The Myth of Talent

Scott Young has written an awesome short post about The Myth of Talent. This prevalent thought in our society that unless you find yourself already pretty able to do certain things well, you will never be able to master them. I think the most obvious case of this myth is the amount of mathophobia that has been present in our society for quite some time.

You hear quite often, "I am not a math person". What the hell does this mean? Personally, I cringe when I hear this. Yet another person has obviously been suckered in by the myth that if they had sat down and practiced the hell out of their long division and had a teacher that taught the theory as well as wrote memorization, they would still come out of it knowing just as much math as they currently do. This is nonsense!

There are many scientific studies to this effect. This one has a great quote that I will share from Anders Ericsson, the professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee, "...it isn't magic, and it isn't born. It happens because some critical things line up so that a person of good intelligence can put in the sustained, focused effort it takes to achieve extraordinary mastery. These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort."

This myth of talent has implications far beyond mere math skills. It seems that this subject really cuts the population into two groups: those who believe that they can achieve anything they want to, and those who think their lot in life is set and just go through the motions. Now I strongly place myself in the first group because this is a genuine belief of mine that I could master any skill or subject with enough honest practice. The hard part is committing yourself to putting in the hours, every week, needed to excel at something.