Daniel Coyle

Call it “Flow” or “The Zone” — we’ve  all had moments when it all comes together: when we can do no wrong, when our performance jumps to a higher level. The old cliche is that … keep reading

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtGRvP3ILg&feature=player_embedded I love this video because it shows something you rarely see: the anatomy of a courageous moment. Improvement isn’t just about getting better — it’s also about getting braver. It’s about encountering thresholds, and … keep reading

Okay, it’s happened: 10,000 hours is officially in the mainstream. Athletes, musicians, students, businesspeople are counting away, waiting for their practice odometer to tick over and — presto! — they’ll be world-class experts. Sorry, but … keep reading

I got an interesting note the other day from reader Will Newton from Toronto. He told me about a wildly addictive videogame called StarCraft. If you want to get really good at StarCraft, you have … keep reading

Predicting individual success is an immensely tricky business, because we have such powerful instincts about how best to do it. We intuitively hunt for performance metrics — test scores, sprint times, sales numbers. And, very … keep reading

For me, the best books are not the ones that come out of left field, dazzling you with their original genius. No, the best books are ones that, the instant you read them, feel titanically … keep reading

Two related news items from last week: Tom Martinez died, and Jeremy Lin kept succeeding. 1) Most people haven’t heard of Tom Martinez. The obituaries mention that he coached at a small school in California; … keep reading

Pilots have checklists. Doctors and nurses have patient-care checklists. Not because they’re dummies but because they are smart enough to know that they’re in a performance business. They know that a good checklist is not … keep reading

So here’s a question: does high-quality learning — by which I mean deep, deliberate practice — create a telltale facial expression, sort of like what a poker player would call a “tell”? And if it … keep reading

The other day I got a call out of the blue from a U.S. Senator (who’ll remain anonymous here), with an interesting problem: he wanted to get better at his job. Quick background: he’s in … keep reading