A few words about Colvin’s Talent is Overrated. The basic premise of the book is, unsurprisingly, that talent is overrated. In looking at how “world-class performers” in various fields have achieved eminence, the basic building block is a lifetime of deliberate practice aided by environment. After a quick debunking session on innate talent, he goes on to ascertain what “deliberate practice” means, and how other factors affect that, finally touching on the question on what motivates people to practice in the first place. For, says Colvin, practice is hard and not fun and requires great sacrifices.
There’s also a few weird asides into the world of business, trying to cram the process of deliberate practice into a corporate environment, where I’ll be the first to admit it’s sorely lacking. As much as I’m in favor of the idea, I can’t see much changing while the profit margin is the sole indicator of success. So, back to practice.
A point Colvin hammers on: at some level the hours of practice that matter. If I wanted to be a virtuoso violin player, for example, I’d have to put in some serious hours because I’d be essentially racing someone who started playing at age 3 and practiced at least 20 hours a week. So if I started now, I’d maybe be able to compete against the 20 year olds at Julliard when I’m 50. Another point: it takes a fixed amount of time for people to achieve proficiency at something. If I started drawing today, I’d turn out something that’s not dreck in about 9 years, give or take (for a great example of how deliberate practice works with comics, look at Penny-Arcade in 1998 and today. Gabe has been practicing all this time, and the results have paid off).
Colvin mentioned this kind of a chart in the book, so I’ll toss one up here, as it’s a very clear way of visualizing the issue:

The slim yellow circle is the practice zone, where any and all gains will be made. Stay in the comfortable center, and things don’t improve much. Get outside into the panic zone and no real improvement is possible because it’s all too much. I’d guess we all have an intuitive sense of this from our own experiences. And, this is absolutely true, the practice zone is hard to even find sometimes, let alone stay in.
The practice zone moves as well; practice enough and you’ll master what you’re working on and you’ll have to push it a little bit harder. Let your skills decline and your comfort zone shrinks. This has been drilled into my head since I was a wee child playing the piano, so this is all blindingly obvious by now – I knew this chart before I ever saw it.
This time around, my mind couldn’t help but throw Zen into the works. Colvin rightly says that staying in the deliberate practice zone is a challenge, and even great performers can’t do it all day long. But it seems to me that the required concentration he’s talking about is another way of talking about the attentive concentration of Zen, joriki. To put your mind where you want it, when you want it, for as long as you want it. To stick your awareness in that yellow circle of practice – bam! and leave it there. And that’s the practice of Zen, the practice of practicing. With that awareness, everything can become practice, from playing the piano to running to your job to washing the dishes. Nothing is excluded from practice. The more you do it, the better you get, and the easier it is to stay in that practice zone. Life your live in the little sliver of yellow, and the world opens.