Thursday, October 01, 2009

efest - eTLC2009 - day two morning keynote

First keynote of the day from Colin Cox from National Semantics on ‘Talent Development’. What are the components that make or grow talent? What is or not talent?

Case studies of exemplars of talent (eg. Tiger Woods) who achieved success through HARD WORK. Supported by work achieved at Carnegie Mellon University where the average 7-9 digits retained in short term memory could be extended to 88 & on to 105 based on hours of practice. It’s not neurons & synapses it’s about myelin. Myelin is a neuron insulator. The more you do an activity, the thicker the myelin becomes.

Talent is made up of passion, practice and persistence. Passion maximised talent as development of talent is demanding requiring effort & time, hard work which is not always fun. Perfect practice makes myelin grow & deliberate practice is not any old practice. It is designed to improve performance & identifies specific elements for improvement. The learning zone is beyond the comfort zone. It is where you have to apply yourself to move items in the learning zone into the comfort zone. If too much push applied, the panic zone occurs! Burn out or giving up occurs.

Practice involves repetition includes observation & imitation. Focused work helps builds myelin & feedback is VITAL.

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