Books like The Little Book of Talent

01

The Talent Code

Daniel Coyle · Science

The Talent Code is Daniel Coyle's investigation into why certain places — a tennis academy in Russia, a soccer training ground in Brazil, a music conservatory in Texas — produce a disproportionate number of world-class performers.

Shares skill acquisition and deliberate practice with The Little Book of Talent.

02

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool · Science

Peak is Anders Ericsson's definitive account of deliberate practice — the specific type of focused, feedback-driven training that, more than any other factor, determines how expert people become in demanding fields.

Shares skill acquisition and deliberate practice with The Little Book of Talent.

03

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Angela Duckworth · Psychology

Duckworth's central claim is that talent is overrated.

Both dig into deliberate practice.

04

Ultralearning

Scott Young · Self-help

Ultralearning is Scott Young's synthesis of principles drawn from his own extreme learning projects — completing MIT's four-year computer science curriculum in one year, learning four languages in a year, and other aggressive self-directed learning experiments — and from the academic research on skill acquisition and deliberate practice.

Shares skill acquisition and deliberate practice with The Little Book of Talent.

05

The First 20 Hours

Josh Kaufman · Self-help

The First 20 Hours makes a sharp distinction that most books on learning quietly ignore: the difference between becoming competent at a skill and becoming world-class at one.

Shares skill acquisition and deliberate practice with The Little Book of Talent.

06

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Cal Newport · Self-help

So Good They Can't Ignore You is Newport's direct challenge to "follow your passion" as career advice.

Both dig into deliberate practice.

07

Better

Atul Gawande · Health

Better is Atul Gawande's examination of what it means to perform well in medicine, a field where the stakes are as high as they get and where the gap between ordinary and excellent care routinely determines who lives and who dies.

Both dig into improvement.

08

Co-Active Coaching

Henry Kimsey-House, Karen Kimsey-House, Phillip Sandahl, and Laura Whitworth · Business

Co-Active Coaching presents the model developed at the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), which has trained more professional coaches than any other organization in the world.

Both dig into coaching.

09

Energy Leadership

Bruce D. Schneider · Business

Energy Leadership is Bruce Schneider's framework for understanding how leaders show up — the quality of awareness and presence they bring to interactions, decisions, and crises.

Both dig into coaching.

10

First, Break All the Rules

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman · Business

First, Break All the Rules is the result of Gallup's analysis of interviews with more than 80,000 managers across a variety of industries, aimed at identifying what distinguishes the best managers from the rest.

Both dig into talent development.

11

Keys to Drawing

Bert Dodson · Art

Keys to Drawing rests on a simple, liberating claim: drawing is not a gift a few people are born with but a skill almost anyone can learn.

Both dig into deliberate practice.

12

Leading with Questions

Michael J. Marquardt · Business

Leading with Questions is Michael Marquardt's argument that great leaders are not distinguished by the quality of their answers but by the quality of their questions.

Both dig into coaching.