The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle

One of the literary staples of sports psychology has always been The Mind Gym, by Gary Mack. It is an easy read (40 short chapters) and tremendously practical.

Anyone who has read it can tell you at least one thing that improved the way they think before, during, or after competition. As such, it is THE book I give away to athletes who are hungry to develop their inner game.

I have recently found the perfect follow up to The Mind Gym: Daniel Coyle’s book The Little Book of Talent (52 Tips for Improving Your Skills), a sequel to his New York Times bestselling The Talent Code.

In a nutshell, this book was written to help average athletes

“change the way they think about practice."

Effective practice, practice that gets engraved into an athlete’s muscle memory must be done in a specific manner, for a specific period of time, and with a specific intent. Anything less and the benefit of practice are greatly diminished.

Coyle’s research on talent hotbeds (sport specific schools and/or trainers) that crank out elite athletes reveals that the one distinguishing feature that they all share is their relentless commitment to “deep practice” verses “shallow practice” which is that casual approach to practice so many athletes take.

Not surprisingly, the most important component of this deep practice has to take place outside of team practice. Group practices do not typically offer the dedicated time for an individual to finely tune their skills and engrave them into the neural pathways for automatic retrieval. Chapter topics such as practice snacks, reaches and reps, learning velocity, making games of practice, making the most of mistakes, and practicing with your eyes closed (one of my personal favorites) are guaranteed to provide any athlete, or coach with ammunition to transform their approach to practice, and take their skill development and performances to an entirely new level.

I found the information in The Little Book of Talent so useful that I have put together a “Top 5 Skill Development Plan” for my clients that can turn a bench warmer to a starter, a starter to a standout, and a standout to a super star.

The sooner you start, the sooner you will enjoy the benefits of accelerated skill building.