Bounce: The of Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

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I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in both sport and education. Syad provides a very persuasive case for the vital role of purposeful practice and experience in developing talent - something which can be applied not just to sport but to most areas of life. He fills the book with a whole variety of real life examples, both from his own career as a top table tennis player, and from other sporting and non-sporting greats. Example of the transition between brain systems: when you learn to drive a car. Starting out, you have to focus on all the separate things; gears, brake etc. After you have been driving for a while, things have changed. Your skills have moved from the explicit to the implicit, from the conscious to the unconscious, and your ability has graduated from novice level to proficiency. The iceberg illusion by Ericsson: when we witness extraordinary feats of memory (or of sporting or artistic prowess) we are witnessing the end product of a process measured in years. What is invisible for us – the submerged evidence, as it were – is the countless hours of practice that have gone into Syed is clearly a fan of Malcolm Gladwell and references Gladwell’s book Outliers several times. Having read Gladwell’s David and Goliath, but not Outliers, I’m tempted to assume that most of Gladwell’s books are pretty same-y. There’s definitely a certain amount of overlap between Bounce and David and Goliath.

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of

Study on decision-making in the real world: The curious thing was not that top-decision makers like firefighters and doctors were making choices based on unexpected favors; it was that they did not seem to be making choices at all. A key aspect of brain transformation is myelin, a substance that wraps around the nerve fibers and that can dramatically increase the speed with which signals pass through the brain. To be successful, a chess player must cut down on the computational load by ignoring moves unlikely to result in a favorable outcome and concentrating on those with greater promise. Kasparov is able to do this by understanding the meaning of game situations. Deep Blue (the chess computer) is not.An arbitrary difference in birth date sets in train a cascade of consequences that, within a matter of a few years, has created an unbridgeable chasm between those who, in the beginning, were equally well equipped for sporting stardom. But think if an expert were to find himself using the wrong brain system. No matter how great he is, he would strive because he is using his explicit rather than internal system. The highly sophisticated skills encoded in the implicit part of his brain would count for nothing. But looking more closely at the phenomenon of child prodigies, we find that in fact they had to practice for thousands of hours before showing their so-called prodigious talent. In fact, scientists studying the phenomenon have found that typically a prodigy’s training begins at a very early age and that they compress endless hours of practice into their young lives. We should praise effort, not talent we should emphasize how abilities can be transformed through application; we should teach others and ourselves to see challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; we should interpret failure not as an indictment but as an opportunity.

Bounce: The Myth of Talent and The Power of Practice - Scribd Bounce: The Myth of Talent and The Power of Practice - Scribd

Bounce reveals how competition - the most vivid, primal, and dramatic of human pursuits - provides vital insight into many of the most controversial issues of our time, from biology and economics, to psychology and culture, to genetics and race, to sports and politics. And Matthew Syed was able to learn this best from a direct competitor: Desmond Douglas. Even though tests proved that he was one of the table-tennis players with the slowest reaction times, he was lightning fast on the field!Well, your brain constantly works on two levels: implicitly and explicitly. The former is the automated way of doing things, the latter the conscious effort. Deliberate practice makes mental processes move from your explicit to your implicit brain. As an example, my eldest son used to take part in weekly football coaching at a local sports centre. He was one of the younger players (being a late August baby) but was always willing to learn, and paid attention to what the coach was trying to get across. There were apparently more talented players there, but few of them were willing to learn. The coach pointed out that over time the abilities of the players would tend to average out - those who were willing to learn catching up and indeed over taking those who had a head start.