Soup Notes

Talent is Overrated

September 2011, by Dr. Jerome Stewart

I recently read the book, "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else," (Geoff Colvin). It has a message of hope for our children. Great performers are not born great. They achieve greatness through a process available to you and me. That process is deliberate practice.

How did the author of the book come to that conclusion? Through research.

In one case, researchers found that more than 75% of the people they polled for a study believed that playing concert instruments at a high level of excellence requires a special gift or talent, that is, you must be born to greatness.

The same researchers set out to determine if that belief was true. The researchers studied children in five musical (concert instruments) ability groups. They discovered that children in the top ability group averaged two hours of practice a day. The children in the lowest group practiced fifteen minutes a day.

Excellence was not genetic. Only one factor, and one factor only, contributed to the success of the students in the top ability group: how much time they practiced.

Deliberate practice separates world-class performers from everybody else.

What is deliberate practice? It is explained in the book, and additional information is available in the blog "A Message For Our Children: Talent is Overrated" at http://drjstewart.wordpress.com. So, for this column a detailed explanation is not offered.

What I would like to share is this: Deliberate practice is hard, it is not fun, and it takes a lot of time, several days a week, over many years to reach levels of excellence, there are no shortcuts, and results are not guaranteed.

Because deliberate practice is hard, not fun, and the results are not guaranteed, it may be best seen in the light of an investment, especially as an investment in character.

The good news is that this investment, the process to excellence, is open to all children.

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