We continue with our Improve Your Talent series with a fifth tip from The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle. Today’s tip falls into the first category for improving habits: Getting Started.  In this category, the idea is to focus on ideas for igniting motivation and creating a blueprint for the skills you want to build.

Coyle shares an anecdote about Wayne Gretzky, considered the greatest hockey player of all time.  Coyle writes: “Teammates of the hockey star Wayne Gretzky would occasionally witness a strange sight: Gretzky falling while he skated through solitary drills on the ice. While the spectacle of the planet’s greatest hockey player toppling over like a grade-schooler might seem surprising, it actually makes perfect sense. As skilled as he was, Gretzky was determined to improve, to push the boundaries of the possible. The only way that happens is to build new connections in the brain—which means reaching, failing, and, yes, looking stupid.”