What an amazing story! Actually, I was not even expecting such a positive ending (sorry for not believing in Brian enough). But yes, my vote would have gone to Angela "Padawan" Duckworth anyway.
Thanks for the thought, Jia! Newport has great career advice, but his life advice would probably mirror Duckworth's in this instance. Rest and enjoyment are, in fact, important, and Newport really stresses this in his book, "Digital Minimalism." Thanks to the grit your son develops in tennis, he will go really, really far when he finds the easy thing he can get passionate about, and will be far more patient due to the lessons tennis taught him.
Further, I think it's also always worth investigating where, how and why our kids struggle. In tennis, that could look like double checking our fundamentals, ruling out unneeded tension, working on the mental side of it, or some other earlier life lesson that didn't land quite right the first time. In my life, I struggled to learn guitar, in no small part because I was pushing the strings way too hard. I also bottomed out my keys when I typed. It wasn't until I got my autism Dx that I realized the two were linked to poor proprioceptive skill. As I work on that, my guitar playing and typing started to improve naturally.
Unfortunately for me, this lack of care early on led a potentially career-ending injury -- carpal tunnel -- because this puzzle was not solved quickly enough to avoid taking significant and unknown self-damage. I'm glad that the kids of today are having these issues caught more early, more often.
Sorry to hear about your carpal tunnel. It truly sucks to have physical injuries hurt your passion.
I think for both guitar and tennis, the love of the game (or music) is the most important ingredient for success. If you love the thing you do, you can go a long long way.
As a person overflowing with skills and talent, I think (and have had pointed out to me) that lack of grit is my biggest fault. I give up too easily - because I did try hard at something - admittedly without coaching or a good mentor - I was forced to draw my own conclusion that there are many things in life that no matter how hard you try, you will never be so good they can’t ignore you. The proviso about mentorship is the only niggling doubt. There are some walls that superior technique can help you break through - but that knowledge is the accumulation of teacher/student or mentor/disciple transmission over generations. So you also need the luck of an optimum learning environment + grit + talent. That’s how you get the skill.
Marcia, I have a theory that if you want to develop your skills/talent into something tangible, you'll need to stick with it for at least 100 days. No expectation of result, just go all out for 100 days. Then feel free to give up afterward. Otherwise all the talent are just floating possibilities that will never be realized.
That’s a great approach. If I were to suggest a refinement, it would be to break a skill like tennis or playing the piano into parts, identify the micro thing that would really improve your ability to do the macro skill, spend 100 days all out on that. What we typically lack at the moment is data that might help us identify the weakness and opportunity - possibly a boring thing that strengthens the technique - maybe even a lateral skill. Maybe putting basketballs into hoops actually improves something lacking but needed for tennis, or learning Japanese helps with playing an instrument.
I loved reading this and had a laugh over the Chinese dad comment regarding Angela Duckworth's achievements. You and Tracy are such inspiring and encouraging parents; I have no doubt your son Brian will be a star no matter where his path takes him! Love this new series you're writing, btw.
Had you pitted Deep Work v. Grit, the choice would have been harder. Also, do you know about Newport's more recent work, Slow Productivity? Loved that one.
I originally thought about Deep Work, but the philosophies don't match up well. One is about productivity, another is about mental toughness. I think So Good is a much better conceptual battle.
What an amazing story! Actually, I was not even expecting such a positive ending (sorry for not believing in Brian enough). But yes, my vote would have gone to Angela "Padawan" Duckworth anyway.
Thanks, Felix! I think the biggest thing is Brian believes in himself. That in the end is all that mattered.
Thanks for the thought, Jia! Newport has great career advice, but his life advice would probably mirror Duckworth's in this instance. Rest and enjoyment are, in fact, important, and Newport really stresses this in his book, "Digital Minimalism." Thanks to the grit your son develops in tennis, he will go really, really far when he finds the easy thing he can get passionate about, and will be far more patient due to the lessons tennis taught him.
Further, I think it's also always worth investigating where, how and why our kids struggle. In tennis, that could look like double checking our fundamentals, ruling out unneeded tension, working on the mental side of it, or some other earlier life lesson that didn't land quite right the first time. In my life, I struggled to learn guitar, in no small part because I was pushing the strings way too hard. I also bottomed out my keys when I typed. It wasn't until I got my autism Dx that I realized the two were linked to poor proprioceptive skill. As I work on that, my guitar playing and typing started to improve naturally.
Unfortunately for me, this lack of care early on led a potentially career-ending injury -- carpal tunnel -- because this puzzle was not solved quickly enough to avoid taking significant and unknown self-damage. I'm glad that the kids of today are having these issues caught more early, more often.
Sorry to hear about your carpal tunnel. It truly sucks to have physical injuries hurt your passion.
I think for both guitar and tennis, the love of the game (or music) is the most important ingredient for success. If you love the thing you do, you can go a long long way.
As a person overflowing with skills and talent, I think (and have had pointed out to me) that lack of grit is my biggest fault. I give up too easily - because I did try hard at something - admittedly without coaching or a good mentor - I was forced to draw my own conclusion that there are many things in life that no matter how hard you try, you will never be so good they can’t ignore you. The proviso about mentorship is the only niggling doubt. There are some walls that superior technique can help you break through - but that knowledge is the accumulation of teacher/student or mentor/disciple transmission over generations. So you also need the luck of an optimum learning environment + grit + talent. That’s how you get the skill.
Marcia, I have a theory that if you want to develop your skills/talent into something tangible, you'll need to stick with it for at least 100 days. No expectation of result, just go all out for 100 days. Then feel free to give up afterward. Otherwise all the talent are just floating possibilities that will never be realized.
That’s a great approach. If I were to suggest a refinement, it would be to break a skill like tennis or playing the piano into parts, identify the micro thing that would really improve your ability to do the macro skill, spend 100 days all out on that. What we typically lack at the moment is data that might help us identify the weakness and opportunity - possibly a boring thing that strengthens the technique - maybe even a lateral skill. Maybe putting basketballs into hoops actually improves something lacking but needed for tennis, or learning Japanese helps with playing an instrument.
I loved reading this and had a laugh over the Chinese dad comment regarding Angela Duckworth's achievements. You and Tracy are such inspiring and encouraging parents; I have no doubt your son Brian will be a star no matter where his path takes him! Love this new series you're writing, btw.
Thank you, Lily! I'm so glad you enjoy my writing.
Had you pitted Deep Work v. Grit, the choice would have been harder. Also, do you know about Newport's more recent work, Slow Productivity? Loved that one.
I originally thought about Deep Work, but the philosophies don't match up well. One is about productivity, another is about mental toughness. I think So Good is a much better conceptual battle.
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