Critical Analysis: The Sweet Spot The Talent Code

Rasul Aliyev
Writing 101
Critical Analysis
16.11.2014

Review: Coyle, Daniel. "The Sweet Spot" The Talent Code. Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. New York: Bantam, 2009. 11-29.

The question how people become that successful has always been concerning most people in the world. Within all this time, many scientists and researchers have tried to answer to this question, or to suggest some way to become successful. But still answer to this question remains different for all people. With interesting theories and supportive anecdotes, Daniel Coyle, to some extent will be able to change the attitude of some readers towards the root of talent, however, from the angle of view of skeptical readers, his argumentation may seem less influential. Daniel Coyle is a sports journalist, and the New York Times bestselling author of the talent code.

He describes it, talks about reasons for it and about its role to succeed. He talks about his visits to nine places, which are for him “talent hotbeds” to see talented people. These nine places are called “the chicken-wire Havards” by Coyle, because lots of talents get discovered here despite that they are not big. Coyle gives readers a definition to talent: “the possession of repeatable skills that don't depend on physical size” (p.11). His definition to talent seems to have some problems. It is more like a skill than talent. Talent is natural ability, skill is learned. The purpose of “The Sweet Spot” is to make readers believe that, deep-practice is the way that our skills get improved and to illustrate us how some successful people got from this process. One of the parts of this process is the sweet spot, and its definition was given by Robert Bjork as “the optimal gap between what you know and what you're trying to do”