Talent...a myth?

[samdance]

So what stopped you going on to be the best in the world? Lack of training or lack of natural ability? I would suggest the latter. If you'd had the ability, you would have done the training.

Girls, football, singing and an arrogance that I no longer needed to practice as much

[samdance]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

[gp.]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

Actually sufficient practice would almost certainly make you a competent guitarist. It's just competent would be the upper limit for you.

[gp.]

So what stopped you going on to be the best in the world? Lack of training or lack of natural ability? I would suggest the latter. If you'd had the ability, you would have done the training.

Girls, football, singing and an arrogance that I no longer needed to practice as much

So were you picked out for high-level training programmes and turned them down? Or didn't the people running them think you had the ability?

[Tony1244]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

I played basketball a lot as a kid and always sucked. I wrestled very little and was fairly good. The first time I played cricket they thought I was lying when I told them I had never played. I suck at golf and guitar.

[gp.]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

You're wrong. Well I don't know if you're wrong about him, but you're wrong in principle. Practice will improve anyone but only by a certain amount and if you start low enough you will never be "incredible".

[Tony1244]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

We're telling kids today that they can be anything they want as long as they put their minds to it. That may give some people goosebumps, but more inmportantly it's a Big Lie. Most guys can never play in the NBA. Most girls can never be supermodels. Yours truly can never play in the NBA, be a supermodel or a be a Rhodes Scholar.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

[Thomastearns]

Of course talent exists, for it not to, we'd all have to be exactly the same.

It probably has a similar bell curve to IQ, with most of us around the middle and a few gifted individuals at the top extreme. Just like IQ it will be difficult to define and measure; and some will find it politically incorrect.

If you regard size and muscle weight as talents, I do, then you can see why we have different weight classes. Anthony Joshua is far more talented than Vasyl Lomachenko when it comes to boxing.

[samdance]

So what stopped you going on to be the best in the world? Lack of training or lack of natural ability? I would suggest the latter. If you'd had the ability, you would have done the training.

Girls, football, singing and an arrogance that I no longer needed to practice as much

So were you picked out for high-level training programmes and turned them down? Or didn't the people running them think you had the ability?

I was placed into an elite squad of players and we had to fill out food diaries and practice 6 hours a day and it made me fall out of love with it and pushed me towards other things. You can be given all sorts of opportunities for high level practice but you have to sacrifice social outings and other things, and as a teenager I wasn't willing to do that

[samdance]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

I'm not saying you would be slash, I'm saying you would be exceptional. It's a gutless way of thinking, to believe that you don't have it in you to be great so you just give up.
Believe me when slash first picked up a guitar, he was terrible too

[SaadOffTheDeck]

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

I'm not saying you would be slash, I'm saying you would be exceptional. It's a gutless way of thinking, to believe that you don't have it in you to be great so you just give up.
Believe me when slash first picked up a guitar, he was terrible too

Gutless? LOL, eat a dick.

[samdance]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

We're telling kids today that they can be anything they want as long as they put their minds to it. That may give some people goosebumps, but more inmportantly it's a Big Lie. Most guys can never play in the NBA. Most girls can never be supermodels. Yours truly can never play in the NBA, be a supermodel or a be a Rhodes Scholar.

I'd rather have a child work hard at achieving their goals than one who gives up as soon as something doesn't come natural to them

[phillykid]

Talent is not necessarily a myth, mostly everyone has something that they seem to be naturally good at.

Talent however, is nothing without hard work, and even if someone is naturally gifted doesn't mean they don't have to put the work in.

[greg]

Everyone doesn't have an aptitude for everything. I used to be a pretty good golfer, 5 handicap. Never practiced. I recently went home for a trip and 3 of my friends who play weekly in a summer league asked me to play with them. The first tee was the first time I'd swing a club in 10 years, shot a 92 and smoked them all. If you suck at something, like me playing guitar, no amount of practice can overcome your suckness.

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

...I probably spent about that many hours learning to play the piano. I reached the point when at long last I realised I'll be at best an average pianist...it was all the more embarrassing because my kid sister was blessed with perfect pitch and has achieved a lot more by the time I gave it up...a talent being a myth, my ass!

[Tony1244]

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

We're telling kids today that they can be anything they want as long as they put their minds to it. That may give some people goosebumps, but more inmportantly it's a Big Lie. Most guys can never play in the NBA. Most girls can never be supermodels. Yours truly can never play in the NBA, be a supermodel or a be a Rhodes Scholar.

I'd rather have a child work hard at achieving their goals than one who gives up as soon as something doesn't come natural to them

There has to be a balanced approach. No one person can be anything they want to be, but no one can accomplish anything without serious effort. I don't see a contradiction there.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

...I probably spent about that many hours learning to play the piano. I reached the point when at long last I realised I'll be at best an average pianist...it was all the more embarrassing because my kid sister was blessed with perfect pitch and has achieved a lot more by the time I gave it up...a talent being a myth, my ass!

Yeah, this guy is a nutcase. Though I will say he seems to have practiced long and hard to master the art of being a cock.

[samdance]

What a sad way to think, I guarantee that after 10 000 hours of purposeful practice on the guitar, you would be incredible

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

...I probably spent about that many hours learning to play the piano. I reached the point when at long last I realised I'll be at best an average pianist...it was all the more embarrassing because my kid sister was blessed with perfect pitch and has achieved a lot more by the time I gave it up...a talent being a myth, my ass!

Greg sit down and work out how many hours you actually practiced, or how you practiced.
Did you attempt more difficult pieces every day and keep going until you nailed them, and then moved on to something more difficult and so on.

[samdance]

No, I wouldn't be slash if I had a spare 10.000 hours. That's delusional.

...I probably spent about that many hours learning to play the piano. I reached the point when at long last I realised I'll be at best an average pianist...it was all the more embarrassing because my kid sister was blessed with perfect pitch and has achieved a lot more by the time I gave it up...a talent being a myth, my ass!

Yeah, this guy is a nutcase. Though I will say he seems to have practiced long and hard to master the art of being a cock.

Haha bless ya, from your lack of intelligent arguments, I can quite confidently say that far more intelligent people than you my friend believe in this ideal

[greg]

Greg sit down and work out how many hours you actually practiced, or how you practiced.
Did you attempt more difficult pieces every day and keep going until you nailed them, and then moved on to something more difficult and so on.

no worries mate, I attended a music school practising under the guidance of experienced teachers..believe me I know what I'm talking about..

[samdance]

We're telling kids today that they can be anything they want as long as they put their minds to it. That may give some people goosebumps, but more inmportantly it's a Big Lie. Most guys can never play in the NBA. Most girls can never be supermodels. Yours truly can never play in the NBA, be a supermodel or a be a Rhodes Scholar.

I'd rather have a child work hard at achieving their goals than one who gives up as soon as something doesn't come natural to them

There has to be a balanced approach. No one person can be anything they want to be, but no one can accomplish anything without serious effort. I don't see a contradiction there.

I understand what you're saying a 5ft man is not going to play in the NBA.
However, "The greatest danger for all of us is not that our aim is to high and we miss, but that It is too low and we reach it" Michelangelo

[samdance]

Greg sit down and work out how many hours you actually practiced, or how you practiced.
Did you attempt more difficult pieces every day and keep going until you nailed them, and then moved on to something more difficult and so on.

no worries mate, I attended a music school practising under the guidance of experienced teachers..believe me I know what I'm talking about..

Enjoyment is also a huge factor, you retain much more information.

[greg]

Greg sit down and work out how many hours you actually practiced, or how you practiced.
Did you attempt more difficult pieces every day and keep going until you nailed them, and then moved on to something more difficult and so on.

no worries mate, I attended a music school practising under the guidance of experienced teachers..believe me I know what I'm talking about..

Enjoyment is also a huge factor, you retain much more information.

Sam, I'm not a teenager, I know that... I just gave you an example based on my own life experience..

[samdance]

no worries mate, I attended a music school practising under the guidance of experienced teachers..believe me I know what I'm talking about..

Enjoyment is also a huge factor, you retain much more information.

Sam, I'm not a teenager, I know that... I just gave you an example based on my own life experience..

I understand that, my point is that is it a possibility that other fellow students practicing the same amount as you, liked to play more which in turn makes them think about playing when there in bed before they go to sleep. All of this in my eyes is a form of practice. I am now a singer, even when I'm not performing I will think about certain songs and come up with new things to try like riffs etc, all of this improves me

[Tony1244]

I'd rather have a child work hard at achieving their goals than one who gives up as soon as something doesn't come natural to them

There has to be a balanced approach. No one person can be anything they want to be, but no one can accomplish anything without serious effort. I don't see a contradiction there.

I understand what you're saying a 5ft man is not going to play in the NBA.
However, "The greatest danger for all of us is not that our aim is to high and we miss, but that It is too low and we reach it" Michelangelo

Interesting quote. Everyone misses sometimes and that's ok. It's how we react to failure. I don't think there's anything wrong with making goals that we can accomplish as that builds confidence. My philosophy is to disregard the extremes, and be honest, moderately goal oriented, and humble regarding with yourself.