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Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success
Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success
Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success
Audiobook7 hours

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success

Written by Matthew Syed

Narrated by James Clamp

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

In the vein of the international bestselling Freakonomics, award-winning journalist Matthew Syed reveals the hidden clues to success—in sports, business, school, and just about anything else that you’d want to be great at. Fans of Predictably Irrational and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point will find many interesting and helpful insights in Bounce.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateApr 20, 2010
ISBN9780062009012
Author

Matthew Syed

A two-time Olympian and a graduate of Oxford University, Matthew Syed is a columnist for The Times (London), a commentator for the BBC, and a recipient of the British Press Award for Sports Journalist of the Year, and was named British Sports Feature Writer of the Year by the Sports Journalists' Association.

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Reviews for Bounce

Rating: 4.176315789473684 out of 5 stars
4/5

190 ratings18 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing insight into sport, professional athletics and what it takes to become some of the greatest athletes in the world. Written by a great author and fantastic journalist .

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although I found the material a bit repetitive in spots, the book is an enjoyable listen. Worth the listen if you are new to the realm of deliberate practice; but be forewarned: if you have read "Talent Is Overrated" and are familiar with the concept of deliberate practice, this book offers nothing new.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fantastic read/listen. very though provoking worked that is backed by a lot of research, debunking a lot of misconceptions about the secrets of success in sport. A must read for all associated with performance in both sport and in general.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So many useful insights in this book for coaching.
    The important of putting the effort (quantiy) + the quality of training (purposeful exercising) and the important of the coaching to make an athlete succeed at a higher level.

    There is no magic formula only:
    Countless hours of work + quality training + quality entourage.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent book. Really clear conclusion and helpful examples. A nice companion to outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Gave me new vision on the topic of talent and success!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Highly entertaining book with a good message--hard work and thoughtful practice is much more important than 'talent.' I had read two of the books that he draws examples from which made parts of the book rather derivative. However, the original parts, especially those dealing with his table tennis career, were delightful.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting insights, combines the work of some great thinkers and put together well with his own twist.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Decent, but far too similar to "Outliers" without many new ideas. Still a good book about the benefits of purposeful-practice.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bounce made me rethink (still in progress) how I approach my day to day activities. Which ones I would like to get good at? And which ones I would just like to enjoy while passing time? Which ones I would continue to enjoy while improving my skills?

    The chapter about purposeful practice is very useful for anyone playing a musical instrument.

    The last chapter was a cherry on the cake: ethics of human augmentation.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An interesting book about how people like Mozart and Federer really got good (hint: it's not because they were naturally good or had innate talent).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Most of this book I found interesting. The premise that you need 10,000 hours of focussed, interested practice that extends you, rather than repeating the first hour 10,000 times was probably what I got most from this book. I found the sections on African runners a little bit off topic and the section on East German athletes strangely voyeuristic and sensationalistic.His observations from his own perspective as a top level athlete were mostly good, though there were times when it didn't flow as evenly as it could have.I had the impression that it was a series of essays rather than a cohesive book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good literary non-fiction work, which draws together findings of several scient;ts (Ericsson, tc.) to support the idea that 10 years practice is what leads to expertise and that that genetics do not play a strong role in predicting sports success.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Highly entertaining book with a good message--hard work and thoughtful practice is much more important than 'talent.' I had read two of the books that he draws examples from which made parts of the book rather derivative. However, the original parts, especially those dealing with his table tennis career, were delightful.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Book is an easy read and presents convincing arguments in favour of rigourous, motivated, driven, focussed and purposeful practice to achieve success in ANY field by ANYONE. Later half of book meanders off from original thesis somewhat but connects in the end.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    interesting ideas (not terribly novel) but would have been a good magazine article - dragging things out and repeating them just pads it into a book-length work
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So it turns out there's no such thing as talent, there's only hard work. This concept is immediately counter-intuitive, but the further through Bounce you get, the more it makes sense. They've identified ten years as the magic time it takes to produce a world champion - and only if that ten years is filled with lots of purposeful practice. Even Mozart turns out to have put in the prerequisite ten years before he wrote his first true masterpiece. The overall message is profound. Where it really hit home for me, as a father, was reading about the studies in which two groups of children were told either "aren't you clever!" or "didn't you work hard!" and the dramatic effects of each statement. This is the first time I've stumbled upon these ideas. The ideas are not the author's own but he neatly summarises studies across multiple disciplines, adding his own interesting research, resulting in a very accessible introduction to the topic of excellence.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    About: Syed covers why successful people become so excellent at their craft.Pros: Very interesting, shows the importance of practice, well written with good examples.Cons: First section is pretty much a rehash of Gladwell's Outliers.Grade: B+