Everyone’s Got Talent - Let’s think in and out of the box! Edina Hadziahmetovic

In The Sweet Spot (The Talent Code, Chapter 1, New York: Bantam, 2009. 11-29) Daniel Coyle argues that everyone can develop his or her talent through what he calls “deep practice” and eventually “finding the sweet spot”. By making mistakes we improve our skills and reach the stage of expertise, suggests Coyle.

Starting from the Darwin thesis that “small, isolated places magnify larger patterns and forces” (3), over the period of fourteen months Coyle visited nine places; “talent hotbeds” (12); which on the surface have nothing in common. Looking for some patterns Coyle finds out that these places have a common denominator of being “small, humble, and titanically accomplished” (11). There he finds young people practising different skills. Brunio, an eleven years old from Sao Paolo, working on a new soccer move and Jennie, twenty –four old, practicing singing in a vocal studio in Dallas, were both observed by Coyle. He notices the following pattern of their actions: they practice and try to master the skill; they fail, stop, think again; then try again but at much slower pace than before, fail again; they break the move (or tune) into the smaller components, and finally master the skill.

Coyle concludes that ”screwing up” is making Brunio and Jennie better, but how? To answer this question Coyle focuses on the collective talent of Brazilian soccer players. While he agrees with the conventional explanation that Brazilians are good at soccer because of climate, passion and urge to escape poverty, he can’t help noticing that this was not the case prior to 1958. Coyle finds out that back in 1950s Brazilian soccer players changed their training techniques.

In Brazil’s Secret Weapon Coyle tells the story of an English soccer...

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...heory about the talent hotbeds. It remains a mystery to the readers how did Coyle choose to visit exactly these places? Are they randomly chosen or have they been selected by a certain criteria? As opposed to talent hotbeds what do we have? Bustling cities of meagerly accomplished people? Not very likely. Even if we accept hotbeds as the nests of talents should we assume that they are in danger of extinction in the today’s globalised world?

Coyle's article offers a motivational theory of developing our talents through deep practice and making mistakes. Coyle describes this technique in details based on his observation of young people in several hotbeds.

Coyle's theory, however, does not seem applicable to people who are trying to figure out what their talents might be. Coyle's entire idea about talent "hotbeds", require more profound research and explanation.