Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle, (09) Tip #9, Notes

Post date: Oct 11, 2018 12:05:44 PM

Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle

Listen to these notes

TIP #9 TO BUILD SOFT SKILLS, PLAY LIKE A SKATEBOARDER

Soft skills catch our eye because they are beautiful: improvising to a brilliant goal, or blazing through a guitar solo, or riffing through a comic monologue. These talents appear utterly magical and unique. In fact they are the result of super-fast brain software recognizing patterns and responding in just the right way. While hard skills are best put together with measured precision, soft skills are built by playing and exploring inside challenging, ever changing environments. These are places where you encounter different obstacles and respond to them over and over, building the network of sensitive wiring you need to read, recognize, and react. In other words, to build soft skills you should behave less like a careful carpenter and more like a skateboarder in a skateboard park: aggressive, curious, and experimental, always seeking new ways to challenge yourself. Even the most creative skills —especially the most creative skills—require long periods of clumsiness. They became skilled by performing thousands of intensive reaches and reps in an endlessly challenging, variable, engaging space. When you practice a soft skill, focus on making a high number of varied reps, and on getting clear feedback. Don’t worry too much about making errors—the important thing is to explore. Soft skills are often more fun to practice, but they’re also tougher because they demand that you coach yourself. After each session ask yourself, What worked? What didn’t? And why?