<story><title>Talent Is Largely a Myth</title><url>https://blog.nukemberg.com/post/talent-is-largely-a-myth/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Swizec</author><text>Talent isn’t a myth, it’s a prerequisite. Same for hard work.&lt;p&gt;I could put in all the hours of practice and guided training into boxing as Mike Tyson and I wouldn’t get nearly the same results. And I [like to] imagine Tyson could spend as much time programming as I have and not be nearly as good.&lt;p&gt;Talent is a multiplier. When you’re learning something you have a talent for, you’ll know.&lt;p&gt;For example: in high school I was very into art and into programming. I could spend 30 hours on a digital painting and it looked &lt;i&gt;okay&lt;/i&gt;. But when I spent 30 hours on python, I was fluent in a weekend.&lt;p&gt;Some folks I knew could take those 30 hours of drawing and produce a painting that would take me 3 months. Even after adjusting for baseline skill.&lt;p&gt;Their rate of improvement was simply beyond anything I could achieve. Same as my rate of improvement in programming was beyond what they could pull off.&lt;p&gt;Crucially: Talent isn’t a measure of how good you are &lt;i&gt;now&lt;/i&gt;. It’s a measure of &lt;i&gt;how fast you improve with practice&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hinkley</author><text>Talent &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; a multiplier, but the needle can go negative.&lt;p&gt;It can be a trap. I knew a guy in college, “Kevin” who was not naturally good at anything except perseverance. He worked his ass off all the time. He was doing much better than people like me who could pick things up and be an expert beginner in hours or days, because most of us never worked anywhere near that hard for anything in our lives. I had worked that hard for exactly one thing at this point, which put me at a vantage point of being able to see both groups. None of my other peers really understood Kevin. I confess I didn’t always either.&lt;p&gt;If you can fill your days with things that you are “talented” at, you never get around to the things that are hard but make you a better person or for a richer life. You can justify quitting before you ever start, and only later figure out that “compensating qualities” simply don’t. Not all the time. Especially in a crisis.&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    She lives with a broken man
    A cracked polystyrene man
    Who just crumbles and burns
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Today a couple  of the things that people think I’m talented at, I simply believe are possible when everyone else has given up.  The Talent, if there is one, is a better sense of possibility, and a belief that at least a few people could figure things out if they could be arsed to do so. If there’s a second Talent, it’s in figuring out that not only are people fundamentally the same, century after century, but in many cases so are the problems they struggle with. Much like there is some underlying quality of NP-complete problems that makes them interchangeable. Solving problems is itself a thing you can study, and it can make you “talented” in whatever you care to be arsed to try.</text></comment>
<story><title>Talent Is Largely a Myth</title><url>https://blog.nukemberg.com/post/talent-is-largely-a-myth/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Swizec</author><text>Talent isn’t a myth, it’s a prerequisite. Same for hard work.&lt;p&gt;I could put in all the hours of practice and guided training into boxing as Mike Tyson and I wouldn’t get nearly the same results. And I [like to] imagine Tyson could spend as much time programming as I have and not be nearly as good.&lt;p&gt;Talent is a multiplier. When you’re learning something you have a talent for, you’ll know.&lt;p&gt;For example: in high school I was very into art and into programming. I could spend 30 hours on a digital painting and it looked &lt;i&gt;okay&lt;/i&gt;. But when I spent 30 hours on python, I was fluent in a weekend.&lt;p&gt;Some folks I knew could take those 30 hours of drawing and produce a painting that would take me 3 months. Even after adjusting for baseline skill.&lt;p&gt;Their rate of improvement was simply beyond anything I could achieve. Same as my rate of improvement in programming was beyond what they could pull off.&lt;p&gt;Crucially: Talent isn’t a measure of how good you are &lt;i&gt;now&lt;/i&gt;. It’s a measure of &lt;i&gt;how fast you improve with practice&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway2245</author><text>&amp;gt; I could put in all the hours of practice and guided training into boxing as Mike Tyson and I wouldn’t get nearly the same results.&lt;p&gt;I think this fails to recognise the talents that Mike Tyson has leveraged: the soft skills and gumption to identify the best trainers, the best team, the best opportunities, and to seize those, being motivated to gain fame and plaudits. Plus consistent, world-class training and experience on top - working outside of the 30 hours of class.&lt;p&gt;These skills are very transferable to other fields. Look, for example, at the George Foreman Grill.&lt;p&gt;Could you have done the same? Yes, I think it&amp;#x27;s possible. But, viewing it as only practice and guided training seems like a fundamental error.</text></comment>