June 30, 2022

#336 - Daily MG - Talent Code by Daniel Coyle - 4 of 6

5 minutes

"Useful Brain Science Insight Number 1: All actions are really the result of electrical impulses sent along chains of nerve fibers. Basically our brains are bundles of wires - 100 billion wires called neurons, connected to each other by synapses. Whenever you do something, your brain sends a signal through those chains of nerve fibers to your muscles. Each time you practice anything - sing a tune, swing a club, read this sentence - a different highly specific circuit lights up in your mind, sort of like a string of Christmas lights.

Then there's Useful Brain Science Insight Number 2: The more we develop a skill circuit, the less we're aware that we're using it. We're built to make skills automatic, to stash them in our unconscious mind. This process, which is called automaticity, exists for powerful evolutionary reasons. (The more processing we can do in our unconscious minds, the better our chances of noticing that saber-toothed tiger lurking in the brush.) It also creates a powerfully convincing illusion: a skill, once gained, feels utterly natural, as if it's something we've always possessed.

These two insights - skills as brain circuits and automaticity - create a paradoxical combination: We're forever building vast, intricate circuits, and we're simultaneously forgetting that we built them." - Daniel Coyle

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