Physicists often wonder how can there be a man as genius as Albert Einstein who

had such a radical line of thought in the discovery of photoelectric effect. But how
did Einstein, who was considered stupid when he was a kid, postulated such
hypothesis that bring him to the Nobel prize? The journey of Daniel Coyle's book,
The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born, It's Grown, Here's How, is an effort to
understand how men that we called talented people grow their talents.
In his study, based on his "Great Expedition" to places that produce Everest-size
amounts of talent in soccer, music, baseball, and others, Coyle argues that deep
practice is the key factor that brings everyone to reach their goals, not talent which
is conventionally defined as a combination of genes and environment . Coyle quotes
many stories from his expedition to illustrate his basic argument. Brazil can produce
many great soccer player because "it possesses a unique confluence of factors: a
friendly climate, a deep passion for soccer, and a genetically diverse population of
190 million, 40 percent of whom are desperately poor and long to escape through
the beautiful game" (p. 14-15). The author further elaborates that the success of
Brazil in producing many great soccer player cannot be explained solely in the
perspective of talent because in the 1940s and 1950s, Brazil was not always a great
producer of soccer player (p. 15). Despite those difficulties, Coyle claims that deep
practice is the key that makes Brazil produce great soccer player. proposes deep
practice which "is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways - operating
at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes - makes you smarter" (p. 18).
Coyle's ideas about practice seem relevant for those who want to craft their skills
that are used for repetitive tasks, such as playing soccer, musical instruments,
singing, doing math, and so forth. As explained in the introductory chapter, the
author states that when people practice more and more, the myelin is getting
thicker, causing the faster information flow from one neuron to the other (p. 5). As
the result, those who practice a lot in their field of interest will have a better
connection between neurons in their brain and their motoric neurons in their body.
However, Coyle's ideas about practice do not seem applicable in the case of
proposing a creative idea. For example, Einstein who proposed photoelectric effect,
stating that light consists of discrete particles called photons. I believe that
proposing such radical hypothesis cannot be created by deep practice. Deep
practice may contribute, but not the whole, though Einstein himself believed that
success is 99% hard work. Other factors, such as accumulated experiences, culture,
and luck, may contribute in someone's life that causes them to generate such idea.