What if everything you know about raw talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong? Very few people are truly great at what they do. But why aren't they? Why don't we manage businesses like Warren Buffett, play golf like Tiger Woods or play the violin like Itzhak Perlman? Greatness doesn't come from inborn talent but from 'deliberate practice'. This isn't the kind of hard work that your parents told you about, but more of it equals better performance. Talent is Overrated will change the way you think about your life and work - and will inspire you to achieve more in everything you do. Great performance isn't reserved for a preordained few.

"A provocative title for a fascinating book."-Charlie Rose
Asked to explain why a few people truly excel, most of us offer one of two answers. The first is hard work. Yet we all know plenty of hard workers who have been doing the same job for years or decades without becoming great. The other possibility is that the elite possess an innate talent for excelling in their field. We assume that Mozart was born with an astounding gift for music, and Warren Buffett carries a gene for brilliant investing. The trouble is, scientific evidence doesn't support the notion that specific natural talents make great performers.
According to distinguished journalist Geoff Colvin, both the hard work and natural talent camps are wrong. What really makes all the difference is a highly specific kind of effort-"deliberate practice"- that few of us pursue when we're practicing golf or piano or stockpicking.
Based on a wide array of scientific research, "Talent Is Overrated" shares the secrets of extraordinary performance and shows how to apply these principles. It features the stories of extraordinary people who never stopped challenging themselves and who achieved world- class greatness through deliberate practice- including Benjamin Franklin, comedian Chris Rock, football star Jerry Rice, and top CEOs Jeffrey Immelt and Steven Ballmer.

Never waste a crisis.
Some businesses--and some people--will emerge from today's economic tumult stronger and more dominant than when it started. Others will weaken and fade. It all depends on critical choices they make right now. Geoff Colvin, one of America's most respected business jour-nalists, says even the scariest turbulence has an upside. The best managers know that conventional thinking won't help them in tough times. They're taking smart, practical steps--frequently unconventional and even counterintuitive--that will not only keep them strong, but will also distance them from the pack for years to come. The dozens of top-performing leaders Colvin interviewed reject the common view that slashing costs and firing employ-ees are the only effective tactics. They see volatility as a rich opportunity to reinvent their organizations and lay the ground-work for future growth. Colvin shows us how these strategies really work, using exam-ples of major companies that have successfully applied them.

In the dawning age of brilliant machines, what will people do better than computers? It's easy to imagine a frightening future in which technology takes over the jobs that we now get paid to do, working more accurately and for barely any cost. Computers can already perform surgery, drive vehicles, write articles and do intricate legal work, so what hope will there be for tomorrow's workforce? Drawing on a wealth of research, Geoff Colvin uncovers the skills that will be in great demand as technology advances - and how they can be developed. In this new machine age, we shouldn't try to beat computers at what they can do. We'll lose that contest. Instead we must look to unlikely places, learn from the best, and cultivate the human abilities that make us unique.