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A Critical Review of The Talent Code: Greatness isn’t born, it’s grown by Daniel Coyle


image from https://danielcoyle.com/the-talent-code/

Chapter 1 The Sweet Spot

In the first chapter, Coyle introduces a concept he calls “deep practice” (page 16). Coyle supported this by citing Robert Bjork, chair of psychology at UCLA, who developed the foundation of “deep practice” - that progress and overcoming circumstances are results of struggling to figure out hurdles on your own despite making mistakes along the way. (page 18)

To further support his claim, Coyle shows two groups of words. Group A has pairs of words spelled correctly while Group B has words with missing letters. He argues that the reader is more likely to remember Group B as struggling to complete the missing letters adds more impact to one’s memory. This is deep practice. (page 17)

He continued by giving another illustration. Suppose you are in a party and you forgot somebody’s name, you struggle to recall the name and try to think deeper to remember. You would less likely to forget again as opposed to just asking someone else to help you. (page 17)

Although these evidences are normal occurrences and are less significant events in our lives, Coyle used them to explain his concept clearly and practically.

Looking at all the example situations Coyle used in this chapter, I was able to see a pattern, micro – macro - micro. I am unsure whether Coyle intended it to be that way or it just rightly was organized into one.

How did I see that pattern? In the first few pages Coyle talks about experiences of individuals who are nurturing their talents and developing their skills. There was Brunio practicing his soccer moves and Jennie working on her music notes. (page 13)

In the middle part are situations that most people have experienced or will experience, completing missing spaces in a test and going to party and recalling somebody’s name. (page 17)

Then between pages 20-29 he mentioned of the pilots in the US Army Air Force and Brazil’s futsal team. Coyle described in details both the struggles and strategies involved in the training.

Furthermore, the limitation in Coyle’s context is geological. This book must have been intended to readers in Europe and America. I clearly understand the argument presented but I found the evidences unrelatable since I am Southeast Asian and soccer and futsal are not something we are drawn of same goes with the US Army Air Force.

Personally, the concept of deep practice is not a new knowledge but I merely refer to it as persistence. We persist on doing something until we figure it out and succeed.

All in all, Coyle thoroughly supported his idea of “deep concept” and was able to present evidences clearly.


💬This is my output for my Academic Writing class in Coursera. Feel free to comment!

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