Recently
in Open English we have been reading a very interesting book called Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. The
book begins with Colvin explaining that few people will ever achieve what we
call true greatness. In that chapter he
also explains that hard work and experience is not what makes people great. In some cases it can make them worse. He also goes on to try and prove that talent
does not exist. That natural born
abilities are not real and they are not the key factor in someone’s amazing
success. He examines the rise in
greatness standards throughout history to now.
So by the end of the first chapter he has his audience questioning what
does lead to success, and he give them the answer in the next chapter. Practice.
It all has to do with practice.
How you practice, what you practice, how long you practice; it all is
the key to greatness. Also it opens up
the fact that anyone could achieve greatness. The topic he keeps coming back to in these
first two chapters is that what you need to achieve success and greatness in
any field is to use deliberate practice and to have the drive to achieve.
I was a little skeptical about
Colvin’s claim of talent not existing at all.
And Colvin admits in chapter two that maybe talent does exist, but it doesn't matter because even if talent is real it seems to be irrelevant. Colvin had proven through studies and
examples that having a slight ability for something does not people at a high
vantage point over others. That’s truly
amazing! If what he is saying really is
true it opens up a whole to world to achieve in for people who thought they could
never doing anything because they didn't have a magical talent. People often bring up two examples when faced
with anti-talent thesis, Mozart and Tiger Woods. But in reality both of them just worked
incredibly hard from a very young age, and this caused them to achieve
greatness at a young age. The main
influence on both of them was pushy fathers who wanted them to achieve. Teaching Tiger was basically an obsession of
his father, and Mozart's father strived for
him to be amazing. These two stories
make me think of a quote from the author
John Green's book An Abundance of Katherine's. "The vast majority of child prodigies don't become adult geniuses." I think this quote really connects because
it's saying you can't rely on a "God given talent" per say to carry
throughout life. I think that's a main
point Colvin's trying to make; you have to work hard to achieve and there is no
way around that. To conclude, though I
was kind of skeptical about Colvin's original claim I think that he has proved
his point, and he was able to portray his ideas to an audience in a clear
connectable way.
If you are interested in reading this book now
I'll put a link where you can buy it down below.
