I’m making is that you’re equally capable of learning via audio as text.
And it’s not going to be easy to get outside that comfort zone. Because your brain will resist the move.
So do me a favour. Read that book anyway. Turn your Kindle on, anyway.
But also strap on that iPod and go for a walk and listen to the very same information in audio. It will do your biased brain as well as your stubbornness a whole lot of good. And keep you both mentally and physically fit!