The Talent Code

I'm happy I listened to this on audiobook as I would be a little frustrated after reading something that felt like a lot of fluff.

The first part of the book is dedicated to myelin and it's relationship to how we build skills. However, the way you build myelin is through deep practice, which he covers in the second part of the book. So all that discussion of myelin is simply just interesting, but not actionable at all. The parts on deep practice are interesting though and worth the listen, but again, I'm not sure if it's worth spending the time to read it, it felt a bit fluffy.

The last part of the book was about coaching, which is something i'm becoming more and more interested in for multiple reasons. I liked seeing how some of the best coaches get what they need out of their charges. At the same time, I was even happier to see that the author pointed out that one approach does not work for all skills, let alone all people learning the same skill. You have to adapt your coaching both for the person and the skill being taught (e.g. the futbol de salad coaches let their players just play, but the Suzuki violin teachers were constantly picking and correcting).

All in all, I'm glad I listened to it, but I'm not rushing back for a second read.