Talent is Overrated book summary
I
had a friend who used to have fun during lectures, didn’t concentrate on
teachers saying, and sometimes even sleep during lecture hour. But yet whenever
teacher asked him the question he always had the answer for it and used to
score high in exams especially in math. So everybody considered him genius due
this reason because where many children giving forced concentration on lectures
and maintain proper notes couldn’t do well, on the other hand he used to sleep.
Everyone wished to be talent like him. But the actual truth was known to us who
were close to him. Because the one who achieves something is so busy that he
has no time to tell everybody what/how he has achieve. So he didn’t tell anyone
but I shall reveal you the truth.
After
college, when every child were busy in playing, and doing time wasting
activities like watching TV etc. He used to read for hours in home, solve the
math problems. Where many children writing notes, giving concentration for some
time used to think study. In fact he was the one who used to study, work hard.
This thing made him so called genius and talented.
Michelangelo
considered as one of the most talented person in world says that if people knew
how hard it was for me to attain mastery, it won’t seem wonderful at all. Many
people have the misconception that some child are born talented and those who
are can easily attain success in life without working hard. Well author says this
is a big myth. Because an expert in anything was once a beginner.
Eg
Mozart who is considered as one of the most talented music composer till date,
who have created some extraordinary music in his life. In fact when he was just
17 years, his musical work was so fine that he used to perform in front of
European royalties. And at age 21, he created his first original masterpiece
which was so great that even masters were shocked. People considered him as the
talent treasure and is considered now as well. By taking this sort of example
people say that some people are blessed with talent by god and Mozart is the
example. But many people, even you may not know that when Mozart created his
masterpiece at the age of 21, he had already practiced for 18 years i.e. he had
started practicing music at the age of 3.
His
father Leopold was one of the great teacher of music at that time. In fact he
had written a book called “How to teach kids music” which was really good book.
At the age of 3, he received training from the world greatest teacher. He did
thousand hours of practice and became one of the best music composer. But
people just highlighted how 21 year old child created magic and how talented
was he. But the fact how much practice and hard work he had done so that his
fingers were deformed was just hidden. Not only Mozart if you pick the story of
any high achievers like Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Sachin Tedulkar, Warren buffet,
etc. Behind the success of all these people, one thing is common and that is
hard word.
Kobe Bryant,
one of the best NBA player used to start practice session 3 hours before anyone
arrived even when he was injured. Elon musk works
80-100 hrs. Weekly running his both company Tesla and SpaceX. Jeff Bezos,
one of the richest man, during the starting of amazon used to work 12 hours
without taking any leave and sometime used to work late night till 3 PM. So
amazon grew. Bill gates used to code being isolated and for so long that he
used to sleep on his computers keyboard and took short naps and again started
coding.
Why
I am telling you this thing. Because I want you to completely remove the myth
from your brain that there are some talented people who could only achieve
success and greatness and you can’t. No, you too can achieve the extraordinary
success, only thing you need to do is work hard smartly. Now you may realize
that hard work is important and you can beat talent with that.
Now
the question arises exactly how much time to work hard to achieve something in
life. Work day night not caring about life.
Well
the good thing is that after researching on greatest achievers of all the field
it has been found that they all gave at least 10k hour working on their field.
In other word, in order to achieve mastery or world class level talent, one
should practice for 10k hours on his/her field. You might feeling this as long
time.
But
there are two thing you need to remember.
First
thing is here I am talking about the world class level talent. Not to be most
talented people in your area. The math behind 10 thousand hours is that work 5
hours daily for 5 days a week and it will be 20 hours in a week. Repeat this
for 50 week in a year i.e. you can take leave for 2-3 week as holiday and do
for 10 continuous year. See time will just pass, whether you become master at anything
or just do your routine work. So why not you try to be world class master in
any field in coming 10 years so you can easily earn name and fame enjoying your
life.
And
the second thing if you don’t want to be the world level master and just want
to work 1 hour daily. Then I can author promises that within 1-2 years you will
be the most talented person in your area in that field.
Now
another question might arise that many people work on the same thing for
thousands of hours then why they can’t be great or achieve mastery. you just
can’t simply work on same thing rather you have to keep improving on your field
by practicing something new. By practice author means deliberate practice.
On
a research conducted on three group of student who wanted to be professional
violinist. The groups were good, better and best respectively. They all learn
for 10 years and all had invested 51 hours a week on different musical
activities. The important thing is that every group considered practice as
their main activity. The best and better group have 24 hrs. for practice in a
week while the group that was just good gave just 9 hrs. out of 51 hours. Conclusion
is how much time you give on any task is important but also on which activity
you give your time is more important plus how you practice. The better and best
group practiced deliberately.