Book Review - Talent is Overrated

Talent is Overrated - What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

by Geoff Colvin, Published by the Penguin Group, 228 pages

Well, it was hard to read this book. It took nearly three days to go through 200 pages, even after I almost skipped a chapter. And rightly so, because the concept on which the book is based is deliberate practice...not just practice. You don't just slog through it, and get to enjoy phenomenal success...

How can truly excellent people, like Stephen Hawkins and Michael Jordan, do what everybody else can't do ? There are only a few people who are truly amazing, excellent and awesome at what they do. All of us, we work hard. We put in long hours in what we do - engineering, teaching, music, sports whatever. Even then, It is a matter of shame if we calculate the total number of hours we have put in the work we do, and the level what we have achieved. Of course, we have explanation for the same - we are not talented, we don't work as hard as them and the most easy explanation - we ain't lucky enough or we are not god gifted.

There are eleven chapters in this book. The author explains the mystery of talent, and why everyone uses it as a convenient excuse to slog through life in the first chapter. Then comes the proof, why talent is overrated. A close examination of the lives of great performers take out the inconvenient truth.. that talent is overrated. May be god-gifted talent for a specific task like music, sports or academics does not exist, but what if general intelligence (smartness ??) or IQ has an effect.

Is that really so ? Well, the answer is NO. And this book explains.... why ?

It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. Its the things we know that just ain't so - Josh Billings

So, what is it ? The author examines all of talent, overall smartness or aptitude as a turning point for truly exceptional performers. But the actual result says something different. These things don't matter at all. With the example of Tiger Woods, and Benjamin Franklin it is obvious that rather than god-gifted talent or smartness, they had something different; or to say properly, they did something different.

Then what is a better idea that can explain this puzzle ? Practice. And its not the practice what we do. Its the practice with deliberate effort. And it takes a long time, as explained in the 10 year rule or 10000 hours rule.

Deliberate practice must accomplish something, its not just practicing in our comfort zone. If it doesn't require any special effort, its not deliberate practice. And then the author explains what is deliberate practice. And how does it work ? Though it may not be a good idea for me to explain it, because I am not Geoff Colvin. The reader needs to read it themselves, and I don't want to take out the element of suspense - the element that makes you a great performer, someone line Tiger Woods or Sachin Tendulkar.

So, how can we apply those abstract principles in our lives; we are all different - as persons, as professionals and as performers.

There are explanations to how we apply those principles to our lives, to to our organizations. And there is another interesting chapter on motivation too... Well, as expected, there are unanswered questions. But, a book is always better if it leaves foods for thought.. and this one does that exactly.

We got to take charge of our life, deliberately.

A poster I made for deliberate practice in http://diy.despair.com/ . The image is taken from the cover of the same book.










The book can be bought here.

Kill the Television - Am I doing it Right?

Kill the television - I am referring to the single piece of advice that Randy Pausch gave in his time management presentation at the CMU. This is really an advice that sounds important. And really.........

Now, I don't have any weakness about the TV. When I was a small child, we didn't have a TV in our home. My father was probably aware about the problems with the idiot box and he never allowed a TV till I passed out 12th. Now, even if I have a TV at home I don't feel any urge to watch TV.

And I am pretty happy because of that. Particularly, when I went through the presentation of Randy Pausch I thought that I already killed the television. But, actually, I DID NOT.

How ?

Well, I bought a laptop in the starting of the second year of my engineering and also availed a free internet connection from my college. And torrents, megaupload and most importantly the LAN helped me to download a lot o movies, series, videos etc.. and then came the HD prints. So, it was practically impossible to take my eyes of the laptop. Anyway, I also learned many stuff with the laptop right with me all the time. I also found out that we can download a lot of books, most of them are outrageously costly, from the internet for free. But that is not the point.

I started getting kinda addicted to movies and series. Naruto, Big Bang Theory, Prison Break, How I Met your Mother and FRIENDS (read awesome !!) took over my life. In the fifth semester I finished four seasons of How I Met your Mother in the break I got in the mid sem. And now, its Everybody Loves Raymond that is killing my time.

So, in retrospect, I did not kill the television. Just that, it came to my life in another form, the computer.

Think about it. Most of our life has already been taken over by the computer; in the form of internet and videos. And we thought we killed the television.

Invitation from me to join Zurker
http://www.zurker.in/i-117032-lwjlbnldzn

A book review - Freakonomics

Freakonomics - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner.

This is not a book about economics, or it may be everything that should be economics. Abstract comparisons between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers, ku klux klan and real estate agents are made. Parenting advice (not in a proper sense) is analyzed; the drop of criminals and behaviour of drug dealers are investigated with tools and knowledge of economics. These questions are seemingly not at all concerned with economics as we know it and that is what is different about this book.

It seems as if challenging conventional wisdom is all that the authors trying to do. But, there are facts and numbers cited from credible sources and they cannot be ignored as just another "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The information is unfolded and made simpler for anyone to understand, and there is nothing like statistics at all.

Some of the most basic assumptions of our society are challenged, seemingly unrealistic comparisons are made and hence proved; and it is not at all economics and rightly freak-o-nomics. The authors provide interesting hypotheses in each chapter and they are realized, dissected and proved henceforth. The journey through the book is as interesting as the attention it commands with those witty chapter names such as "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?"

The power of logic and reason, the foundation on which science is built, is used to challenge the conventional wisdom. Economics is always regarded as a science with excellent tools to get answers to everyday questions related to money, and the authors took up the daunting task of extending the logic, the math and the science of economics to search and research the answers to questions which are never asked. Because, the wall of conventional wisdom always stands as a barrier in front of society to even thinking of asking those questions. This may not be economics in the conventional sense at all, but Levitt and Dubner shows the reader the door to an exceptional journey of getting closer to the most primal question in economics - explaining how people get what they want.

Its all about asking the right questions, and also disregarding the conventional wisdom to intrigue ourselves in starting a journey full of undeniable facts, numbers and may be proving something that was completely out of our domain of thinking. Its about peeling out the layer of everyday nuances and going beyond what we see, the hidden side of everything.

May be science was doing it till now, from atoms to quarks and more. But with the same logical and rigorous approach, can we explore the societal phenomena? This book is an answer to this question. It may be a frustrating thing to do, and may be conventional wisdom will turn out to be true. However, chances are that as it can be seen from the book, conventional wisdom is not true most of the time.

All these analyses may look like not important at all. I mean who cares what klu klux klan and real estate agents have in common. But as explained again and again before,this book is a series of exercise in logic and reason. Thinking differently can make all the difference, and this books can give a valuable insight into how to think or how not to.

Its more than interesting, its intriguing and thought provoking.

The book can be bought here.

Ability, Skills and success

There is a feeling that used to constantly bother me. Its about the acquisition of skills. Most of the times I felt that I did not have the resource or skills required to present my thinking or work in front of a class, teacher or whoever may be.

It was always with me - I don't know programming, so I can't do this. I don't know AutoCAD, so I can't do that.. And I have lost a major share of my time brooding over this weakness. Sometimes I start to learn these kind of skills, and I eventually master them. But still, my purpose of a better presentation did not get fulfilled.

This situation led me to read many blogs, to watch many videos and books. And I seem to have found an answer to this.

There are two things - Resource and Resourcefulness. From the TED talk given by Tony Robbins, I have borrowed this term. In short, it is about the superiority of resourcefulness over having resources. Having resources may not be enough, if you don't use it to maximum level.

So, here is an example.
I have a friend who is very good at modelling with CAD packages and he used to do awesome presentations. All of us, if not all atleast me, used to feel that its because he is so skillful he can make them easily... and we can't only because we don't know it, rather than not having awesome ideas. One semester passes by, we are as good as him in modelling. Still, he is the best in presentations...

Why ???
The answer is simple. I don't give our 100% to the presentations. I have constant regret during the presentations that I could have done better.


What all of this boils down into?

Its resourcefulness, not resources.
Its not the skill, its the ability to give 100%.

And more importantly, the ability to start working when you need to work and stick with it.. is the most important skill we need to acquire. The rest is pretty easy. You start, you do and you finish.

The ability to stay put through these three steps without getting distracted is what we need to master by practice.

Signature

Design Anecdotes from IISc - I (Who will Bell the Cat)

Design anecdotes from IISc will be a series of comments, stories and suggestions from my seniors at IISc or my experience. I hope to write something on this time and again.

Here goes my first post (Shared by Sunny Bairisal, 3rd sem MDes student at CPDM, IISc Bangalore)

We all know about the funny story "Who will bell the cat?" A group of rats wants to get rid of the problems they face because of the cat who kills and eats them coming out of nowhere. So, as a gist of their discussion they want to put a bell on the cat's neck which will warn them of him approaching. And, when all of them are very happy of the solution achieved, one guy came out with the question "Who will bell the cat ?" 

Well, the story ends there. But, how the hell that can be related to design or more specifically to product design? Design is defined as '"the general arrangement of the different parts of something that is made, such as a building, book, machine, etc." in the oxford dictionary. In the real world, however, design is related with problems in most of the cases. Necessity is the mother of invention and when we have a need, we design a solution for that. It is not so easy, because problems are subjective or that they don't express in a way that we need this specifically. People from a long time wanted a faster, cheap and convenient way of communication. But, nobody asked for a mobile. It is the task of the designer to identify an objective in the need and for that he will have to identify problems first and design the problem in such a way that it leads to an objective,a definite goal. 

If you can identify the problems and you can associate the problems with an objective solution, half of the design work is done. Conceptual part of product design is often associated with construction of an objective problem where you express the solution of a need with a physical shape. Or, if you know who is the CAT !!

So, if you can perceive the CAT, you can design a bell or more appropriately you can design a way to BELL THE CAT. Identifying problems is the first and foremost step of design and if one can master it, he/she is a step ahead in the path of becoming a good designer.