This insight is revolutionary because it suggests that talent can be manufactured - all you need is a space in which you can practice making errors, struggling until you can overcome them. It is also counterintuitive because we imagine that the person with talent somehow does a thing right the first time.
But deep practice takes place in the narrow gap between what you already know and what you need to do. This deep practice does not involve threshing. There exists a “sweet spot” between your skill and what you're reaching to achieve. It is in that gap that talent is born. How exactly does one do this? Coyle enumerates further aspects of deep practice: 1) absorb the whole thing; 2) break it into parts or “chunks”; 3) slowly practice each part; 4) and repetition.
But practice alone is not enough. You need to love what you're doing, you need the desire to achieve a goal - you need fire. Without such deep need to practice every day, you will never develop talent because you will never endure the long years of necessary deep practice. Coyle calls this desire ignition.
Ignition is really faith in oneself, or, more specifically, in one's ultimate achievement of the idealized self. It is belief that one is a musician, a writer, or a signer, and this faith is the zeal that motivates the long years of deep practice necessary to materialize that idealized self.
Ignition can be kept alive by a good mentor, teacher or a coach. Good coaching has everything to do with helping the student learn techniques to overcome failure. A good teacher knows the subject, the student and how to help the student connect to the subject, and he keeps the flame of the ignition going by helping the student believe in himself.
Faith is of the key elements that differentiates those who are able to commit to the long march that deep practice requires and those who were not. Those who believe that they will ultimately reach the end, will do so. But those who lose hope will fail to put in the necessary years of deep practice to become talented.
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