Talent Code

This was my first audiobook. I had never listened to an audiobook before and I enjoyed listening to it when I didn't want to read.

Overall, I found the first half of the books to be good. When he actually talks about personal growth and how myelin is the scientific way of how we actually get better at things. I also enjoyed how he deconstructs talent to basically just be practice and ignition (which I understood to be motivation and willpower).

The book kinda drops off when he shifts in talking about coaches and teachers. While they're interesting stories and show how hard work is actually the reason behind successful people, it feels a bit tangential and could've been a chapter or two.

Nonetheless, it was enjoyable and has made me a bit of a crusader for hard work rather than preordained ‘talent'.

I got skeptical about the book when reading the introduction, which mentioned “revolutionary scientific discoveries”. Unfortunately, reading it confirmed my first impression: I was looking for concepts, but I found very few of them and instead a gazillion of stories to support them.

In a nutshell:

- the quality of a skill is determined by the thickness of a neural insulator called myelin around the nerve fibers in the brain circuits
- myelin wraps but doesn't unwrap, which is why to break bad habits we have to form good ones instead
- deep practice creates new myelin layers, improving the skill
- motivation can be ignited using cues
- great masters have deep knowledge, recognize where they pupils are struggling and are able to guide them

An excellent dive into how and why we form talents.