What is the secret to getting really good at something? As in, how does one shabby Russian tennis club turn out more top 20 women tennis players in a year than the whole USA? What are the secrets of top performers (and their instructors)? Listen to this excerpt from the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. (Great performers are made not born) Rewire your brain with deep practice!

• Deep Practice–Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn’t know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice.

• Ignition–We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development.

• Master Coaching–What are the secrets of the world’s most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these “talent whisperers” to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students.

Have you ever had a professional that excelled at everything in their life but was a painfully slow learner in the cockpit? Want a clue why this is a predictable (and solvable) problem? Read “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” by Chris Argyris. A shorter review is here. Spoiler alert;  these are people who never struggled with anything (everything they tried came easy) and they have never learned *how* to learn properly. And “double-loop learning” is valuable for accelerating everyone’s learning curve.

Double-loop learning is part of action science — the study of how we act in difficult situations. Individuals and organizations need to learn if they want to succeed (or even survive). But few of us pay much attention to exactly how we learn and how we can optimize the process.

If your time allows spend some time reading How People Learn. This is an amazing book for educators is the FREE  from the National Academy Press. You can download as a pdf or read online html (available chapter by chapter in either format) There are some amazing insights in this book for every educator!

Have a great holiday weekend. More tools for educators from SAFE here and next time; stay busy and keep learning!


Join SAFE and get great benefits (1/3 off ForeFlight!) This supports our mission of increasing aviation safety by promoting excellence in education.  Our FREE SAFE Toolkit App puts required pilot endorsements and experience requirements right on your smartphone and facilitates CFI+DPE teamwork. Our CFI insurance was developed by SAFE specifically for CFIs (and is the best value in the business).

About the author 

David St. George (Lifetime Member)

David St. George learned to fly at Flanders Valley Airport in 1970. Proving that everyone is eventually trainable, he became an FAA Gold Seal Flight Instructor for airplanes (single and multi, instrument, and glider) and serves the Rochester FSDO as an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner. In this capacity, he gives flight tests at any level from sport pilot to ATP and CFI. For 25 years David was East Hill Flying Club's 141 Chief Instructor and manager. David holds multi and single engine ATP pilot certificates, with pilot ratings for glider and seaplane and several jet type ratings. He recently earned his 13th renewal as a Master Instructor and owns an Aeronca Champ so he can build hours for that airline job! http://learnturbine.com

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