I finished The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills by Daniel Coyle today. I have read this author’s The Culture Code in the past and liked it very much.
Here are those 52 tips that I plan to revisit every once in a while.
- Stare At Who You Want To Become
- Spend Fifteen Minutes A Day Engraving The Skill On Your Brain
- Steal Without Apology
- Buy A Notebook
- Be Willing To Be Stupid
- Choose Spartan Over Luxurious
- Before You Start, Figure Out If It’s A Hard Skill Or A Soft Skill
- To Build Hard Skills, Work Like A Careful Carpenter
- To Build Soft Skills, Play Like A Skateboarder
- Honor The Hard Skills
- Don’t Fall For The Prodigy Myth
- Five Ways To Pick A High-Quality Teacher Or Coach
- Find The Sweet Spot
- Take Off Your Watch
- Break Every Move Down Into Chunks
- Each Day, Try To Build One Perfect Chunk
- Embrace Struggle
- Choose Five Minutes A Day Over An Hour A Week
- Don’t Do “Drills.” Instead, Play Small, Addictive Games
- Practice Alone
- Think In Images
- Pay Attention Immediately After You Make A Mistake
- Visualize The Wires Of Your Brain Forming New Connections
- Visualize The Wires Of Your Brain Getting Faster
- Shrink The Space
- Slow It Down (Even Slower Than You Think)
- Close Your Eyes
- Mime It
- When You Get It Right, Mark The Spot
- Take A Nap
- To Learn A New Move, Exaggerate It
- Make Positive Reaches
- To Learn From A Book, Close The Book
- Use The Sandwich Technique
- Use The 3 × 10 Technique
- Invent Daily Tests
- To Choose The Best Practice Method, Use The R.E.P.S. Gauge
- Stop Before You’re Exhausted
- Practice Immediately After Performance
- Just Before Sleep, Watch A Mental Movie
- End On A Positive Note
- Six Ways To Be A Better Teacher Or Coach
- Embrace Repetition
- Have A Blue-Collar Mind-Set
- For Every Hour Of Competition, Spend Five Hours Practicing
- Don’t Waste Time Trying To Break Bad Habits – Instead, Build New Ones
- To Learn It More Deeply, Teach It
- Give A New Skill A Minimum Of Eight Weeks
- When You Get Stuck, Make A Shift
- Cultivate Your Grit
- Keep Your Big Goals Secret
- Think Like A Gardener, Work Like A Carpenter
Thoughts & Moments 