Daniel COYLE – Little Book of Talent  2012

As a continuation to the author’s work on myelin and deep practice, this book sets out what you should be doing each and every day to make your training the most effective possible to get those best results quickly.

After spending some quality time in Daniel’s writings, all of the following tips will take on new meaning. Read through everything and try out his ideas. Keep tweaking until you find your sweet spot. But mostly, understand that no one thing is going to be a magic bullet for you. Instead, you must invest in yourself with patience and truth to find the combinations which bring about the best results. Constantly evaluate and re-evaluate as time passes. Your ability, your talent and your results are all very different things. Learn how to maximise what you’ve got to get where you want to go.

PART ONE: GETTING STARTED – Stare, Steal, and Be Willing to Be Stupid
Tip #1: Stare at Who You Want to Become
Tip #2: Spend Fifteen Minutes a Day Engraving the Skill on Your Brain
Tip #3: Steal Without Apology
Tip #4: Buy a Notebook *** check out PROOF
Tip #5: Be Willing to Be Stupid
Tip #6: Choose Spartan Over Luxurious
Tip #7: Before You Start, Figure Out if It’s a Hard Skill or a Soft Skill
Tip #8: To Build Hard Skills, Work Like a Careful Carpenter
Tip #9: To Build Soft Skills, Play Like a Skateboarder
Tip #10: Honor the Hard Skills
Tip #11: Don’t Fall for the Prodigy Myth
Tip #12: Five Ways to Pick a High-Quality Teacher or Coach

PART TWO: IMPROVING SKILLS – Find the Sweet Spot, Then Reach
Tip #13: Find the Sweet Spot
Tip #14: Take Off Your Watch
Tip #15: Break Every Move Down into Chunks
Tip #16: Each Day, Try to Build One Perfect Chunk
Tip #17: Embrace Struggle
Tip #18: Choose Five Minutes a Day Over an Hour a Week
Tip #19: Don’t Do “Drills.” Instead, Play Small, Addictive Games *** Game of X’s
Tip #20: Practice Alone
Tip #21: Think in Images
Tip #22: Pay Attention Immediately After You Make a Mistake
Tip #23: Visualize the Wires of Your Brain Forming New Connections
Tip #24: Visualize the Wires of Your Brain Getting Faster
Tip #25: Shrink the Space
Tip #26: Slow It Down (Even Slower Than You Think)
Tip #27: Close Your Eyes
Tip #28: Mime It
Tip #29: When You Get It Right, Mark the Spot
Tip #30: Take a Nap
Tip #31: To Learn a New Move, Exaggerate It
Tip #32: Make Positive Reaches
Tip #33: To Learn From a Book, Close the Book
Tip #34: Use the Sandwich Technique
Tip #35: Use the 3 × 10 Technique
Tip #36: Invent Daily Tests
Tip #37: To Choose the Best Practice Method, Use the R.E.P.S. Gauge
Tip #38: Stop Before You’re Exhausted
Tip #39: Practice Immediately After Performance
Tip #40: Just Before Sleep, Watch a Mental Movie
Tip #41: End on a Positive Note
Tip #42: Six Ways to Be a Better Teacher or Coach

PART THREE: SUSTAINING PROGRESS – Embrace Repetition, Cultivate Grit, and Keep Big Goals Secret
TIP #43: Embrace Repetition
Tip #44: Have a Blue-Collar Mind-Set
Tip #45: For Every Hour of Competition, Spend Five Hours Practicing
Tip #46: Don’t Waste Time Trying to Break Bad Habits—Instead, Build New Ones
Tip #47: To Learn It More Deeply, Teach It
Tip #48: Give a New Skill a Minimum of Eight Weeks
Tip #49: When You Get Stuck, Make a Shift
Tip #50: Cultivate Your Grit
Tip #51: Keep Your Big Goals Secret
Tip #52: “Think Like a Gardener, Work Like a Carpenter”

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

—ARISTOTLE