{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"That’s Not Crazy, That’s History!","title":"Talent Tip #13: Find the Sweet Spot","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":375,"description":"Talent Tip #13: Find the Sweet Spot\n\nTalent tip number 13. Find the sweet spot. There is a place right on the edge of your ability where you learn best and fastest. It's called the sweet spot. Here's how to find it. The comfort zone feels like ease, effortlessness, you're working, but you're not reaching or struggling, and your percentage of successful attempts is 80 percent and above.\n\nSo that might be an easy math worksheet, or A drill and practice that at least four, four times out of five, you get right. That's called the comfort zone. Here's the sweet spot. It feels like frustration, difficulty, alertness to errors. You are fully engaged in an intense struggle as if you're stretching with all your might for a nearly unreachable goal, brushing it with your fingertips and then reaching again. \n\nYour percentage of successful attempts in the sweet spot. is 50 to 80 percent, but there's a place beyond the sweet spot and beyond the sweet, uh, the comfort zone. It's called the survival zone. Sensations in the survival zone are confusion, desperation. You are overmatched, scrambling, thrashing, and guessing.\n\nThat's a math test you didn't study for and skipped class all week. You guess right sometimes, but it's mostly luck. And your percentage of successful attempts is below 50%. That's the survival zone. So think of it like a gauge. Comfort zone. Easy. Sweet spot. Frustrating. 50 to 80 percent correct. Challenging.\n\nBut past that's like the red zone. I'm just trying to survive. To understand the importance of the sweet spot, consider Clarissa, a freckle faced 13 year old clarinet player, who was part of a study by two Australian music psychologists. Yes. There's an interesting job for you. Music psychologist. You study how people learn music. \n\nClarissa was an average musician in every sense of the word. She had average ability, average practice habits, average motivation. But one morning, a remarkable thing happened. Clarissa accomplished a month's worth of...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AM8DfjiBHrwBzBgB7NA6h4S3Knt-alytXOgplHUC3vc/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iNDJh/YjBhNzExNzNjM2Rm/YzZkYTY2MGY0YThl/MzAwMC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}