Talent is Overrated 

What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else 

Geoff Colvin 
 

Book Overview from the Publisher 

Since  its  publication  ten  years  ago,  businesspeople,  investors,  doctors,  parents,  students,  athletes, 
and  musicians  at  every  level  have  adopted  the  maxims  of  ​Talent  Is  Overrated  to  get  better  at  what 
they’re  passionate  about.  Now  this  classic  has  been  updated  and  revised  with  new  research  and 
takeaways to help anyone achieve even greater performance. 
  
Why  are  certain  people  so  incredibly  great  at  what  they  do? Most of us think we know the answer—but 
we’re  almost  always  wrong.  That’s  important,  because  if  we’re  wrong  on  this  crucial  question,  then  we 
have zero chance of getting significantly better at anything we care about. 
Happily,  the  real  source  of  great  performance  is  no  longer  a  mystery.  Bringing  together  extensive 
scientific  research,  bestselling  author  Geoff  Colvin  shows  where  we  go  wrong  and  what actually makes 
world-class  performers  so  remarkable.  It  isn’t  specific,  innate  talent,  nor  is  it  plain  old  hard  work.  It’s  a 
very specific type of work that anyone can do—but most people don’t. 
What’s  more,  the  principles  of  great  performance  apply  to  virtually  any  activity  that  matters  to  you. 
Readers  worldwide  have  been  inspired  by  this  book’s  liberating  message:  You  don’t  need  a 
one-in-a-million  natural  gift.  Better  performance,  and  maybe  even  world-class  performance,  is  closer 
than you think. 
 

KEY POINTS COVERED IN THIS SUMMARY: 

1. Deliberate  Practice  ​-  Why  success  is  not  about  talent;  how  to 
structure your own deliberate practice 
2. Intrinsic  vs.  Extrinsic  Motivation  ​-  Combined  factors  towards 
winning performances 
3. Practice  and  Performance  ​-  The  relationship  between  practice  and 
performance 

1) Deliberate Practice 
 
The  book tries to bust the myth that it’s talent that gets us to great success but rather more of a 
lot of ​diligence a
​ nd ​hard work​.  
 
EXAMPLE: Mozart 

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We  all  think  of  Mozart  as  a  talented  young  kid  who  produced  a  great  body  of  music  over  the 
years  and  left  his  mark  in  the  world.  The  truth  is  that  Mozart  started  with  music  early,  at  as 
young  as  3  years  old.  His  father,  who  was  a  music  teacher,  started  him  at  a  young  age  and 
forced him to learn all the time.  
 
Age 3​ - Mozart started practicing music 
Age 8​ - Mozart started playing in public as forced by his father 
Age 21​ - Mozart started writing his own great work of music  
 
The  timeline  shows  that  Mozart  worked  on  his  music  for  18  years before he produced his own 
great  work  of  art.  While  we  all  know  that  Mozart  was  talented  and  gifted,  the  truth  is  he 
worked really in order to become a great and accomplished musician.  
 

A Study on Deliberate Practice 

 
A  lot  of  this  book is based on the research conducted by Anders Ericsson in Germany where he 
went  to  the  Music  Academy  of  West  Berlin  to  study  different  violinists.  Specifically,  he  asked 
the teachers to identify the b ​ est violinists​, ​the average ones,​ and t​ he good ones​. 
 
Findings: 
 
● The  total  amount  of  time  spent  on  music  (i.e.,  learning  music,  talking  about  music  with 
other  people,  playing  with  other  musicians  and  deep  personal  practice) by the ​best​, the 
good​ and the ​average​ were the same at around ​51​ hours per week. 
● Further  questioning  revealed  that  the  difference  between  the  best  and  the  good  ones 
lies in deep ​deliberate practice​ such that -- 
○ the best​ and the ​good​ - around 2 ​ 4 hours​ per week practice  
○ the average​ - ​9 hours​ per week practice 
● The  difference  between  the  best  and  the  good  ones  was  found  in  their  cumulative 
practice by the age of 18 such that -- 
○ the best​ - 7,400 total practice hours 
○ the good​ - 5,300 total practice hours  
○ the average​ - 3,420 total hours 
 
Conclusion: 
 
That's  how  the  whole  term  of  the  10,000  hours  or  the  10  years  came  about.  In  order  for us to 
become great at anything, it will take ​10,000 hours of cumulative practice​ (or over ​10 years)​. 
 

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What is Deliberate Practice? 
 
Deliberate  practice  is  a  hard  process  and  is  not  something  that’s  accomplished  by  working  20 
hours  a  day.  Let’s  find  out  what  deliberate  practice  is  all  about  and  how  to  go about your own 
structure of practice. 
 
1. Plan  what  you’re  doing.  A  simple  fundamental  in  project  management  is  to  ​plan, 
review,  ​improve​.  In  the  case  of  deliberate  practice,  it’s  gets  really  intense  and  detailed. 
The  practice  must  be  deliberately designed and followed, not something done randomly 
without any intention in mind. This means knowing exactly: 
a. what you're going to do  
b. how you're going to do what 
c. how often you're going to do it 
d. the specific part or area to improve on or accomplish  
 
2. Figure  out  a  structured  practice.  Actual  practice  and  constant  repetition  of  the  parts 
you find challenging or hard can build your strength and long-term potential.  
 
3. Review.  Once  you  have  designed  your  practice,  get  a  coach  or  mentor,  someone  who 
can  give  you  ​specific  feedback  and  can  point  out  what's  hurting  your  progress  in  the 
long-term.  All  the  great  sportsmen  and  sports  teams,  musicians,  and  businesses  have 
great  coaches  or  mentors.  Getting  them  is  a  critical  step  in  your  overall  progress and in 
becoming really good at what you do.  
 
4. Design an improvement plan for the identified mistakes you’re making.  
 
 
Example  for  doing  deliberate  practice:  Ben  Franklin  loved  to  learn  and  had  so  many  great 
contributions in so many different fields. He had really mastered the structure to learning. 
 
One  day  when  he  was  in  his  teens,  his  father  came  across  one  of  the  letters  Ben  was 
exchanging with his friend. After reading through the content, he told Ben that while his writing 
was  good,  he  could  still  improve  on  the  structure.  So  Ben  started  to  obsess  over  how  to 
improve  his  structure.  He  read  “The  Spectator  Magazine”  -  one  of  the  great works of literature 
coming out of Britain. Then Ben came up with a plan to improve his writing: 
 
1. Read ​The Spectator  
2. Take notes about it  
3. Forget about it 
4. Come back a few days later and write it all out again 

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 5. Compare  ​The  Spectator  Magazine  structure  to  what  he  has  written  and  find  out  what 
the challenges are 
6. Improve on the problem areas 
 
Putting  Ben’s  plan  or  design  side  by  side  with  the  previous  discussion  on  deliberate  practice, 
we have the following: 
 
General Steps to Deliberate Practice   Ben Franklin’s Deliberate Practice Design 

  Read ​The Spectator 

Structured practice 

Structured practice  Take notes about it then forget about it. 

Structured practice (repetition)  Come back a few days later and write it all out again. 

Review  Compare  ​The  Spectator  Magazine  structure to what he 

has written and find out what the challenges are. 

Improvement plan  Improve on the problem (later found as his vocabulary) 

 
Through  his  structure,  Ben  discovered  that  while  his  writing  improved,  he  found  out  he  had 
problems with his vocabulary. He then started to design a practice to improve his vocabulary.  
 
1. Read an article from T ​ he Spectator 
2. Write the article in verse or poetry 
3. Forget about what he has written 
4. Write it in prose  
5. Compare final article to the Spectator article 
 
This  is  again  a  very  tight  loop  of  plan  ➜  do  ➜  review  ➜  improve  ​and  ​the  key  was  in  the 
planning​.  
 
After  following  this  structure,  Ben found out after a that while his vocabulary had improved, his 
organization​ was still not as good. Thus, he designed another genius practice to improve on it. 
 
1. Read another article from T ​ he Spectator 
2. Take notes on each of the sentences on different pieces of paper. 
3. Mix-up all the papers and forget about them for a few days 
4. Come back and write the whole article all over again 
5. Compare final article with the article from T ​ he Spectator​.  
 
Again,  Ben  deliberately  planned  the  practice,  did  the  work,  reviewed  it,  and  then  improved  on 
the  problems  he  identified.  If  you  read  Ben  Franklin's  biography,  you  will  see  that  he  loved  to 

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figure  out  how  to  learn.  At  such  a  young  age,  he  had  the  awareness  to  come  up  with  such 
improvement plans. (Another thing he worked on was the 13 Virtues. Read his biography.)  
 

2) Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation 

 
When it comes to deliberate practice, sometimes you have the drive and sometimes you don’t. 
 
Intrinsic Motivation​ - e.g., playing the piano or violin just for the sake of enjoying it 
 
Extrinsic Motivation​ - e.g., doing it to win a championship/trophy; competing with someone 
 
What  Geoff  is  saying  is  that  we  shouldn't  do  one  or  the  other.  How  about  harnessing  the 
power of both? . 
 
Example: Michael Jordan 
Intrinsic motivation - he loved to play basketball all day long 
Extrinsic  motivation  -  championships;  proving  wrong  those  who  told  him  he  was  not  good 
enough or that he could not do it 
 
The  extrinsic  motivation  propelled  him  to  move  forward  and  get  better and better. It drove him 
to become one of the greatest basketball players.  
 
Important:  Don't  shy  away  from  the  extrinsic  motivation  in  your  life.  If  you  are  going  up  for 
some  goals,  in  business  or  otherwise,  realize  that  a  combination  of  intrinsic  and  extrinsic 
motivation will turbo-charge your effort in your practice and can take you to greatness. 
 

3) Practice and Performance 

 
Practice  and  performance  feed  each  other. When you practice more, you perform better. When 
you perform better, you practice more. It's a loop that feeds into itself.  
 
When  you  are  working  on  something  and  you  feel  like  your  performance  or  results  are  not 
there,  if  you  practice  a  little  more  you  could  get  to  the  next  level  of  performance.  So 
performance and practice and practice and performance and so on. They're interrelated.  
 
So  there  we  have  it,  ​Talent  is  Overrated  by  Geoff  Colvin.  If  there's  one  thing  you want to take 
away from this book, it’s how to design a deliberate practice, and then go execute on it. 
 
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Related Books: 
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