Poker Media Mid Life Crisis

[Graham C]

Book before that was called the Sports Gene. After reading maybe five books about how hard work beats talent, this one is all about natural talent. Cracking read again, especially this story about this Swedish high jumper who dedicated his life to the high jump, only to be beat at the world championships by someone who had only been doing it for three months.

There was an article on the BBC website (I think) the other day about a chap who had a discussion with his brother (again, I think but these details aren't that important) about whether or not hard work outweighs talent and he came up with the idea that 10,000 hours of practice would be enough to turn anyone into a "pro" in that field.  He sent himself a challenge to become a pro golfer with 10k hours practice.   He'd never swung a club before and started out just putting.  He's about 5k hours in and is down to a 4 (I think, sorry!) handicap and is looking forward to getting to a plus handicap soonish, hoping to compete on a pro event within the rest of the hours.

Must be nice to have 10,000 spare hours.

Anyway, apologies for the late bump of your post, I don't venture to the diary boards much but thought I'd post anyway 

[DaveShoelace]

Book before that was called the Sports Gene. After reading maybe five books about how hard work beats talent, this one is all about natural talent. Cracking read again, especially this story about this Swedish high jumper who dedicated his life to the high jump, only to be beat at the world championships by someone who had only been doing it for three months.

There was an article on the BBC website (I think) the other day about a chap who had a discussion with his brother (again, I think but these details aren't that important) about whether or not hard work outweighs talent and he came up with the idea that 10,000 hours of practice would be enough to turn anyone into a "pro" in that field.  He sent himself a challenge to become a pro golfer with 10k hours practice.   He'd never swung a club before and started out just putting.  He's about 5k hours in and is down to a 4 (I think, sorry!) handicap and is looking forward to getting to a plus handicap soonish, hoping to compete on a pro event within the rest of the hours.

Must be nice to have 10,000 spare hours.

Anyway, apologies for the late bump of your post, I don't venture to the diary boards much but thought I'd post anyway 

Yes he features quite heavily in the Sports Gene. Apparantly he is doing quite well

[nirvana]

Book before that was called the Sports Gene. After reading maybe five books about how hard work beats talent, this one is all about natural talent. Cracking read again, especially this story about this Swedish high jumper who dedicated his life to the high jump, only to be beat at the world championships by someone who had only been doing it for three months.

There was an article on the BBC website (I think) the other day about a chap who had a discussion with his brother (again, I think but these details aren't that important) about whether or not hard work outweighs talent and he came up with the idea that 10,000 hours of practice would be enough to turn anyone into a "pro" in that field.  He sent himself a challenge to become a pro golfer with 10k hours practice.   He'd never swung a club before and started out just putting.  He's about 5k hours in and is down to a 4 (I think, sorry!) handicap and is looking forward to getting to a plus handicap soonish, hoping to compete on a pro event within the rest of the hours.

Must be nice to have 10,000 spare hours.

Anyway, apologies for the late bump of your post, I don't venture to the diary boards much but thought I'd post anyway 

He may not have been the first but Malcolm Gladwell was a proponent of the 10000 hours thing, I think in 'Outliers'. I met that Gladwell once when we hired him to speak at our event after he published Tipping Point

[DaveShoelace]

Yes Gladwell popularised the concept, it was K Anders Ericsson who came up with it after studying talent in youth for years.

Love Gladwell, best storyteller in the business - what was he like as a person (because I get the impression he might be a bit snobby)?

[mulhuzz]

Yes Gladwell popularised the concept, it was K Anders Ericsson who came up with it after studying talent in youth for years.

Love Gladwell, best storyteller in the business - what was he like as a person (because I get the impression he might be a bit snobby)?

Gladwell tells good stories, but that's all they are: stories and anecdotes.

The 'science' in them is manipulated beyond the point where you can take it seriously.

He's a good marketeer, but a fucking terrible scientist. Which is a problem, when his output and product are science books.

[DaveShoelace]

He never claimed to be a scientific writer though, though you are totally right, he is promoted as such

[DaveShoelace]

,

[Tal]

[nirvana]

Yes Gladwell popularised the concept, it was K Anders Ericsson who came up with it after studying talent in youth for years.

Love Gladwell, best storyteller in the business - what was he like as a person (because I get the impression he might be a bit snobby)?

Ha, need to read your diary more often. He wasn't the least bit snobby but did have the American thing of showing a sincerity that never quite reached the eyes.

I was very lucky in a few year spell to meet a number of modern greats (Business gurus and business leaders) who we booked to speak at our events:

Jack Welch (along with Kirsty Wark to interview him live - OK she's not a modern great but I sort of loved her :-), Stephen Covey, Michael Porter, Gary Hamel, Anita Roddick, Kjell Nordstrom, Herb Kelleher, Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Benjamin Zander, Anthony Robbins, Fred Reichheld, Warren Bennis, Ken Blanchard, Ricardo Semler

A few second tier business leaders like Allan Leighton, Simon Woodroffe, Martha Rogers, Tim Sanders and  many more but my memory dims.

I can honestly say that nearly all these people were classy and had a great knack of making you feel like you were their friend. Certainly aware of their VIP status for want of a better word, but likeable. Up to $175,000 for a couple of hours work might help them with that outlook :-)

We also ran a number of streamed specialist sessions at the event with speakers drawn from business who were speaking for free - true to say that in this group there were a fair few people who were less than good company - kind of templated corporate, patronising & condescending etc.

Can only think of 2 people we wanted to speak at our events who never did - Richard Branson & Terry Leahy. Fond memories before I became a no-mark.

[tikay]

Branson?

Each to their own, I suppose. What if Michael O'Leary was the same price? Which of the two would you choose?

Terry, yes, would be very enlightening speaker I believe, a man with great vision.

[nirvana]

Branson?

Each to their own, I suppose. What if Michael O'Leary was the same price? Which of the two would you choose?

Terry, yes, would be very enlightening speaker I believe, a man with great vision.

With a business head on (and back in 2000-2004) would choose Branson - almost guaranteed 1000 seat sell out in UK and more, many more, in the US. He's just one of those people.

O'Leary would have been great too to be fair and almost certainly would have had a great deal more of interest to say.

Leahy's achievements are, arguably, second to none in terms of business transformation, and urgh, can't believe i'm gonna say it, but also in creating shareholder value - we would have loved to have him but never managed it.

[mulhuzz]

Seth Godin tho <3

[DaveShoelace]

Seth Godin tho <3

He is a funny one, for years I thought he was fluffy and pretentious, but pretty much everyone whom I respect reveres him as a god, Recently I have found him more interesting.

He is one of those emperors news clothes kind of guys. If he does something great, everyone says its standard. If he does something that seems shit, everyone says 'ah classic Seth, playing with the conventions again and rewriting the script'

[mulhuzz]

Seth Godin tho <3

He is a funny one, for years I thought he was fluffy and pretentious, but pretty much everyone whom I respect reveres him as a god, Recently I have found him more interesting.

He is one of those emperors news clothes kind of guys. If he does something great, everyone says its standard. If he does something that seems shit, everyone says 'ah classic Seth, playing with the conventions again and rewriting the script'

yeah that's definitely an attitude that prevails - I think in part that's just people protecting his reputation. Not all of his ideas are golden ofc - sometimes he's just a punter like the rest of us

[DaveShoelace]

I know this sounds really miserable and grumpy, but it's not meant to be. One profound realisation I've had the last few weeks is that the more you do for people, the more they feel entitled to, rather than the other way around of being grateful. I won't go into specifics because I'm not angry about it or want to embarass anyone or anything, but recently I know of three ongoing relationships I have (One in my personal life, one at work and one with a poker friend in the industry) where I have done someone a few favours for whatever reason, or done way more than was asked of me, and now those people are either demanding that I do more for them, or at least get pissed off when I dont do the same thing for them over and over.

The poker industry friend example was someone I gave some advice to a few times, it really helped them out and improved their job for them and they were really appreciative. But now I am getting them asking me to do new things for them every single day. I've had to tell them no, and they seemed really pissed, but they are still asking me again and again.

The work thing, last year completely unprompted I had an idea and implemented it which improved performance in an area by about 40%. This is something that, as far as I can tell, had never been addressed or measured by the person in question, and it wasn't even related to the job I do for them. There was a slight dip in the performance of said thing last week, it was only about 20% improved on how it was performing prior to me changing things. What followed was some polite but constructive feedback about how I need to stay focussed and make sure it doesn't dip again. To date, this person hasn't even acknowledged the improvements I made that they never bothered to try and fix themselves, the only feedback I've had was when something didn't go as perfectly as it had been doing.

Anyhoo, forgive my crypticness, its actually just something I find interesting. I've read plenty of psychology books/articles that seem to support this notion. It's probably the same mentality that makes people who do f'all or mistreat people look like saints the one time they do something right.

Reminds me of this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-dalton/harness-the-ben-franklin-effect_b_4605447.html

To save the post, this was on TV last night