Mozart, Da Vinci, and Disc Golf

What makes the great ones great? Why do most remain average? And what can you do about it? We're talking about talent. Is it real or a myth, or worse yet, an excuse? Explore the questions, research, and mechanisms behind talent. Find out why some people tend to pull away from the pack and excel while others don't.

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Transcript

Mozart, Da Vinci, and Disc Golf

[00:00:00] Mom, dad's making a Disc Golf podcast.

Hi, I'm Kayleigh. Thank you for tuning into the Intentional Disc golfer, the only podcast dedicated to helping you become the player you want to be. It is our mission to explore the physical and mental aspects of disc golf performance. So begin your understanding of. And to help you reach your potential.

Now to introduce your host, Jenny and Brandon. Thank you Kayleigh, for bringing us into this episode of the Intentional Disco for podcast. I'm Brandon, along with my wife Jenny. Hello, everyone out there. Welcome to Da da da, episode two titled Mozart Da Vinci and Disc Golf. Why You may Ask, what do they have to do with each.

Well, we'll go ahead and tell you about that [00:01:00] right after we hear from our sponsor. Hey, Washington Summer's right around the corner, and you know what that means. It's construction season. Whether you need a repair or remodel for the outdoor living space, or hey, maybe even your indoor living space, give VC Construction a call 3 6 0 2 7 1 3 4 4 1 or email at info bc construction nw.com.

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Today what we are talking about is talent. The reason why we're doing our second episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer on Talent and what is a talent myth is because we're trying to break down the barrier that some people are just better at disc golf than others. It is true. However, there are ways [00:02:00] that we can go about learning and growing to become better at this sport or at anything we choose to do, and so that's why our second episode is focusing on talent.

This episode is really an examination of how to take that myth apart and see what really goes into it, and do a deep examination of what that talent word really means. This is something that's near and dear to me. I've done a lot of research and exploring on this. This all started many, many years ago.

Before I even met Jenny, I was in college and I was, I needed to fill out some credits, so I ended up taking this sports psychology class, and it turned out being to be like one of the best classes I ever took. It was the end of the term paper and I had to write this paper and I was looking for a, you know, great thing that was controversial and all this other kind of [00:03:00] stuff.

And I landed on this question is there's such a thing as talent. And so I, Doug and Doug and Doug and Jenny, if I were to ask you that question, if you were a member of that audience, and I say, do you, what do you think of talent? What does, what does that invoke for? When I was younger, I thought talent was something that I was good at or something that someone else was good at.

And now as a parent looking at my kids, some of the kids have taken to different activities quicker than others, and so I don't know if I want to say that that's talent or if it's because of the way that we've raised them. And so we. Giving them more opportunities in certain situations. Like our kids are a lot better at disc golfing than they are at roller skating because they've never been roller skating.

So I'm [00:04:00] not really sure how I, what I feel that talent is. So like take for example let's say, I don't know Freddy Mercury. Right. Arguably one of the best rock and roll singers in history, if not one of the just flat out best singers in history. Not true. Arguably. Arguably, Alvin. From the Chipmunk album is better.

The Chipmunks. , okay. I, I don't know about that. It's the, it's all about the mustache really is what it is. Go to beard. Yeah. . So , Jesus. Huh, that's a Vox Kinna reference. Have you , have you've seen Vox kinna? Where? Where I've got a beard. Yeah. All of a sudden the guy really sprouts a beard. But yeah. Would you say like, Freddie Mercury is, is somebody that like, has this, like is born with this innate gift, you know, or do you, do you feel more like that was like [00:05:00] developed over time?

You just brought up Vox McKenna and how awful I am at rolling D. Like all my dice are cursed. Like I don't know if that's like a talent that some of the kids have that they're just really good at rolling dice or like there's a luck quotient or something like that. Yeah. I'm not sure, but like Is that you're born with

I was not born with a Rolling dice talent. Yeah. You have. Stay out of the casinos. I do

All right, so I mean, what, what do you think here is, is, is talent something that's like just you have it or is it something that like, that you, you know, develop over time? I think it's both. Okay. It's like there's pictures of me playing the piano as like an 18 month old, but. My dad also played piano, [00:06:00] and so it's something that I was given opportunities to play piano there.

I've always had a piano around me. They took me to piano lessons. I did all sorts of. Piano activities was in jazz band and it was fostered and, and it was grown. So was that something that you were around since like birth or like Yeah, even in the womb type of thing. The only thing I know about being in the womb is that my mom ate oysters and cheese pizza from Tony's, and that's why I like both Tony's cheese pizza.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I think. I think she did cheese in black olive and like that was my favorite. Okay. I don't remember, I don't, I don't know. But it like your dad had a piano, like pretty much in all of your memorable Hi. Memorable history. Dad had, it was like, I don't remember what they're called. The old fashioned electric pianos.

It like a disco machine? Piano. A vibraphone. No, that's a no, that's a, [00:07:00] that's a valid, a xylophone thing there. Yeah. A mallet instrument. Yeah. We've, we've always had a, a piano and it's been fostered and I've had lots of electric pianos and they bought me a real piano and yeah. So it's, it's, and now you have one off the side of the road.

Yeah. Best piano ever. , that's a, that's a great story for another time, but , but it's like thinking of you, your mom plays piano. My mom played piano ever since I can remember. And you can't, and well, and like my grandfather was he was heavy into music too. And so like, those were the two basic people that raised me.

And you can play guitar, and guitar Doesn't make sense to me at all. Well, I, I can also sight read and play piano. I can't site read piano music, but I know how to read notes and stuff. I could read guitar. And things like that. But definitely my musical background between my grandfather and my mom helped me to [00:08:00] pick up the guitar and just kind of learn it.

And I, I did take piano lessons and everything else. Yeah. So in our house, I know we, we say that we have a lot of. Musical abilities. And we also, for the most part, like to play games so we have a competitive side. True. And I would say that overall those are, I don't even know if I would say that those are our talents, but they're attributes to our family, our tendencies.

Maybe looking at the kids. Our kids and what they're good at. We've got two that are really good at art drawing, anime. However, it's, it's not something they were just innately talented with. It's something that [00:09:00] they've been. Working on, and that's all they do is draw and draw and draw and draw and draw the same thing over and over and over and over again.

So they're really good at one style of arts. They're, they're really good at drawing one thing. Yeah. . That's why most characters have one eye and not two. Yeah. It's because it's, it's the. That's true. It's always, they don't ever do the other side. They can't. Yeah, they can't. Ooh, that's challenge. They can't draw the other side.

Tried the other eye. , . We've tried to get them to expand their boundaries onto like maybe drawing some landscapes and, you know, I think Or onto the right eyeball. Yeah. The, the other eye, I think one of them like drew a guitar finally, or. Drew a character with a purse. I think it's, that was different. I think it's more when they have drawn something different, they're really impressed that, oh my God, I can do this.[00:10:00] 

Yeah. And, and when they expand into things that they're not necessarily comfortable with, I find that like they, you know, like you said, they're very surprised and kind of, you know, encouraged by it, but also,

Encourages them to expand their horizons even more and try something different. It kind of builds that confidence piece to push further outside of their comfort zone. Well, I don't know. You're, you're the one who's talking about talent with this, so I'm trying to keep it. Talent. For me, the word drives me crazy.

What it means, how it feels, the implications. I think it was Michelangelo, the great renaissance artist that said that if they knew how hard I had to work to become a master, they wouldn't think it was wonderful at all. And I, I feel the same way about talent, especially after digging. I was looking for like science to back up the way I felt about it because I.

[00:11:00] Felt that like there was something missing. Why, why are the great ones so great at things and, and what's the difference between them and everybody else? So going back to I had the opportunity to play with Bree and Cece, both FA one players, and I'm an FA three, so two divisions above mine. Cici is 13 and she's sponsored by Disc Craft, I believe.

You would think just seeing her that, wow, she's talented at disc golf, and I'm not saying that she's not talent. But in talking with her father and in talking with Brie, Brie was saying that she was super excited to get to play with Cece because she remembers playing with Cece at her first tournaments when she was nine.

Cece started playing when she was nine, started playing in the rec division when she was nine because there were no other kids her age for her to play with in the area. Okay, so roughly four years. [00:12:00] Yeah. Yeah. Four or five years. Yeah. And talking with Bree and some of the things she's been through in her life and she's been playing disc golf, I wanna say for nine years, is what she said.

Okay. So in first glance, it seems like these people are really just talented. But in the conversation they were talking about how much work they've been putting in, how much they've been practicing. Like I think talent comes from this spark that makes you like click with something and make you wanna keep doing it, and so you continue to work at getting better at it.

So maybe in answering your question of what is talent, maybe talent is just someone else's view, like on the outside. Looking at you of, they think you have a talent. They don't necessarily see all the hard work and everything behind it, so it's more like a one-way mirror. Yeah. So it's more like a extrinsic point of view.

Cause like, [00:13:00] like, you know, there are some things that I good at, I'm good at, but I, I don't consider myself to be talented personally and, but somebody else might. Yeah. And then there's things that. We realize that we are good at as, as humans. Mm-hmm. . And so we continue to do those things. Like I was saying, the word talent drives me crazy.

I wanted an answer initially to this question is, what's the difference between the greatest of the greats, the Michael Jordans out there, the Wayne Gretzkys, the Tom Bradys, the Mozarts, the Box, the Macbeth's, the sitars, the Conrads, the Page Pierces. The Rainbow Dashes. Rainbow Dashes. What, what separates those people and their accomplishments from just the average bunch?

You know, you just made me think about something. It's like what I'm [00:14:00] always saying of I don't need one more hobby because I really think that these people focus and they're able to just really focus in on like one or two things, and that's how they get to be considered talented at doing something.

There's a saying out there that says, Huey Chase's two rabbits will catch. . Yep. And then on top of the question of why are the greats great, and why are the average, average, I needed to know. Another thing more personal yet, is that. Am I just stuck inside this box of like, I wasn't born with the right jeans, I wasn't born with the right this, the right that, whatever that gift is, that differentiates the two.

Since I don't have that am I just stuck here and I will, I I should just give up now cuz I'm never gonna attain it. And that's, that's, that's kind of funny and a little disheartening. [00:15:00] Coming from my version of things where I just think, oh my God, I can't believe he's done all this stuff. Like he's so capable, like he can do whatever.

So it's, it's kind of actually that what you're trying to talk about with talent is that you don't think you're talented, but people looking at you think you are. And I think a lot of that has to do with the journey. If you're the one that experiences the journey, then you don't think it's fantastic or, or amazing.

It's kinda like that Michelangelo quote that I just said is that, you know, they knew all the work that went into it. They wouldn't think it's so wonderful. Well, and I, I think talent has a lot to do. Who's sharing your story and did you make an impression on someone? Because like, think about Rick Astley, like his song wasn't that amazing until all of a sudden someone [00:16:00] decided to make it a rick roll.

and now it's like he's so talented. . I hear he is a really nice guy too. Rick Hasley that that's, from what I've heard is that he's like one of the nicest people. But you know of, might meet him one day. a lot. James. James should meet him. James would go up to him and. Rick, I'm never gonna give you up or let you down down.

Anyway, it's moving on. Okay, moving on. So, a lot of the people that, I don't know what's gonna show up in this podcast, but a lot of the people that you've mentioned that have been, that are considered talented, their talents weren't really considered until after they had passed. after they had passed, like died, like passed away.

Yeah. Well, like Paul Macbeth is still alive. Well, and so that goes back to talent is depends on what impression you make and who tells your story. I, I, yeah, I couldn't agree [00:17:00] more. I, I heard an interesting thing the other day. I, it sounds like I'm all crazy on basketball. I actually am not a big basketball fan, but somebody was talking about Kobe Bryant and how Kobe Bryant arguably you know, was one of the best players ever.

And they made a mention that he would go in the off season, he would go out every day and he would make 200 basketball shots. He would make two, or not 200, excuse me, 2000 baskets before he had quit. And he would do that every single day. And that's just the ones he made. That's not all the ones that he missed.

And. You know of, of course starting out. It took a while for him to do that. But he, what they said is eventually he got down to where he could make 2000 shots within about an hour, hour and a half. And I'm, I'm like trying to do the math in my head, like, how the heck did he do that? Like, he would have to make more than he missed, obviously.

But how many basketballs does he have in the basket next to him? Because I don't have that many discs in my. He for putting, he had a guy that rebound. I know. Who, [00:18:00] who, who does he have to help him? I know. Make that happen? I dunno. I wish I could do that with, about, with my putting, you know, make 2000 disc golf baskets, you know, make 2000 putts in hour and a half.

That'd be pretty sweet. Actually, my arm would probably fall off by then. I don't know. No offense to, to Paul Macbeth out there, but you know, how did he not accomplish what he accomplished? Nobody would've cared. Nobody would've given him, you know, the credit for the work that he's done until he makes that.

You have, you have to kind of get that feather in your hat and for every, you know, to get, to get the nod, per se. Yeah. It's not very often that they talk about the people that don't show up on the board, on the screen. Yeah, exactly. When you're watching. Exactly. And you know, One thing, and that's part of the reason for this podcast, is they don't really talk about the behind the scenes stuff.

They don't talk about his practice, they don't talk about his regiment. They don't talk about, you know how many, how many puts he makes a day when he practices, or [00:19:00] how many times he plays the course, or how many lines he throws and different things he tries, or, you know, his weightlifting routine. They, they don't talk about any of that stuff.

I have watched though, On the women's side. I remember watching some videos of Paige and I think it was Kona and a couple other people. They were actually practicing a course and, and talking through it and trying different lines, doing different throws. So that was eye-opening to me, was to actually see some of the back work and see that, oh, they, they do make mistakes.

Like we do deliberate practice. And later on I'm gonna do a whole episode about deliberate practice, because there's a lot. A lot of different facets and things to this, but basically this is, you have to have a focused direction when you're practicing and in increase the difficulty over time, over time, and keep increasing the difficulty deliberately in [00:20:00] order to get to this point where you're attaining extreme re results.

Such as Paul Macbeth being a six time world champion. Is it seven now? Six. Six, seven. You're spending an awful lot of time talking about Paul Macbeth. Yeah, he is. Well, he is an easy one to pick on. No, because he is, he's easy. How about you pick on non disk golf? He's easy. Easily one of the luminaries in the disc golf area.

So Mozart for example, arguably one of the greatest composers who ever. Like, everybody knows who Mozart is, even if you don't know who Mozart is. He's the main art artist on all of those study music. The study music, . A lot of people have this conception of Mozart that he just like one day busted onto the scene and was this big musical success and legendary composer.

And, you know, on and on and on. We don't pay attention to the back [00:21:00] work. Did you know that Moza. Was actually under the tutelage of his father from the age of three. Something had happened to his mother. I think she died or something. That's speculation, but I, I think something happened to his mother. I know that for sure.

And he went to live with his father, and his father was actually a composer in the King's Court. And so moats are, was under the tutelage of his father since the age of three, all the way up until whenever he decided to do his. I'm still stuck on the fact that you said that Mozart busted in to the scene.

Busted onto the scene. Yeah, that's bling bling . Well, that's what it would've been back then. I mean, no one would've said that coming up in my, no one would forced on carriage. No one would've thought that night. That's right. I can't get past that. My, my flo, my frilly shirt and my horse drawn carriage.

I'm on the scene bling bling. The point is nobody saw the back work. Nobody takes a moment [00:22:00] to consider where somebody like Mozart actually came from. However, take for example Da Vinci. She just said, you don't know anything about DaVinci. Now you're gonna be like, let me tell you all about Da Vinci when you busted onto the scene.

Back in, in the day, busted da Vinci busted onto the scene. Da Vinci didn't. Didn't start off a master. DaVinci. Toiled and toiled and toiled. And the works that we see of Da Vinci are not, those are just like a select, like kind of cherry picking few. I mean, the man was a genius. No, no doubt about it. I think a better example would be Edison.

Edison, but the light bulb. What about the light bulb? I don't know the, I don't know the story. We don't, we don't see the hundreds of thousands of prototypes of light bulbs. You know? That's a good point. We know [00:23:00] of the main light bulb and now we have the l e d light bulbs. And you know that, that's a great point is, you know, you don't, you don't see all the attempts that went in the garbage can.

Yeah. And everyone thinks that he just went, ta da. It's a light bulb when, that's one of the back stories that you know, I see on classroom posters all the time was, you know, Edison didn't fail a hundred times. He just found a hundred ways not to make a light bulb . Well, it's like there's a saying from two, my favorite things actually, Bruce Lee, I don't fear the man that practices a.

There practices kicking 10,000 times. I fear the man that practices one kick 10,000 times. And there's, there's another one of my favorite quotes, and I've said this a few times, Jenny, you know, this is actually from McLemore song. . You know, McLemore is great. Painters are not great because they paint great.

Painters are great because they paint a lot. Yeah. It's like [00:24:00] photography. Like you take hundreds of thousands of shots hoping to get just one good one. Yeah. Like Ansel Adams, like how many times did he have to take pictures of that one mountain to get it perfect. Or even the people you see on social media now where they talk about.

There's this picture of the Tree of Life up in fork Forks, I believe. Yeah. And it's got the bioluminescent algae, and I think it's got like a rainbow or something and it's just, it's amazing shot. And you see the picture. And then you see the massive text about what this person went through to get that perfect shot at that moment.

And it's crazy how they're like, I've been here for five days. I have to be up 24 hours a day for five days in a row. I have to have this set up just perfectly and shot after shot after shot after shot. Trying to find just the perfect one. For sure, for sure. [00:25:00] And so, , you know, through our own personal experiences and our, our journey through life, we can both agree that, well, I think we can both agree that talent is something that's developed through practice and time.

So to connect the dots on some things here, you know, I have to do this report on in sports psychology and asking myself this question on talent and everything, and so you. In college, you have to like, draw, draw together some scientific story, you know, sources and things that I'm not gonna really get into it deep on this.

However, one of the main sources I drew upon was this book by Erickson and Poole. So ands Erickson. He's a psychologist for Florida State University and he did this massive study with his late colleague William Chase. About talent and how much talent versus deliberate practice comes into play and how much it affects [00:26:00] the outcome.

And then later on in when was it 2016, he was joined by Robert Poole, who's a science writer. He, he's best known for his commentary on how society influences te. Erickson and Pool got together and made this book Peak, which is a deep dive and explanation on their findings about how much delivery practice comes into play.

To summarize the, this book was a landmark type of thing in, in this field of study because it was able to conclude, improve, deliberate practice has more so to do with. Success and positive outcomes than innate talent does. And one thing in particular that stuck out to me was a particular experiment that he had did with chess players.

Where he had people he would sit two people down to play chess, and one of them would [00:27:00] have a higher iq, and then he would have somebody with a significantly lower IQ sit down and they'd play chess against each other. Now, what they found is that the person with the higher IQ was able to play the chat, play chess, and would win.

Very early on in the process, but later on, later on, as they practiced more and played more games, the person with the lower IQ actually would surpass the person with the higher iq. Eventually. Now I don't, I didn't look too much into it. I don't know how many games they played, how many hours they did, what kind of outside influences, but that's just one example of many, many experiments that they did to try to prove that deliberate practice outweighs talent as far as some sort of innate ability being a professional educator such as, , have you experienced something where you, like you have a really smart kid and a kid that maybe not.

is perceived as all that, but the, the, [00:28:00] for lack of a better sense, the less capable kid surpasses the kid that has all of the, the skills and the All the time. All the time. I was one of 'em. You were one of them? Yeah. Okay. Go on. It's like I see with a couple of our kids, they were put into the gifted classification early on because they're very cap.

and if you set that bar, let's say that's at a seven and someone else is at a three at that age, and that person stays at a seven as they go throughout, you know, their elementary school years because they're not being challenged, that it's just stuff that they're able to comprehend rather easily.

They're not challenged, but the kid who is challenged goes from a three. Two A four, two a five, two, a six. And because they've learned how to work hard, [00:29:00] it's gonna trump over the kid who was put into the gifted class. Unless an educator is able to get that student into their zone of proximal development, which is a band around that seven, say it would be a eight and a six of this is where the kid needs to stay in order to.

Improve. I was one of those kids that when I hit like up to sixth grade, I had all A's like one of our kids and then seventh grade hit going into middle school and I started failing my classes because I didn't have the work ethic to be able to keep up with the work. And even just that was a challenge or I felt that the work was pointless.

Like it was just busy work. I wasn't actually learning anything from it. So what do you feel, what do you feel having that challenge in place? What is the mechanism there? How do, how does that. You know, how does that [00:30:00] get that kid to really like start moving forward? Something that at least American education is missing is the ability to challenge our highly capable kids.

We spend a lot of time working on the kids that need remedial education and giving them the extra supports that they need. Especially if you think of like all the emphasis on reading at a young age. We don't necessarily put a lot of emphasis on math or science. It's just the literacy that we've put a lot of emphasis on.

And so those kids that are very capable in math and sciences, you know, they're, there's a lot of kids that don't even get math or not math. They don't get science until they reach middle school. We're missing a lot of opportunities for kids to, even the intelligent kids. To learn work ethic and to be challenged.

So it's, it's hard to reach that zone of proximal development for our, our top kiddos. [00:31:00] And our, our, one thing that's really nice about disc golf is that there are ways for the, the kids that work hard in disc golf to move up. Like Cece, who I dis golfed with this weekend, she's 13. She started playing rec when she was nine because there were no girls in the junior divisions that she would've been able to compete with.

And she's 13 in an FA one, and I'm 38, 2 years into disc golfing, and I'm an FA three and she just kicked my butt. So she was able, she's been able to be challenged. And she, she's in that zone of proximal development where she can become an even better disc golfer just by working with other people and being able to have those challenges, those people to try and compete with.

Okay, so what I'm gathering here is the struggle and [00:32:00] that challenge reinforces those problem solving skills. So that, Learn the work ethic and the process of becoming proficient at something. And then as you move forward, that process that you have learned and that work ethic that you have learned allows you to keep going and going and going and it, it becomes a snowball.

Well, there's two points I wanna make on that. One, you keep dancing around the quote of. Hard work beats talent. When talent doesn't work hard. Love that quote. I know. And that's one you're getting at. You're talking about the struggle. And that made me think about, because we have chickens and we've hatched chickens, And we've had some, some chickens that I think someone tried to like help the baby out.

Mm. And they didn't survive because they didn't have to go through the full struggle in order [00:33:00] to survive. So it's like a caterpillar with a cocoon. Caterpillar comes out of the cocoon. Prematurely or whatever, their wings don't get the enough, enough strength to allow the butterfly to fly. And so the struggle is really important to the development of whatever it is.

Well, I'm als I'm also of the notion of like learning how to become good at something, teaches you how to become good at something. And it's not necessarily becoming good at that one thing. It's learning the process of becoming good at that so that you can take that process and apply it to other areas.

As a math teacher, that's one thing that I worked really hard with my students was that, look, I don't care if you get it right. That's, you know, that's typically what we're trying to do with math is that you have to get it right. Right. Like it's a problem. You solve it. There's one answer done there.

There's a right answer. There's a wrong [00:34:00] answer. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, so, so that would be like talent in this case I always try to get the kids, I don't care if you're, if you get it right, what I care about is that you tried. What I care about is that you're trying to take a problem and solve it. I don't care about the answer.

We don't care about the solution. What's, what's more important is that you're learning to use your brain. You're learning to go through those processes, especially in middle school, when they're going to be challenged more in high school and and in college or just as I go on. And that's, I think that's what we're trying to hit here with talent too, is that.

It's not just about getting to the point of ta, I'm talented. It's how do you get to that point where someone on the outset looking in can say that they think you're talented, and that takes a great deal of hard work to be able to reach that point. Well, for some people, and for some [00:35:00] people, it, it doesn't, everyone has their own level of work that they have to do.

So I would, I would not qualify it as a lot or hard work. It depends on the person. I wanna rewind a little bit. One thing that I did wanted to touch on with the Erickson and Pool thing all the different studies. The criticism that they fell under with the hard the, with the talent versus the deliberate practice.

One of the criticisms was, is that they, their sample pool was not from the general public. For example, one of the things they did with like, say, a music academy, these kids were already predisposed to be good at music. So it's not a fair sampling. Between like an average Joe and somebody that already has a propensity for this type of activity.

And so that was one of the major criticisms they came under. And there are some studies that actually go as far as to try to disprove them completely as where they say that in innate talent is up to [00:36:00] 80% of somebody's success in a particular activity, and the deliberate practice portion is only actually 25.

And so the question that I find myself asking in that scenario is what are they looking at? What are they quantifying and what are they not looking at and what are they not quantifying? Because I think that that argument, that debate between innate talent and deliberate practice, I think that that can slide either way depending on what you're willing to look at.

I, I like deliberate talent and innate practice. innate practice and deliberate talent.

You can get a bumper sticker on Tri octopus treasures. That'd be nice. Yeah. , we put that, we should put dye that onto a. What are the implications of the talent myth? Is there just this [00:37:00] gift that some people have? I wanted to examine real quick, like what are the implications? What are the outcomes of, say this belief in talent?

If you are one of these people that believes in a talent, and what are some of the, the mechanisms that may fall behind that? I, I think one thing that, that you've said in discussing even doing this episode about the talent myth is that talents aren't necessarily used to make people better, but the idea of a talent is used as an excuse for why people aren't even trying to get better.

Oh yeah. Like it's, it's you know, an excuse for me to stay on the couch instead of go out and practice my drives and go out and do field work. Right. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. Like, I'm not talented at cooking, so I don't make dinner. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and another thing you started to touch on a little bit earlier is, you know, with the kids and how.

You know, you have kids with a certain set of [00:38:00] tendencies and kids with another certain set of tendencies, and the teachers in the instruction will gravitate towards one set of tendencies and things and kind of work with that and reinforce it. You were saying like with the reading and, well, yeah, we, you know, we tend to focus on the negative because the negative is what keeps us alive.

We have that natural survival instinct that we need to focus on the negative things because the negative things are telling. Why we wouldn't survive. So you have to focus on that. Gotcha. Now in my, my research expedition and digging into this , I know, right? It had a little safari hat and like, is this like an Indiana Jones or like the guy from Jurassic Park type of expedition?

It's a guy from Jurassic Park. It definitely clever girl, that type of thing. . So in, in, in the book Peak, one of the things they talk about [00:39:00] with the talent and, and also with the other studies because I, I, I really looked at both sides. I really wanted to disprove talent and I wanted to prove talent, and I wanted to see which side of the argument held up.

Both of them, when they're talking about the mechanism behind them, both of them identified the same mechanisms though, and I think that it's really well summed up. Like this is that people will automatically gravitate towards things that they find early successes with. Would you agree with that? Yeah.

And that's one of the things, like some of the kids that I've worked with they're having behavior problems at school, so trying to get them some quick wins. As we're trying to make those behavior changes of the way that they act at school is, makes a huge difference on whether we're gonna be successful or not with that kiddo, you know what?

That's a fantastic [00:40:00] point. That's a tactic that's used in therapy all the time, is that they want to build up successes to get the. Person's behavior to gravitate towards the success spectrum instead of the fails? Well, what what came to mind for me when you were talking about wanting to prove and disprove talent was like training a dog.

Like we've gone out to the DISC golf course and we've seen the people who have their dogs that, you know, on or off leash. Totally different conversation. Not touching on it here, but they have their dogs with them and they're able to listen. They don't go after the discs unless they're told to, like they're very well-behaved dogs and I come home to our dogs and we can't get them to sit or whatever.

We love them just the same, but we, we haven't worked on that with them. Versus these people have actually taken the time to work on these skills with [00:41:00] the dogs. So I'm thinking of the, you know, the dog that can catch the ball or catch the disc. Like Baker, as he barks, baker has been taught and now he's actually interested in chasing after a disc where toffee could care less about going after a disc.

So is that because he is talented? Like is he gonna be a disc golf prodigy, , or is it because we've actually practiced it with him? A person will gravitate towards the e early success and continue to gravitate that direction as they have continued successes. And so that's what you're saying is like that's why those first precious few wins are so important.

One of the interesting things about what else the data supports is people that demonstrate early successes, the teachers and instructors and coaches and whatever capacity that may be. [00:42:00] They also tend to. Gravitate towards people that are demonstrating those early success successes as like, as if something comes easily or something comes naturally to those people.

And the problem with this is, is that it creates an even larger bias between the people that don't pick it up very quickly. And the people that do pick it up very quickly because the teachers are gonna teach the people that are easy to teach. I, I agree and I disagree with you, so, okay. Yeah. I mean, it would be nice if we could only teach the kids that want to learn.

However, in our society, there's lots of kids that don't want to learn because they haven't had those wins, so they don't want to learn, and it's easier for them to get that same sort of negative attention. Well, and, but [00:43:00] that's, that's also a. And I'm glad you said that. Well, you know that going back to Disc off with this too, like playing the ice bowl this weekend, I didn't even know that there were closest to pin.

There were two closest to PIN on like eight and 15 and I didn't know about that till like we were on our way home. Not that I would've gotten closest to 10. Yeah, , no risk of winning. But I haven't done like a men's centered event that has closest to pad. All of the women's events that I've done though have closest to pad.

Fair enough. I think there was maybe one or two, but it was only applicable to the winner women's divisions for the most part. Yeah. And so it's, you know, having that, is that a win for a, is that a positive reinforcement for a negative? Is that a negative? Like, that's where it gets kind of tricky for me.

And that's, [00:44:00] That's one thing I've been thinking about because at the Evergreen series this past summer, Kaylee was so excited to tell everybody that I got closest to PIN and closest to pad, and I was very embarrassed. . By her enthusiasm of, yeah, my mom got closest to a pin and closest to pad because it was, it was totally like opposites, you know, like, hey, you can get closest to thing and you can also screw up so bad that you're like next to the tea bed.

So this is actually great because it segues into, Something that I was gonna talk about next is that, that was a horrible segue. Oh no, it's a great seg. It's a great segue. No, you, well, maybe . I, I'm not, I'm not very, I'm not smooth operator, you know, so one of the things we were talking about off topic [00:45:00] was we were complaining about the elevated basket.

Oh, that thing. And then Brie was like, I don't know if I've ever heard, like, I'm not sure I've heard people say that. Like, this is their thing. And I was like, yeah. I don't think I know of anyone who's going around bragging that elevated baskets are their thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's something someone needs to do, that someone needs to brag that they're the best elevated baskets.

This is your challenge. So slide out. Yeah. . Yeah. So . So the where I was going with that before we went off on the tangent, the subject that we're on, and people will gravitate towards early successes and teachers will also gravitate towards early successes because those early successes on their early league successes.

It makes the teacher's job easier and the teacher gains success from that success, and it starts to snowball rolling in the other direction, whi, which creates a, a bias between the people that are learning easier and, and going towards that [00:46:00] easier and having more success than the people that are not.

And so over time those two categories will get further and further apart. Now you were talking about the closest pad and things with your. Failure is also a success. And this, this is something that we, we deal with with a lot of different things. Especially like attention getting behaviors is that failure has a payout, it has a reward.

So like, would you say that a closest to pad is, I don't know, not necessarily the best throw you can make in disc golf? Would you agree with. Kaylee tried so hard to intentionally get closest to Pat that she was upset that I unintentionally got closest to Pat. And why was that, though? Why wa Why was there competition to do poorly?

because you [00:47:00] got a prize, because you got a prize, because there was a positive reinforcement for a negative behavior. And so people will gravitate towards what they're successful at, even if that success is failure because the mechanism there is that there is some sort of payout at the end of that rainbow.

Whether it be a gray and black rainbow or an all the color rainbow, like there's a pot of gold out at the end of it. Either way. Well, and that just made me think of, you know, things in disc golf, and we had a, a roll from a putt when on my card yesterday, and she was like, oh man, I even got the hoku roll and I knew exactly what she was talking about.

And it was like, man, oh, the rollaway. The rollaway. Oh. But it was like, I hadn't heard it called the Hoku Roll, and it wouldn't have been called that until that event happened. So [00:48:00] yeah, I, I remember seeing that too. That, that was crazy. So we're, we're talking about success at failure, where failure is the success story.

You're successful at failing. You think about it. What, what is the, the payout there? The payout can be attention, the payout can be different things. And this is one aspect of many of things like say with substance abuse. The payout is that feeling that you have when you're on the substance, even though it's terrible for you, and it's going to ultimately destroy you.

People will continue in the direction of their momentum, will continue in the direction of their successes, whether that success is positive or negative, until there's sufficient enough force to stop them from going in that momentum. Po. PO positive or negative. Physics, an [00:49:00] object in motion will remain in motion until something makes it stop.

Or an object at rest will stay at rest until something makes it move. Yes. So it's the same. It's the same thing with mindsets. And I guess what we're trying to get at here is, is practice and ability. Well, well, I mean it it is. It is really physics also too, because matter is made up of energy. Mindset and feelings and things is also made up of energy, right?

So they're, they're one and the same. The laws of physics apply both to your mindset and to your physical form. I think that what you're trying to get at is back to the whole purpose of this is that talent does not keep you from being great at disc golf. And I don't know if in this one did we talk about the, that it's an.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we did. So I think that's what you're trying to get back to. I guess this is what I'm trying to say with this [00:50:00] piece is like, don't get discouraged. Now, maybe you should get discouraged because I'll tell you what, I'm really discouraged. However, I'm still trying. Well, that's, that's it. That's good though, because where I was trying to get to with this is you're discouraged and you're still trying the payout that you get from engaging in that activity.

Is still outweighs the level of discouragement, so you have no reason to stop. You might feel bad about it for a minute, but you have no reason to stop or vice versa. Then that's that force that's gonna cause you to stop. That's gonna be go ahead. I think for me, I'm just too stubborn right now that I guess the payout is worth more that, you know, I do like we were talking about why do we do this when we'd be perfect for like MA and FA five Division

I think we keep doing it because we were [00:51:00] talking about how much healthier it makes us and that it's. Up and active out in the community experiencing new things. And it's something that all of our kids do with us. So it's, it's a family thing too. So I guess that's, that's the payout for us. Yeah, we, we definitely have a clear and focused reason why we do this as a family, but I think the whole purpose of this episode is that, you know, me working with with Cece first off, it's like, man, she's just talented.

I will never be that good. However, it has nothing to do with the fact that she's talented. It's the fact that she's been disc golfing longer than I have. And that she's going to have more time probably to disc golf than I will ever have. So she will be able to excel in ways that I will not Well, and she's also probably had focused practice.

Yeah. And it's like Jordan, you know, we were talking to I think I was talking to Jordan's [00:52:00] mom about her going out there and, and practicing all the time. Like whenever she has nothing to do, she goes out and she practices throwing the disc or watching the boys at the. The Mason, the one who we did at Shelton, and they're like, they're like trying to kick it into the, the doing all sorts of weird stuff.

Yeah. And, and they're just doing stuff and Well, it's like when I asked Paul the other day anyway, Paul, how do I get better at disc golf? He looks at me dead pan and he is like, play every single day. Yep. That literally, that's what he said. And improve your posture. Yeah. He was what ? He's a, he's a six time amateur world champion.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway I would like to mention real quick though, before we go into our final thoughts here, is that one thing that I will talk about in a future episode, the deliberate practice episode when we cover that, is there is a way to trick the. [00:53:00] Where the coaches will gravitate towards early successes, the early successes will gravitate further towards and endless disparity that happens in the middle.

Let's say you're in the not so fortunate. Group of people where you're not getting that much time and attention, you're not getting those earliest successes. And just like Jenny was saying with her kids in class, that they need those early wins. They're not the early wins, but they need some successes to build up the momentum, to build up the confidence to keep going.

And a lot of times those kids will surpass the early learners, so to say. So final thought. We were talking about the talent myth, deliberate practice versus innate talent, how much each one comes into play and did some digging, went down some rabbit holes, and my personal path of discovery has led me to this, is that the debate between how much innate talent and deliberate practice plays out in the story of our lives is [00:54:00] ultimately irrelevant.

Both questions end up at the same. No matter which way you think about this, what journey of discovery that you're on, it is not the sum of your experiences. However, it is the content of your character on a mission to find your own path to greatness, be it disc golf or whatever it may be. To finish off of the quote from Albert Einstein, not all things that can be measured matter and not all things that matter can be.

Thank you for listening to the Intentional Disc golfer, the talent myth we're signing up.