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Geoff Colvin

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else Hardcover – October 16, 2008

by Geoff Colvin (Author)

879 ratings

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Expanding on a landmark cover story in Fortune, a top journalist debunks the myths of exceptional performance.

One of the most popular Fortune articles in many years was a cover story called What It Takes to Be Great. Geoff Colvin offered new evidence that top performers in any field--from Tiger Woods and Winston Churchill to Warren Buffett and Jack Welch--are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness doesn't come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades.

And not just plain old hard work, like your grandmother might have advocated, but a very specific kind of work. The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness.

Now Colvin has expanded his article with much more scientific background and real-world examples. He shows that the skills of business, negotiating deals, evaluating financial statements, and all the rest obey the principles that lead to greatness, so that anyone can get better at them with the right kind of effort. Even the hardest decisions and interactions can be systematically improved.

This new mind-set, combined with Colvin's practical advice, will change the way you think about your job and career and will inspire you to achieve more in all you do.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Portfolio
Publication date

October 16, 2008
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

6.23 x 0.98 x 9.28 inches
ISBN-10

1591842247
ISBN-13

978-1591842248
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Geoff Colvin has written a fascinating study of great achievers from Mozart to Tiger Woods, and he has brilliantly highlighted the fact that great effort equals great success.I agree, and Talent Is Overrated is not only inspiring but enlightening. It's a terrific read all the way through."-Donald Trump

"Talent Is Overrated is a profoundly important book. With clarity and precision, Geoff Colvin exposes one of the fundamental misconceptions of modern life-that our ability to excel depends on innate qualities. Then, drawing on an array of compelling stories and stacks of research, he reveals the true path to high performance-deliberate practice fueled by intrinsic motivation. This is the rare business book that will both prompt you to think and inspire you to act."-Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind

About the Author

Geoff Colvin, Fortune’s senior editor at large, is one of America’s most respected journalists. He lectures widely and is the regular lead moderator for the Fortune Global Forum. A frequent television guest, Colvin also appears daily on the CBS Radio Network, reaching seven million listeners each week. He coanchored Wall Street Week on PBS for three years. He lives in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Product details

Publisher : Portfolio; 1st edition (October 16, 2008)
Language : English
Hardcover : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 1591842247
ISBN-13 : 978-1591842248
Reading age : 18 years and up
Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
Dimensions : 6.23 x 0.98 x 9.28 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #485,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #371 in Popular Adolescent Psychology
- #1,299 in Popular Applied Psychology
- #2,496 in Job Hunting & Career Guides

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Top reviews from the United States

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Don Q

There are much better books on this topic with wider applicability.

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020

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The central ideas revolve around persistent deliberate practice: identifying weaknesses in skill and knowledge, stressing ones limits to strengthen weaknesses, constancy of effort over long periods of time, and having a culture and mindset that develops expertise. There's a very low density of useful ideas. The cost of admission in money and time is better spent on other books like "Flow", "The Science of Accelerated Learning" and a book on meditation. While the points made are worthy of the page count, the manner in which the author does it is frequently padded with monotonous repetition of concepts that often don't provide new facets to already presented ideas. While trying to explain a point, he references future chapters while barely substantiating the current idea.

11 people found this helpful

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Muscle Prof

Finally the truth we all need!

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2016

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This book should be read along with Ericsson's Peak and Duckworth's Grit. They both support the science that talent has been away for some to explain away and dismiss the enormous amount of time and effort (now known as deliberate practice and purposeful practice) that individuals devote to being great at somethings. It really is an insult to the top tennis players that they must have talent when in actuality they sacrifice a lot in their lives that we choose to do--like they get up at 4am to practice while others are still asleep. Know what what want and know what you believe is the authors last idea. If we believe that hard work and deliberate practice are the starting point and tools to be great at something then this books removes the excuses and asks, "So now what's your excuse for not working hard to be the best?" Be careful reading this book and consider yourself warned. You may actually become great at the "what" in life that you've always dreamed about. Great dreams and dreams of being great at something really can become a reality!!

33 people found this helpful

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Coops

Makes you think

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2012

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I read this book several months ago, and have had time to digest it's message, which is essentially what the title says. I agree with it on many fronts that dedicated hard work leads to excellence. However, I do believe that "talent" does exist, and cannot be duplicated simply with hard work. For example, my singing voice is awful. If I dedicated my whole life to singing, it might go from awful to tolerable, or perhaps a bit better, but I'd always be the nitwit on the X Factor who goes on and the judges make a face like they just drank a shot of lemon juice while I'm crooning away. And likewise, I ran spring track in high school, and one year in college. And I've more or less jogged 2-3 times a week for a few miles at 10 min pace since (I'm now 34). However, when I lace up my shoes at a local 5K, I can still crank out 5:45ish miles and soundly beat many people who have cumulatively trained much harder for much longer than I have,even if I haven't run a sub 6 min mile in over a year. Not that I am the best in the world, because I'm not, but that is talent. That is something that most people cannot do if their lives were dedicated to it.
Let's face it that dedicated hard work will produce top results. I agree with that. However, if you take two people, one with a natural aptitude towards something, and another without that aptitude, if both people put in the same exact dedicated hard work, the one with the natural aptitude will always do better. It's just a fact.
So my bottom line review of the book is that it will make you think, and realize that dedicated hard work is what all people do who excel in a particular endeavor. However, it's not fair or accurate to say that we can all be great at anything other than the obvious would preclude us from (a 6'10" person trying to be a gymnast, or a 4'10" person trying to be in the NBA). I think a better title for the book would be "Talent Will Only Get You So Far".
Yet, with that said, it is a book worth reading, as it will make you realize that people who are good at something are good because they have paid dues beyond what the average person is inclined to do.

66 people found this helpful

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Debra Eve

Great News for Late Bloomers and Those Still Searching

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2012

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In this book, Geoff Colvin explores controversies about talent -- including the idea it may not exist.

And something called "deliberate practice" may be more significant. Deliberate practice isn't mindless repetition. It's hard. It hurts. And the more you do it, the closer you move to greatness.

Where Did The Idea of Innate Talent Originate?

Colvin traces it to Francis Galton, 19th century English aristocrat and college dropout. Galton and his peers believed that people came into the world with pretty much the same capabilities, which they developed (or not) throughout their lives. This concept arose from the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution -- liberté, égalité, fraternité and all that.

Then Galton's cousin Charles Darwin published On The Origin Of Species. It inspired Galton to change his tune and write a book called Hereditary Genius, which influenced the next several generations.

Does Talent Even Exist?

Scientists haven't yet discovered what all our 20,000-plus genes do. They've yet to identify specific genes that govern particular talents.

What About Mozart?

Mozart wrote music at age 5, gave public performances at age 8, and composed some of the world's most beautiful symphonies before his death at age 35. Yet a close look at Mozart's background reveals:

His father, Leopold, was an expert music teacher who published a violin textbook the year Mozart was born.
Leopold systematically instructed Mozart from at least age 3 (probably sooner).

Mozart's first four piano concertos, composed at age 11, contained no original music. He cobbled them together from other composers' works.

Mozart composed his first original masterpiece, the Piano Concerto No. 9, at age 21. That's a remarkable achievement, but by then he'd gone through eighteen years of intense, expert training.

Colvin concludes that years of deliberate practice can actually change the body and the brain, which is why world-class performers are different from the rest of us. But they didn't start that way, which is great news for late bloomers like me! It's never too late to follow a passion, especially if "world-class" is not your goal. This book is accessible and tightly written. I highly recommend it if the subject even vaguely interests you.

29 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Rubén C

Now you know: it's up to you to be great.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2012

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Other books in goal achieving just point directions, use opinions and avoid facts. This one tries to give a very deep insight, a thesis, on what is great performance and how greatest performers achieved it. Take that as a warning, this is not the most easy to read book I ever bought, you could find the first part of the book (60 pages or so) a bit slow, but as any scientific paper does, it settles the scenario to talk about the subject in depth and gives the reader the oportunity to follow it.

Talent is overrated gives dozens of examples of great performance based on deliberate practice, gives referenced notes of every paper or research named in the book and takes the time to argue why some ways of training work better than others.

The author gives some advice on how to use this on companies and teams, how to avoid what most organizations do to destroy any chance of great performance and deliberate practice. This part is very interesting if you are starting a business or planning to do so.

I am sorry for those who claim, after reading it, that talent is necessary to achieve greatness, because they just won't have any of it. In fact, I could place a bet here: you, the naysayers, go and ask any great performer, go and ask any great sportsman, any business "prodigy", any "talented" musician or scientist. Tell them that they are the best in their fields because they had a "gift", tell them that they didn't work HARDER AND BETTER (which is more hours but also, and more importantly, well planned time and objectives) than anybody else. They will laugh at the idea.

Michellangelo Buonarroti, arguably the greatest artist of all time, said: "If they knew how much work it takes, they wouldn't call it genius". But, you know, he also said (or they say he said) something that made him unable to believe in such as thing as "Talent", he said "criticize by creating". So I will try to help instead of arguing on the internet, which I found is not the best way for deliberate practice:

I recommend this book for those trying to excel in any field, and would recommend this other books in particular, as they helped me a lot:

Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning For those trying to be something at sports. This book gives good advice, but not easy to follow tips. This is deliberate practice.
E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It This is a classic most of you already know, read it if you are trying to run a successful business.
Eat That Frog!: Get More of the Important Things Done, Today! Very short and easy to read, but worth every single word. A deliberate practice manual. Recommended for everyone.
Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character as Told to Ralph Leighton Feynman was a genius, or so called. He surely was one of the greatest minds of the last century, but you will learn (and have lots of fun on the way) that he was trained, raised from his early years, to be a curious mind, to be eager to learn WHY everything happened. This book is also a very important read if you are looking for deliberate practice, other books teach you what to do, this one tells you to have fun with it.

15 people found this helpful

Melvin

Thought provoking moments

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 24, 2011

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I've got mixed feelings about this book. The author deals with various topics, examples and cases from fields like sports, business and arts in order to find out what the ingredients of exceptional performance are. This overview doesn't result in a coherent analysis, let alone model, to answer the question.

Some of the chapters are mildly interesting but only a few concepts, that Colvin briefly touches upon, really appealed to me:
- The concept of metacognition
- The Whiz Kids that Ford brought in after World War II to drastically increase their performance
- The dream team that Herb Brooks put together for the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980
- The conclusion that legendary top executive teams are nearly always pairs, who developed deep trust over many years and produced outstanding results.

All in all this doesn't live up to its promise but has its thought provoking moments.

17 people found this helpful

Jose A

Useful and motivating at times

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

Most chapters turn around the idea that deliberate practice is the best, and most likely the only, way to makes us better. The evidence is a mix of relatively weak examples of overachievers (where surely chance plays and important role and therefore there is a clear positive bias) but also a series of research references that provide more a solid base. But in general the principles are simple and put in practice quite often nowadays. It wraps up with the importance of motivation if we want to be able to go through the pains of deliberate practice.

One person found this helpful

Dr. Peter Davies

An inspiration, and a challenge

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2009

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This book is both an inspiration, and a challenge. It tells you that you can achieve great things...but only at the price of long, arduous and disciplined practice. Likewise if you have already got yourself to some level of performance that is good, but if you want to go further you may need to do much, much more than just redouble your efforts. In this its ideas dovetail with those of Marshall Goldsmith and his book, " What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How successful people become even more successful "

This book is a great corrective to views such as "it's all in the genes" or "he came from the right sort of house" or "people round here just can't do that." You cannot completely deny the power of genes and environment, but this book shows how how can make great use of both, to further your performance level at a certain task.

This book shows why truly great performance is rare- the combination of opportunity and willingness to stick to disciplined practice for long enough is actually rare. But it is also optimistic in that it shows how most of us could raise our performance level when we have a need and reason to do so.

An enjoyable book, with a useful message, and easy to read. I can recommend it to those readers who are interested in understanding and improving either their own or their colleague's performance.

4 people found this helpful

Michael

first half or 2/3 of this book are fantastic. Goes a little too deep and off track ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

Rocked my world!! The...first half or 2/3 of this book are fantastic. Goes a little too deep and off track later on but a great investment. Will make you re-think and focus on what you want to achieve, what you putting in to achieve it and gives some fantastic examples of how excellence was achieved in business sport, music etc....via 'deliberate practice' etc... Have recommended highly to everyone I know and a few have already purchased the book since.

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