Quotes from Daniel Coyle

Oettingen's work doesn't line up with how we normally think about motivation and goals. We normally think about them as being intrinsic to a person. People are either motivated or they're not; accordingly, we describe motivation with terms like desire or heart. But in these experiments, motivation is not a possession but rather the result of a two-part process of channeling your attention: Here's where you're at and Here's where you want to go.

Growing skill, as we've seen, requires deep practice. But deep practice isn't a piece of cake: it requires energy, passion, and commitment. In a word, it requires motivational fuel, the second element of the talent code.

What matters is establishing this link and consistently creating engagement around it. What matters is telling the story.

Great teachers focus on what the student is saying or doing," he says, "and are able, by being so focused and by their deep knowledge of the subject matter, to see and recognize the inarticulate stumbling, fumbling effort of the student who's reaching toward mastery, and then connect to them with a targeted message.

We usually think of passion as an inner quality. But the more I visited hotbeds, the more I saw it as something that came first from the outside world. In the hotbeds the right butterfly wingflap was causing talent hurricanes. "I

They created a high-purpose environment, flooded the zone with signals that linked the present effort to a meaningful future, and used a single story to orient motivation the way that a magnetic field orients a compass needle to true north: This is why we work. Here is where you should put your energy.

Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

Every dinner, every elbow touch, every impromptu seminar on politics and history adds up to build a relational narrative: You are part of this group. This group is special. I believe you can reach those standards. In other words, Popovich's yelling works, in part, because it is not just yelling. It is delivered along with a suite of other cues that affirm and strengthen the fabric of the relationships.

Normally, we think about trust and vulnerability the way we think about standing on solid ground and leaping into the unknown: first we build trust, then we leap. But science is showing us that we've got it backward. Vulnerability doesn't come after trust—it precedes it. Leaping into the unknown, when done alongside others, causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet.

Stott believed that the key to policing riots was to essentially stop policing riots.

participants look at the task as a whole—as one big chunk, the megacircuit. Second, they divide it into its smallest possible chunks. Third, they play with time, slowing the action down, then speeding it up, to learn its inner architecture

Rule number one was to keep all riot gear out of sight:

purposely operating at the edges of their ability, so they will screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better.

Instead, Stott trained a crew of liaison officers who wore light-blue vests instead of the customary yellow. These officers were selected not for their riot control skills but for their social skills: friendliness and ability to banter.

One study found that workers who shared a location emailed one another four times as often as workers who did not, and as a result they completed their projects 32 percent faster.)

To some Portuguese police, Stott's ideas sounded illogical if not insane. Several protested, saying that facing gangs of violent hooligans without protective armor was reckless. By the time the tournament arrived, the English press had derisively termed the program "Hug-A-Thug." The sporting and scientific worlds waited doubtfully to see if Stott's method would work. It worked.

One of the reasons it works is that it creates a high-purpose environment by delivering an unbroken array of consistent little signals. Every time an officer banters with a fan, every time a fan notices the lack of protective armor, a signal is sent: We are here to get along. Every time the police allow fans to keep kicking the ball, they reinforce that signal. By themselves, none of the signals matter. Together they build a new story.

As football coach Tom Martinez likes to say, "It's not how fast you can do it. It's how slow you can do it correctly." Second, going slow helps the practicer to develop something even more important: a working perception of the skill's internal blueprints—the shape and rhythm of the interlocking skill circuits.

As Vladimir Horowitz, the virtuoso pianist who kept performing into his eighties, put it, "If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip for three days, the world notices.

Purpose isn't about tapping into some mystical internal drive but rather about creating simple beacons that focus attention and engagement on the shared goal.

Collisions - defined as serendipitous personal encounters - the lifeblood of any organization, the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion.

Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking out a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions. Pick a target. Reach for it. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach. Return to step one.

How does a cranky, demanding coach create the most cohesive team in all of sports? One common answer is that the Spurs are smart about drafting and developing unselfish, hardworking, team-oriented individuals. This is a tempting explanation, because the Spurs clearly make a concerted effort to select high-character individuals. (Their scouting template includes a check box labeled "Not a Spur." A check in this box means the player will not be pursued, no matter how talented he is.)

He's very smart, but the smartest thing about him is that he thinks sort of like an eight-year-old," says Jeanne Markel, director of culture for the Downtown Project. "He keeps things really simple and positive when it comes to people.