#100/111: Talent Is Overrated

What is it about?

How did Mozart become to great at composing music? Why does Tiger Woods rock the GPA world tour? Are they more talented that you and me? Geoff Colvin explores if talent matters and how you can achieve extraordinary achievements.

What can I learn?

Talent is overrated: Colvin cited some studies which showed that learning is the critical factor in achieving great performance. You have probably experienced this by yourself. There are kids which can read and calculate with 4 years but 10 years later they are mediocre in reading and calculating. Or the other way around. There were fellow pupils which really sucked in math and three years later they graduated as the best of the class. Generally, talent doesn’t matter. What matters is (deliberate) practice.

You decide: This was my main motivator about four years ago to change my life. Either you accept that you can change your life and that your are responsible for its outcomes or you accept that you are mostly influenced by other actions and can’t really control so much. If you choose the first option, you will be able to achieve extraordinary stuff. You don’t have to think about talent. You can just start and learn. That is, if you think there’s talent and it matters, than this book will be worthless for you.

Deliberate practice: Practice isn’t practice. The most effect turned out to be deliberate practice. This costs of instant feedback, is repeatable and you are focused on learning, i.e. there’s no automation of your actions. It’s quite easy if you think about learning an instrument. But how do you learn, let’s say about marketing? Colvin recommends different things. For once, you can take case studies in marketing, work through them and create solutions. Afterwards, you compare them with actual result. For most effect, you can work on it some months later when you forgot the actual result and do it again. Probably your solution will improve. An other way is to use simulations. There are a lot of business / marketing games out there, which can help you understand mechanics better. Furthermore, it always helps to read basic literature again. Work through marketing books which you read some years ago. Frankly, one thing I learned in this reading challenge is that there isn’t much new information about marketing/business. It’s just old ideas translated into a new medium, nothing else.

Conclusion

It frightening how much I agree with the book. Geoff Colvin did a great job in summing up various research and presenting it to the reader. Some guy named Dan decided about a year ago to try out an experiment. He will put 10,000 hours deliberate practice into golf and plans to become a professional golfer. The hardest part is persistence. Great job, great book. Recommendation!

#99/111: The Algorithm Design Manual

An other one of the technical books. After reading the introduction to comp sci, I wanted to deepen my knowledge a bit and I had stand this book in my shelve. I started working through it and highly enjoyed it. The Algorithm Design Manual got 9 chapters with about 30 exercises per chapter. Furthermore, its got a reference with different problems and applications for algorithms. There are solutions online which is great. I highly recommend this book if you want a great introduction into algorithms.

#98/111: The Passionate Programmer

What is it about?

Most people are mediocre at their job. Some are not like Chad Fowler how talks about being remarkable. This doesn’t only apply to programmers, it applies to every kind of occupation.

What can I learn?

Don’t be a jerk: This one is actually a pretty important thing to learn for programmers. I know a lot of them and many think that people who don’t understand how to program are inferior. They like their tech talk and they isolate their selves from the rest of the company. I don’t know if people can learn this that fast but maybe it’s an beginning. Stop talking tech talk if you talk with non-tech people. They don’t care about every minute detail. They got problems and want them solved. Think more about them and how you can solve their problems.

Learn about business: The next step is to open yourself to new areas like business. You may laugh about sales persons but they make the money. You don’t have to be friends with business people, however it is recommended. Learn about what they are doing. How that accounting work. What do the marketing people do? This insight is extremely valuable among software devs because most of them know a thing about such stuff. You will learn about new problems, new solutions and new persons.

Market yourself: If you realized that there are people out there who actually appreciate if you help them solve their problems and became less a jerk, then it’s maybe time to market yourself actively. An easy way is to start a blog. Write about what you doing, about solutions for problems that you encountered. A big blog will often lead to some invitations to conferences or book deals.

Conclusion

A great book for every specialist. It doesn’t matter if you’re a biochemist, software dev or designer, a lot of tips will help you to build a remarkable career for yourself.

#97/111: The Last Lecture

What is it about?

If you haven’t heard about Randy Pausch, he was a computer science professor at the CMU and had pancreatic cancer. He hold his famous lecture about achieving one’s childhood dreams and told about his.

What can I learn?

You choose to be happy or sad: Although he was diagnosed with pancreas cancer he was still optimistic. He could just cried all day long and complain about his faith. Or he could choose to enjoy his last months alive and that was was he did.

Live your dreams: I know some people that talk since a few years about doing some special, like migrating into an other country or switching their jobs. After some time a dream becomes some sort of utopia which will never reached but the dream about it will stay you motivated. That’s totally ok. A few dreams shouldn’t be lived. It’s just that you should look if there are opportunities to fulfill your dreams. It took Randy over 20 years to finally experience zero gravity but he has experienced it.

What would you do, if you knew that you will die in 12 months?

Conclusion

I enjoyed the book and his actual lecture. The book tells mostly about the lecture but there’s also additional narrations about his live before and after the lecture. Such a book makes one grateful of living without any serious illnesses. It inspired me and that’s in my opinion the greatest thing one person can do.