• Home
  • |
  • Episodes
  • |
  • Agility Challenge Tip #11 – Don’t fall for the prodigy myth

Agility Challenge Tip #11 – Don’t fall for the prodigy myth

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
iHeart Radio
Pocket Casts
Overcast
RSS Feed

Share The Love:

  • Never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunesSpotify or by RSS
  • Help improve the show by leaving a Rating & Review in iTunes (Here’s How)
  • Join the discussion for this episode in the comments section below!

It’s so often that we think of talent as something that we’re born with, like the color of our hair, or the color of our eyes. We assume that the surest sign of talent is early,  instant, effortless success, i.e., being a prodigy. Basically, this is just not the case – there’s a well established body of research that shows that our assumptions about talent are just…false. Early success turns out to be a weak predictor of long-term success!

In The Little Book of Talent, author Daniel Coyle points out that many top performers were overlooked early on.  Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity team as a sophomore. Charles Darwin was considered slow and ordinary by his teachers. Walt Disney was fired from an early job because he “lacked imagination”. Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, Leo Tolstoy, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball…the list is long! In fact, being considered a prodigy early on can be a DISadvantage – the attention and praise that early success brings can cause those who receive it to instinctively protect their “magical” status by taking fewer risks, which eventually ends up slowing learning down rather than facilitating it.

The talent hotbeds that Coyle looked at were not focused on identifying talent, but rather on building it, constructing it, day by day. They didn’t pretend to be able to predict who would succeed and who wouldn’t, based on early aptitude or success.

What does this mean for us as agility handlers and trainers? Well, two things – first, if you have early success, do your best to ignore the praise and keep pushing yourself to the edges of your ability, where improvement happens. And, perhaps more importantly, if you don’t have early success, don’t quit! Treat your early efforts as experiments, not as verdicts. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and “becoming talented” doesn’t happen overnight.



Now you can leave a voice message for the podcast! Have a question or comment for Daisy? Leave it as a comment below OR as a voice message and get featured on a future episode!


{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

📚Get Daisy's eBook!📚

Learn how your 🧠MINDSET🧠 may be holding you back with this FREE eBook, Growth vs. Fixed Mindset, & Why It Matters For Agility Successavailable ONLY to subscribers of Daisy's Email List! 

This eBook is only available to subscribers of Daisy's Email List, and is not available for purchase anywhere!

Related Episodes

Agility Challenge Tip #20 – Practice Alone

Agility Challenge Tip #20 – Practice Alone

Agility Challenge Tip #19 – Don’t do ‘drills’ – instead, play small, addicting games

Agility Challenge Tip #19 – Don’t do ‘drills’ – instead, play small, addicting games

Agility Challenge Tip #18 – Choose 5 minutes a day instead of an hour a week

Agility Challenge Tip #18 – Choose 5 minutes a day instead of an hour a week

Agility Challenge Tip #17 – Embrace Struggle

Agility Challenge Tip #17 – Embrace Struggle
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
iHeart Radio
Pocket Casts
Overcast
RSS Feed
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
iHeart Radio
Pocket Casts
Overcast
RSS Feed
>