Bounce: The of Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

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He is a three-time men's singles champion at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships [1] (in 1997, 2000 and 2001), and also competed for Great Britain in two Olympic Games: at Barcelona in 1992 and at Sydney in 2000. [2] As Klein puts it, "The commander’s experience had provided him with a firm set of patterns. He was accustomed to sizing up the situation by having it match one of these patterns. He may not have been able to articulate the patterns or describe their features, but he was relying on the pattern-matching process to let him feel comfortable that he had the situation scoped out." When most people practise, they focus on the things they can do effortlessly’, Ericsson has said. ‘Expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become’.”

Do you remember the 10,000-hour rule that revealed repetition as the secret of mastery? Sports champion turned writer Matthew Syed weaves this practice mantra through his book, Bounce. And, he says, it means anyone can master a sport, musical instrument or professional skill. It’s time, not talent, that counts. He was English champion four times: in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001. He also won the men's singles event at three consecutive Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships (in 1997 in Glasgow, 2000 in Singapore and 2001 in Delhi), and also won three titles as a member of the English men's team in 1994, 1997 and 2000. He was a member of the England men's team that won the gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Syed is the co-founder of Matthew Syed Consulting. He was one of the co-founders of TTK Greenhouse, a sports-related charity. [10]But when scientists ran a bunch of tests on the English national team’s players, they found the best player, Desmond Douglas, to have the slowest reaction times. Well, your brain constantly works on two levels: implicitly and explicitly. The former is the automated way of doing things, the latter the conscious effort. Deliberate practice makes mental processes move from your explicit to your implicit brain.

The book is really very good. I've long had the opinion that genius is developed rather than born, in spite of being preached the 'talent' myth by my parents. In 2016, Syed was awarded an honorary doctorate in Liberal Arts by Abertay University in Dundee. [12] This book is a collection of quite a few different things. Syed is a very insightful and informed thinker and the ideas here are stimulating.

Our Critical Review

In a study of sixty-six poets by N. Wishbow of Carnegie Mellon University, more than 80 per cent needed ten years or more of sustained preparation before they started writing their most creative pieces”. Instead of wasting the resources of his prefrontal cortex on trying to get the ball spin right, he can use his brain to think about tactics, because the movements of his hand are taken care of. Lesson 2:You can be inspiredto work hard bythe most trivial details. a b "Matthew Syed – Award Winning Journalist, Best-Selling Author, & Broadcaster". Personally Speaking . Retrieved 11 March 2016. Syed, Matthew (26 September 2021). "The death of my father has taught me the real meaning of gratitude". The Sunday Times . Retrieved 9 October 2022.

Excellence is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it; it is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and again”. Through examples of religion and the placebo effect, the book highlights how self-belief in your own ability directly impacts performance. Exceptional performers all have capacity for irrational optimism. 3. X-ray vision The second thing that happens is that his brain uses other areas to perform than the brain of a beginner. Since a lot of his actions happen on autopilot, the subconscious parts of his brain are really in charge here.Looking into hundreds of faces, knowing they were all expecting him to fail, the pressure to perform became so enormous, that all his hardly trained rhyming skills seemed to vanish. Now, you have to agree: not many books can put such names next to each other and walk away from it unscathed. But scratch beneath the surface, and you will find that all the successful systems have one thing in common: they institutionalize the principles of purposeful practice”. Odd," he thinks. The water should have more of an impact. They try dousing it again, and get the same results. They retreat a few steps to regroup. And the difference between the best and the good is not only in the amount of time they spend practicing, but also the way they test themselves after they don’t need to anymore!