Physicists often wonder how can there be a man as genius as Albert Einstein who had such a radical line of thought in the discovery of photoelectric effect. But how did Einstein, who was considered stupid when he was a kid, postulated such hypothesis that bring him to the Nobel prize? The journey of Daniel Coyle's book, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born, It's Grown, Here's How, is an effort to understand how men that we called talented people grow their talents.

In his study, based on his "Great Expedition" to places that produce Everest-size amounts of talent in soccer, music, baseball, and others, Coyle argues that deep practice is the key factor that brings everyone to reach their goals, not talent which is conventionally defined as a combination of genes and environment . Coyle quotes many stories from his expedition to illustrate his basic argument. Brazil can produce many great soccer player because "it possesses a unique confluence of factors: a friendly climate, a deep passion for soccer, and a genetically diverse population of 190 million, 40 percent of whom are desperately poor and long to escape through the beautiful game" (p. 14-15). The author further elaborates that the success of Brazil in producing many great soccer player cannot be explained solely in the perspective of talent because in the 1940s and 1950s, Brazil was not always a great producer of soccer player (p. 15). Despite those difficulties, Coyle claims that deep practice is the key that makes Brazil produce great soccer player. proposes deep practice which "is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways - operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes - makes you smarter" (p. 18).

Coyle's ideas about practice seem relevant for those who want to craft their skills that are used for repetitive tasks, such as playing soccer, musical instruments, singing, doing math, and so forth. As explained in the introductory chapter, the author states that when people practice more and more, the myelin is getting thicker, causing the faster information flow from one neuron to the other (p. 5). As the result, those who practice a lot in their field of interest will have a better connection between neurons in their brain and their motoric neurons in their body.

However, Coyle's ideas about practice do not seem applicable in the case of proposing a creative idea. For example, Einstein who proposed photoelectric effect, stating that light consists of discrete particles called photons. I believe that proposing such radical hypothesis cannot be created by deep practice. Deep practice may contribute, but not the whole, though Einstein himself believed that success is 99% hard work. Other factors, such as accumulated experiences, culture, and luck, may contribute in someone's life that causes them to generate such idea.