Reddit reviews The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

> Statically NA is going to produce the least amount of talents.

That statement only holds under the assumption that each region "spawns" an equal amount of talents per X players. Then the largest region would always produce the most talents.

However, this is not how things work. Infrastructure and motivation are far more deciding than the user base, see pretty much any sport or competition in the world. There are always specific "hotbeds" that produce a disproportionate amount of "talent". If you're interested in this topic I recommend you read The Talent Code.

IMHO, I think "just practice" is probably the worst advice anyone can get. It focuses on process and not on the results. If you practice the wrong things, you only get worse. And how you practice has far more impact than just the hours put in.

For a more indepth look at this topic, I would suggest reading The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle it explores how smart practice far outperforms the "practice till you fall down" approach. Highly recommended.

If you're really truly interested in mastering this hobby and applying yourself to learning it, here's what I would recommend:

1. Define short-term goals. Do you want to learn A, B, and C tricks? Do you want to work on body movement and dance? If you're having a hard time defining this for yourself, look to the spinners you respect and try to figure out what it is about their style you admire and would like to make a part of your own.
   
   
2. Schedule a regular practice. Make an appointment with yourself that you would keep just like an appointment at work. Remember: this is something you're doing for you? Who is more important to keep your promises to in your life than yourself? Doing this will also help keep you from the dreaded "I can't find time to practice" conundrum so many of us wind up in...make times for the things that are important to you.
   
   
3. Create a regular 20-30 minute warmup ritual before you practice. This could be your meditation or a dance warmup, a series of stretches, etc. Pick a piece of music you'll listen to whenever you sit down to do this or have a particular scent of incense you put on. For the spiritual out there, this ritual will help prepare you for the work you're about to do and focus your mind on the task at hand. For the scientific folk out there, this is classical conditioning: you're setting triggers to put your mind into a state of focus and eliminating outside distractions.
   
   
4. Structure your practice around your goals. Want to integrate gunslingers into your flow? Try for one week to get ten spirals and ten meteor weaves every single day, then next week up the ante and practice the transitions between a flower and these moves ten times. Want to work on your dance/flow? Set aside 10-20 minutes to just spin to music and explore the space around you. Some days you'll be on and make lots of progress and some days it'll feel like you're backsliding or hitting your head against the wall. Both are important to the learning process.
   
   
5. Define your overarching goals. What is it you want to do with poi? Do you want to have a fun physical hobby, perform with it, get into the tech world, etc? Figuring out what attracts you to the art will help you focus your energies on practicing those skills that are most in line with what you enjoy. Also be prepared that you may discover something in the course of your practice and experience that changes this dramatically. Reevaluate it every 4-6 months or so.
   
   
6. Learn to love the plateau. We love getting new tricks. We love the excitement of novelty--and it's really bad for us. It teaches us to value the temporary over building in the long-term. Mastery is a lifelong journey where the goal becomes subsumed more and more by the experience of getting there as time goes on. Plateaus are important because they allow you to refine the things you've just learned and polish them into a more beautiful form. It is inevitable that you will spend the majority of your time in the flow arts on a plateau of some sort or another, so the more you make your peace with it early, the easier that journey will become.
   
   
7. Become comfortable with solo practice. All the research we have on mastering skills at this point indicates that it takes thousands of hours of deliberate solo practice to become a virtuoso at a given skill. Spinning with people is fun and you will learn new things, but the majority of the progress you'll make will be on your own. This is harder for some people to adapt to than others, but it is an essential part of the journey (unless, of course, your goal is to become a virtuoso at partner poi ;)
   
   
8. If possible, find a good teacher/coach. A good teacher will push you when you need to be pushed, challenge you in ways you never thought possible, and guide you to becoming the best possible poi spinner that you can become. Sadly, this tends to be a luxury as good teachers in the flow arts world are extremely hard to find, but if you're able to find a good one make every use of their services.
   
   Good luck with your journey! It's been one of the greatest I've embarked on in my adult life :)
   
   Here are some books I would recommend on the topic:
   
   Mastery by George Leonard (talks a lot about mindset and learning to love the plateau)
   
   Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin (gives a lot of pointers when it comes to deliberate practice)
   
   So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport (lots of counterintuitive but useful info on developing skills)
   
   The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle (lots of great info about what to look for in a good coach/teacher)

Yeeeeow nice post man.

If you're a bit of a reader, I think you'd like the following books:

Drive: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

Talks about where human motivation stems from. People are mislead by thinking that extrinsic rewards are the no. 1 motivator for people (e.g. money). However most studies are starting to show that intrinsically motivated people are the most productive and successful.

Talent code - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&dpID=41MunW5Js4L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR216%2C320_&refRID=168Q5YDYYGJGSE9QPMCJ

The practicing mind - http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Mind-Developing-Discipline-Challenge/dp/1608680908/ref=pd_sim_14_17?ie=UTF8&dpID=41xIyq0O4wL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR100%2C160_&refRID=097CJ40FQXQ88KG5TDAS

Both of these books are great for instilling the fact that greatness isn't bestowed upon someone, it takes years and dedicated practice cultivate a valuable skill.

If you'd like these books, send me a PM because I have the PDF/Audiobook of them.

Ishmael - If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a telepathic gorilla, this will probably give you the closest answer.

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking - The INTP Toolbox.

The Willpower Instinct - Because we all know we could use a bit more of it around here...

Emotional Vampires - A survival guide to protect your Fe

How To Create A Mind - Since it's ultimately the only thing we really seem to care about, it's interesting to think how we could theoretically create a 'backup' for it eventually

The Talent Code - In case you haven't quite figured out how to go about mastering skills yet.

Every Shot Counts

Lowest Score Wins

The Talent Code

Also Stan Utley's books as mentioned by others.

>Let the artists draw scenes, the A/V geeks create movies and the programmers create an app that quizzes other students. Grade on effort.

I have to partially disagree with you on this one. If you let the artists draw scenes in a math class (for example), then they aren't really honing their math skills, they're honing their art skills. For certain courses (such as history or biology) this open-ended process works well because these topics encourage a creative, critical thinking approach to understanding the topics, so a drawing/movie/app would be a suitable project to learn and apply that knowledge. In addition, the students will presumably learn better from these projects, as they can take ownership of the project (as opposed to doing problems 10-25 on page 256 of the textbook). This is anecdotal evidence, but I remember making a documentary about the use of nuclear warfare from 1945-1955 in Grade 11 history...and the things I learned during that project are some of the only things I remember now, almost 10 years later.

However, such open-ended projects do not work as well for subjects where specific skills are required (e.g. any subjects where math is a prerequisite); an analogy I particularly like (taken from this book ) is the difference between a soccer player and a budding violinist. Soccer is a free-flowing game which encourages creativity on the pitch and practicing this way will improve your performance in a game. However, to gain the necessary skills to become a creative, exciting soccer player (e.g. dribbling, passing) requires mindful repetitions of that particular skill (what's called deliberate practice ).

Therefore, when teaching subjects like math, physics and chemistry, you cannot necessarily allow the same freedom in projects until students have sufficient background knowledge, and you must also keep in mind what you want the students to learn; for example, if you require them to give a Powerpoint presentation of their topic, they might spend more time fiddling with that than actually learning their topic!

I'm getting a bit sidetracked though. For the OP, I think projects are a good idea, since high school biology does not necessarily rely on much prerequisite knowledge. For physics (my area of interest), projects must be chosen a bit more carefully, since it can become easy to strip away any actual physics from a project. As an example of this, in Grade 11 Physics, I wrote a paper on The Big Bang Theory. It ran about 20 pages (double-spaced, of course), and contained all sorts of interesting tidbits, such as black holes, quantum mechanics and all sorts of modern physics tidbits. The paper contained lots of facts, but no actual physics. I didn't have to do any calculations, analyze any data, verify any hypotheses. I essentially just reviewed some literature from popular science textbooks. So projects in physics have to be carefully chosen to in such a way that they are interesting to the students, but still allow them to practice the skills that the course requires (in a physics course, that would mathematical derivations or manipulation, critically analyzing data, etc.)
(Whoops, I got a bit carried away in that response).

Yup! There's a brilliant opening passage in The Talent Code that describes this girl who practices more efficiently in just six minutes than most people do in one month, and it's using the same process that /u/Hyperhavoc5 describes. Great stuff.

These are three that have my highest recommendation! I’ve read these books with other performing arts teachers in book study groups, and believe that they should be required reading for all teachers!

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

You Win in the Locker Room First: The 7 C's to Build a Winning Team in Business, Sports, and Life.

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, I'm only half finished, and i really like it so far. He does a good job explaining how talent is nurtured and grown rather than won through a genetic lottery and backs up his findings with research. Most importantly its getting me motivated.

Proper diet and cook all your own food. No joke. It is a huge amount of effort, but the more well you feel the better you will do at math.

If math is a muscle that requires a workout, wouldn't it follow that the muscle needs proper nutrition?

Also, I found this interesting. ABC news Nightline had a story about this on Sept. 30- "The Genius Code" Edit: added link

Figuring out how to learn things and become skilled at them on my own.

A few books that really helped


https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X/

https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544947223/


https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322/

Yes, I see. Fair enough.

Try these:

/r/mentat (disclaimer: I'm a mod. And the only person who posts. :))

and

The Power of Habit

and

The Talent Code

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, deals with some elements of discipline in the context of developing high level skills

Perhaps look into NGF/BDNF boosting substances like Lions Mane, Semax, or Noopept. These may help in the long term to strengthen and build new neural pathways. Besides that, to get the most out of practicing, I would look into how to efficiently practice. There's an awesome book called The Talent Code, which talks about how to get the most out of deliberate practice to learn a skill. Here's a video discussing some of the highlights. In the short term, I've found modafinil and caffeine to be useful for the speed needed in more technical guitar work. Oxiracetam and Aniracetam I find useful in mixing and producing in order to hear some of the more subtle details. I would imagine those could be useful if you're looking to train your ears.