The Talent Code is full of stories and examples of success. These illustrations help prove the science behind building talent. It is a full circle, the more knowledgeable you are about something and the more understanding you have the more passion you will naturally have towards it. In the same way, you need to have an initial spark of interest to even get started in the deep practice. Finishing up the book, James shared how his life and career followed this structure without him even recognizing it. 

Reading this book got me thinking a lot about my career in real estate and how it has evolved over the past 12 years. It referenced taking 10,000 hours or 10 years to master a skill. This is because myelin is developed through repetition of firing those circuits in your brain. The more you do it the more myelin is developed and the easy that skill becomes. There are three phases to mastery of a certain skill 1. Deep Practice 2. Ignition 3. Master Coaching

Through the first 7 years of my real estate career, I spent a lot of time in deep practice. I was developing my skills to be a business owner and serve clients. I had some successes here and there that kept me going but I didn't hit the ignition phase until I got to RE/MAX and surrounded myself with many of the top producing agents in AZ. This opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities for my business, how to better serve my client's needs and enjoy it. Seeing other agents running successful businesses ignited a desire for me to follow their lead. This cycled me back into deep practice, but this time it had more meaning and purpose. I began to grow exponentially. Over the past couple years, I've begun working in the master coaching phase which has further sharpened my skills. Teaching your skills to others forces you to simply what you do in order for others to understand. This is a reminder of how important it is to stay focused on the fundamentals. 

After reading the talent code I look at my daily activities differently now. I understand that I need to make mistakes to develop new skills. I understand it will take some time to develop new skills and something along the way will ignite my desire to further improve. And finally, I understand the value in coaching others through this development process as it is a critical piece of my own mastery.

Feel free to share with us your story and how you see your life line up with these three phases. Next week we will kick off a brand new book.