Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Guys (and Gals) With B*lls: Deliberate Practice

From the Art of Manliness... (why bloggers and critical thinkers ROCK)

The Secret of Great Men: Deliberate Practice

What Is Deliberate Practice?

In the book Talent is Overrated, Fortune Magazine editor, Geoff Colvin highlights recent studies that show that greatness can be developed by any man, in any field, through the process of deliberate practice. How does one practice deliberately? Colvin proposes five elements that allow a man to practice deliberately and thus achieve greatness.

1. Deliberate practice is an activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help... Stay humble and hungry.

2. The practice activity can be regularly repeated... The “ten-year rule” cuts across disciplines, too. Top musicians, athletes, scientists, and authors don’t reach the top until after they’ve put in around ten years of work and practice. There are no short cuts to success. If you want to be the best man you can be, you’ll have to commit yourself to years of repeated practice.

3. The practice activity provides feedback on a continual basis... For activities like these it’s a good idea to get a third party’s opinion or a mentor’s input.

4. Deliberate practice is highly demanding mentally, whether it’s purely physical or mental.

5. Deliberate practice isn’t much fun.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting and I have to agree but with "little more added to it." Which I won't get into because it would go on for pages..lol. But the idea is that you need to practice exactly what you want to achieve; otherwise you will end up achieving exactly what you practiced.
Confusing? Not really. I had a saying: "Practice as you will fight otherwise you'll end up fighting as you've practiced."

Deliberate practice. Not the same as practice makes perfect (which it doesn't really).

Tommy

Dr. B G said...

Wunderbar!

And there is NO SUCH THING AS FAILURE. Unexpected outcomes = OPPORTUNITIES *Winky*

Asclepius said...

You might enjoy "The Talent Code". I blogged about it here:

http://naturalmessiah.blogspot.com/2009/12/talent-code.html

I agree that there is no such thing as failure...ONLY feedback!

;)

Dr. B G said...

Hi Asclepius...

Yes I recall reading about that book on your amazing blog!~ Sounds AWESOME. YOUR BLOG ROCKS!! btw I thoroughly enjoyed reading your fantastic account of the epic journey on the crags!! Belated congratulations on the feat.

Saturated fat is one of the critical components of MYELIN for its many bioelectrical and biochemical properties. I concur -- Myelin is excellent material as the book 'Talent Code' suggests! Autism and delayed children/adults have an imbalance of fatty acids --ultra high dose fish oil n-3 omegas are vital to help correct the desaturases and impairments of the fatty acid cascades in this subpop as Sears et al and other research show.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19995470

Thank you!
G

PS the optic nerve of my R eye is atypically myelinated... most eye docs want a picture of it which is annoying.