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17-10-2014, Reading Coyle (Final Project 1 Draft, From 02 - 02) PDF
17-10-2014, Reading Coyle (Final Project 1 Draft, From 02 - 02) PDF
Review: Coyle, Daniel (2009.11‐29). The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. New
York: Bantam (Chapter 1 – The Sweet Spot)
We sometime wonder why Maradona was one of the best soccer players around the world, what
did Charlie Parker eat to be one of the best Saxophone players in the history, What did Albert
Einstein is drinking while he was developing The Theory of Relativity, How did the Rayuela arrive
to Julio Cortázar’s mind?. What did they eat? How was their living? What is it that makes the
people stands up in the music, art, sports, science? Are those people born or made? Daniel Coyle
in your book The Talent Code tell the story about his trip to several places around the world to
solve the above question.
In December 2006 Coyle undertake a journey to the chicken‐wire Harvards those are places where
many successful people are from. Coyle expected to find velocity, power and grace, he found those
all things. Nevertheless, he found all those things and more He met with unexpected moments of
slow and fitful struggle. (p. 11)
During his trip he watched a couple of behaviors that are repeated in the chicken‐wire Harvards,
when people stumbled, stopped, them they analyzed carefully what was the next step, try returning
slowly it, and if they failed again, they repeat the same procedure until get what they wanted. From
these observations he concluded that they act within the limits of their abilities and therefore make
mistakes that somehow the ones makes them better, but how? (p. 14)
In order to answer the question Daniel analyzes the success of Brazilian football He attempts to
analyze why Brazil soccer team have been world champions five times and why their players are
signed to European clubs? Everyone would think it is a matter of genetics and atmosphere, but that
does not answer the question about why the Brazilian soccer begins to protrude from the 50’s?
Daniel found an answer in futsal, he saw it as a way of training Deep Practice (DP), a concept defined
with the help of a couple of exercises developed by Robert Bjork, a psychologist at UCLA. (p. 16)
Bjork attributes the DP’s success to the way our brains are built, when we think how does the brain
work? It is common to imagine this one as a tape recorder. However, Bjork says, “It’s a living
structure, a scaffold of nearly infinite size. The more we generate impulses, encountering and
overcoming difficulties, the more scaffolding we build. The more scaffolding we build, the faster we
learn.” (p. 14) I think it is a very interesting concept to think that overcoming a mistake is putting
another link on a scaffold that leads to where we want to go, it is extraordinary.
Daniel says the trick of the Deep Practice is to find the Sweet Spot, “There is an optimal gap between
what you know and what you’re trying to do. When you find that sweet spot, learning takes off.” (p.
19) and the Deep Practice is based on the paradox of making mistakes to improve our skills.
Nevertheless, what about situations where a mistake means death? To answer that question Daniel
tells the story of Edwin Albert Link, Jr. an amateur pilot who solved the problem of the airplane
pilot’s accidents in 1934. Link invented the "blue box" a device to train pilots of aircraft in ground
giving the possibility to make mistakes without risking your life. (p. 21)
Although soccer is not as fatal as aviation, blue box uses the same concept as the main Brazilian
football weapon, "futsal". Conclusion he arrives with his friend Daniel Simon Clifford books, the
football coach of a Catholic school in Leeds, England. Though he was successful Brazilian football
fan, and wanted to travel to SP to learn why the Brazilians are the best players in the world, finding
the answer in Deep Practice applied to futsal, powerful tool that would implement successfully in
Leeds and later extended in twelve countries in Europe. (p. 24)
Although the futsal is similar than football, this one is more difficult to play. On the one hand, the
ball is smaller and heavier and the field is usually made of wood, both features make to handle the
ball very difficult. On the other hand, the court has smaller dimensions; therefor, the space is smaller
giving the possibility to play the ball six times more than soccer players. Both, these difficulties and
the ability to touching the ball more often is for the players staying in the sweet spot repeatedly.
That drives them to think about the jogo bonito to defeat their opponents, to break the opposing
team’s lines with a reduced space passing. Despite staying in the Sweet Spot, it is not always easy
being there it could become exhausting because staying there demands some effort. It could be turn
a frustrated matter to us, but what if the player enjoys while he is doing it?, What if he really loves
playing football and he dreams to be the best player in the world ?.
Coyle does not talk about the opposite side of what we know and to get there we must sail with
hard work and dedication through the Sweet Spot, that space between what we know and what we
want to achieve I think that gap between what we know and what we want to believe it is too sweet,
the sweet spot that pleasant place where we go, where we dream to stay. Therefore, I think it is
important be sure where we are going to, what we want to achieve, what are our dreams, otherwise
no sense to go to another place, I think the concept would be meaningless sweet spot would be
something like sugar spot.
In summary, Coyle decides to travel to the chicken‐wire Harvards to find the causes of success of
outstanding people in different fields. He found response in the Deep Practice. This one is a method
that operates in the Sweet Spot where the people make mistakes and them they overcome.
Overcoming mistakes turns into another link in the scaffold, a very interesting way to see the
functioning of our brain. Yet Coyle does not give importance to enjoy our Sweet Spot’s staying as
well as the weight to driving to that place where we dream to stay.