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.

Anastasia Theodosiou

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

they assume that the youths have special abilities  "because they had witnessed only a tiny percentage of the activity that had gone into its making."  Onlookers do not see the painfully slow progress made over a period of years, during the training period.  To become a world-class achiever in any field, it is not only the sheer number of hours of practice that is important; it is also the type of practice. Syed writes that  "world-class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach, but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached. Over time, through constant repetition and deep concentration, the gap will disappear, only for a new target to be created, just out of reach once again."  And he writes that  "Excellence is about stepping outside the comfort zone, training with a spirit of endeavor, and accepting the inevitability of trials and tribulations."   Syed describes many psychological experiments designed to understand what motivates people to excel. These experiments have been described in many other books, so there is nothing truly new here. But there is one result worth mentioning, even though it is not new; it is better to praise a child's effort than his intelligence or skill. By praising his intelligence, the child will not necessarily be motivated to try his hardest, and may even have the opposite of the intended effect. Lowering standards can help to boost the self-esteem of a student, but can simply lead to poorly-educated students who feel entitled to  "easy work and lavish praise".   I really enjoyed Syed's description of the difference between a scientist and an athlete. A scientist always is in doubt with a sense of inner skepticism. However, a good athlete should not be in doubt; to an athlete, doubt is poison.  I have just touched the surface of the numerous aspects of sports psychology and training that are discussed in this book. This is an excellent, entertaining book that goes in some depth into performance in not only sports, but other fields that require concentration, skills, and training. I highly recommend the book to everyone.

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