A safe haven to hone skills

"The Talent Code" book significantly stresses the importance of a safe haven to practice deeply, make errors and learn from them (a.k.a being at the edge of one's ability) without paying a huge cost (of life or public ridicule). Could not agree more.

Practice more deeply, to stop, struggle, make errors, and learn from them

Edwin Link's trainer (a jet aircraft trainer for pilots) worked so well "... because it "permitted pilots to practice more deeply, to stop, struggle, make errors, and learn from them. During a few hours in a Link trainer, a pilot could "take off" and "land" a dozen times on instruments. He could dive, stall, and recover, spending hours inhabiting the sweet spot at the edge of his capabilities in ways he could never risk in an actual plane."

- The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Greatness by spending vast amounts of time and energy being immature

Great writers "become great writers not in spite of the fact that they started out immature and imitative but because they were willing to spend vast amounts of time and energy being immature and imitative, building myelin in the confined, safe space of their little books."

- The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Deep practice X 10,000 hours = world-class skill

"The true expertise of ... geniuses, the research suggests, resides in their ability to deep-practice obsessively, even when it doesn't necessarily look like they're practicing.
...
Deep practice X 10,000 hours = world-class skill"

- The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

"Buying Time"

"The more effective and competent you feel, the more you think you've accomplished, which makes your remaining time feel more expansive, Mogilner explains... If you get a lot done in an hour, you tend to imagine how much you'll be able to do during the rest of the day."

- Psychology Today

A Good Apology

"Social psychologist Steven Scher of Eastern Illinois University has identified five main elements of apologies: a simple expression of regret ("I'm sorry" "I apologize" or "Excuse me"); an explanation or account of the cause that brought about the violation ("I forgot to call you the other day with the information"); an expression of the speaker's responsibility for the offense ("what I did was wrong"); a promise of forbearance ("I promise nothing like this will happen again"); and an offer of repair ("What can I do to make it up to you?")"

- Psychology Today

Persuasion

"When you want to change someone's mood, mind or willingness to act, ask yourself not "How can I win this argument?" but "How can I win agreement without anger?" says rhetorics expert Jay Heinrichs, author of Thank you for Arguing... Figure out what you want, then go about getting it.

"Never debate the undebatable," he says. "Instead, focus on goals." Control the mood with volume, tone, stories. Watch for persuadable moments, And most important, be agreeable -- express similarities and shared values; show people that you have their best interest, as well as your own, at heart.

And never discount the power of bringing up someone's peer group, says Robert Cialdini, Arizona State University psychologist turned consultant, who wrote the book on persuasion (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion). He points to an energy company that placed monthly hangers on doors to let people know where they stood on energy use compared to their neighbors - and reduced usage by 3.5 percent. "It's not peer pressure as much as 'social evidence," says Heinrichs. Evolutionarily, it's proven smart to do what those around us in similar situations have done."

- Psychology Today

The correct praise

"Praising someone's ability to work hard is more effective than gushing about how brilliant she is. Research shows that kids who are praised for their intelligence do not try as hard on future tasks. Praising smarts breeds the belief that things should come naturally - and when they don't, kids think they are no longer bright. Or they choose unchallenging paths so as not to be exposed as "frauds."

"Being praised for effort or other aspects of performance directly under your control leads to resilience, while being praised for being smart or for other innate abilities can lead to feelings of helplessness or self-doubt when a setback occurs." says psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, associate director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University... When praised for persistence, those who think the path ahead will be difficult invest more effort.

... To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much as social reward as being given money."

- Psychology Today

Healthier decisions

Guiding "people towards making healthier decisions by tapping into their own values, can provide a template for encouraging someone you care about to ... partake less of any ... harmful behaviour.

William Miller, emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico and his Colleague Stephen Rollnick found it is essential to engage a person's intrinsic motivation to change. Conversational techniques include asking open-ended questions("How do you feel about your health right now?" "What kinds of activities do you like that don't involve eating/drinking?" "What small change would you like to make?"), providing affirmations ("It seems that you would like to work on your self-control."), using reflective listening and making summary statements.

A key component of motivational enhancement is to help a person recognize the difference between the way she wants her life to be and the way it is now: "How does drinking every night interfere with other things you would like to do?" The question allows the person to come up with her own solutions as well as her own motivations.

It's helpful to focus on things that are important to your loved one with-out laying on guilt ("What will the children think?"). Goals should be small, specific, and realistic, and always the person's own idea: "So what do you want to tackle first?" Self-control can be practiced, and habits can be formed and unformed. The path starts within..."

- Psychology Today

Framing Criticism

"Susan Heitler, author of From Conflict to Resolution, recommends feedback that "skips the complaining and goes straight to the explaining"(the solution).
For instance, while cooking, instead of saying, "That's not the way to saute, that will dry out the potatoes," offer helpful tips, such as: "If you start out with a hot skillet, it will be easier to tell when the potatoes are done; that's it, keep stirring until the onions are translucent, add a little more butter, keep stirring...perfect!"

For parents, the same approach applies to homework and chores. Choose encouraging statements over a stern grilling, Heitler advises, and say what you would prefer your child to do rather than what she has not done or has done incorrectly.("I'd love to see your playroom cleaned by this weekend so you and your friends can have fun downstairs," instead of "This place is a mess! What have you been doing? You haven't picked up one thing. No one is coming over this weekend until this room is spotless.")

Criticism is the single most significant factor in a child's perception of the parental relationship. It's important to criticize without demeaning or humiliating.

If you feel disappointed with a child's performance at school or in any other domain, it's best to channel the feeling into a fact-finding discussion. Ask your child to evaluate his own performance and what he got out of the experience. If he is dissatisfied with the outcome of his own actions, ask what he might do differently the next time, and what he feels he needs in order to do as well as he wants.

... We are social creatures, and the way we say things has real power. To show care when choosing how to phrase something is a way to honor, and safe-guard, any relationship."


- Psychology Today

Myelin

"1. Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electrical signal traveling through a chain of neurons - a circuit of nerve fibers
2. Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increase signal strength, speed and accuracy.
3. The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our movements and thoughts become.

... Everything neurons do they do pretty quickly. It happens with the flick of a switch, ... But flicking switches is not how we learn a lot of things. Getting good... Takes a lot of time, and that's what myelin is good at.

What do good athletes do when they train?... They send precise impulses along wires that give the signal to myelinate that wire. They end up, after all the training, with a super-duper wire--lots of bandwidth, a high-speed T-3 line. That's what makes them different from the rest of us.

Q: why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective?
A: because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement.

Q: why are passion and persistence key ingredients of talent?
A: because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don't love it, you'll never work hard enough to be great.

Q: What's the best way to get to Carnegie Hall?
A: Go straight down Myelin Street."

- The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Practising deeper

The author presents 2 columns (A and B) of related words and asks the reader to read the words.
Column A: ocean/breeze leaf/tree ...
Column B: bread/b_tter music/l_rics ...
Now He asks the reader to recollect as many words as possible from both lists. I had recollected more words from column B. This is why (in author's words): "When you encountered the words with blank spaces, some-thing both imperceptible and profound happened. You stopped, You stumbled ever so briefly, then figured it out. You experienced a microsecond of struggle, and that microsecond made all the difference. You didn't practice harder when you looked at column B. You practiced deeper... Deep practise is ... experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them...One real encounter, even for a few seconds, is far more useful than several hundred observations... It's all about finding the sweet spot... There's an optimal gap between what you know and what you're trying to do. When you find the sweet spot, learning takes off." This is why pilots learn better in flight simulators. The pilots "could dive, stall, and recover, spending hours inhabiting the sweet spot at the edge of his capabilities in ways he could never risk in an actual plane."
- "The Talent Code' by Daniel Coyle

Operating at the edge of ability

"The people inside the talent hotbeds are engaged in an activity that seems, on the face of it, strange and surprising. They are seeking out the slippery hills... They are purposely operating at the edge of their ability, so they can screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better. "

- "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle

Moments of slow, fitful struggle

"When I started visiting talent hotbeds, I expected to be dazzled... those expectations were met and exceeded - about half the time... During the other half I witnessed something very different: moments of slow, fitful struggle,... They slammed to a halt; they stopped, looked, and thought carefully before taking each step. Making progress became a matter of small failures, a rhythmic pattern of botches, as well as something else: a shared facial expression. Their taut, intense squint..."

- "The talent code" by Daniel Coyle

Discipline

"Discipline, in essence, is consistency of action - consistency with values, consistency with long-term goals, consistency with performance standards, consistency of method, consistency over time. .. True discipline requires the independence of mind to reject pressures to confirm in ways incompatible with values, performance standards, and long term aspirations, having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no matter how difficult."

Great By Choice
- Jim Collins

Interpreting word through one's own opinion

"I can often figure out someone in a course or conference heard what I said, interpreted through their own opinion and came up with something I never meant. Words are a dangerous thing"

- Mike Cohn

Our personhood is carved by the flow of our habits.

"The flow of water carves rock, a little bit at a time. And our personhood is carved, too, by the flow of our habits."

- Jonathan Safron

How can I gravitate towards something I would like and what people will accept?

"What else can I do? How can I gravitate towards something I would like and what people will accept?"

-- A.R. Rahman (source)

When you just do things for the sake of doing your work, it shows

"When you just do things for the sake of doing your work, it shows. It becomes boring for everyone, even his own team, if he’s not allowed to explore different directions, given the limitations."

--  A.R. Rahman (source)

If there’s honesty in something, it works.

" if there’s honesty in something, it works."

- A.R. Rahman (Source)

Instead of engaging the world in an anxious mental state, plunge head first into the experience of life

"When our children are just being themselves, they are unconcerned about the things we parents so often obsess over. How things look to other people, achievement, getting ahead - none of these issues that preoccupy adults are a child's agenda. Instead of engaging the world in an anxious mental state, children tend to plunge head first into the experience of life, willing to risk all."

- The Conscious Parent, Shefali Tsabary, PhD

If we are super-successful, we expect our children to be super-successful

"...If we are super-successful at what we do, we are likely to expect our children to be super-successful also...If we were an academic wizard in school, we tend to carry a torch for our children to be brilliant. If we didn't so well academically and have struggled in life as a result, we perhaps live in fear that our children will turn out like us, which causes us to do everything in our power to ward off such a possibility."

- The Conscious Parent, Shefali Tsabary, PhD

Best in the world have best attitudes and best behaviour patterns and a good, hard, ruthless culture

The Australian cricket team suspended 4 players today and a few tips on success from the couch in the explanation of the suspension

"I wanted three points from each of them technically, mentally and team as to how we were going to get back over the next couple of games, how we were going to get ourselves back into the series...We pride ourselves on attitude. We have given the players a huge amount of latitude to get culture and attitude right,...We believe that those behaviours with what we want to do with this team, how we want to take this team to be the best in the world, teams that are the best in the world have best attitudes and best behaviour patterns and a good, hard, ruthless culture. "

Arthur said to become world-beaters, the Aussies will have to fall in line when it comes to discipline.

- Mickey Arthur(Australian cricket team couch)

End of superiority, inferiority, and equality is end to suffering

“one who has truly penetrated this threefold conceit of superiority, inferiority, and equality is said to have put an end to suffering.”

- The Buddha (Source)

Natural scenery in a camera

"This is the hardest stuff in the world to photograph. You need a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree lens, or something. You see it, and then you look down in the ground glass and it's just nothing. As soon as you put a border on it, it's gone."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig 

On how a beautiful natural scenery cannot be completely captured in a camera.

Maintaining Personality

"Each machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it.  This personality constantly changes, usually for the worse, but sometimes surprisingly for the better, and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance. The new ones start out as good-looking strangers and, depending on how they are treated, degenerate rapidly into bad-acting grouches or even cripples, or else turn into healthy, good-natured, long-lasting friends."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

If somene's ungrateful

"If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig