Summary Of The Talent Code By Daniel Coyle

In his book The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle argues that your learning speed increases most when you’re making mistakes. This method of learning is called “deep practice.” Coyle’s goal is to share how the reader can deep practice. He explains that there are 5 steps to mastering deep. First, you must “Start & Stop” which is the process of stopping the thing you’re doing and starting over whenever you make a mistake. Second, is to correct those mistakes by looking back at them and recognizing what you did wrong. Next, is to know what you’re aiming for by setting a goal or having a model. Further, is to have intense focus. Finally, you must follow the “Plus One” rule; start off easy and take one step at a time. Coyle discusses Clarissa, an average thirteen-year-old girl, who was trying to learn to play a song on her clarinet. When she attempts to play the song, she starts to play the opening phrase of the song and messes up and when she does, she immediately stops. She goes over the music once again and starts from the top. Clarissa does this every time she makes a mistake and would even hum through the song before starting again. She does it as many times as it takes her to get through the entire song without messing up. After she is done practicing that song, she moves on to her next piece of music. This time she plays it much more smoothly than the
Each time Brunio messes up the move he stops and thinks for a moment about what he was doing wrong until he finally gets the move right. This example of Brunio is different than the example of Clarissa because of the different types of activities. Clarissa’s clarinet playing involved reading notes and mentally being able to play the notes on the paper, while Brunio’s soccer playing had more to do with a physical type of activity that involved the whole body. These examples have proven Coyle’s method of deep practice to be