Geoff Colvin quotes

Geoff Colvin is an accomplished author, broadcaster, and speaker who is renowned for his insights on business and leadership. With over two decades of experience as a Fortune 500 executive, Colvin offers practical advice and strategies for achieving success in today's fast-paced world. His best-selling books, including "Talent is Overrated" and "Humans are Underrated," have garnered widespread acclaim for their thought-provoking ideas. As a regular contributor to Forbes and host of "Fortune's" podcast, Colvin offers valuable perspectives on emerging trends and challenges in the business world. Book Geoff Colvin for your next event and gain valuable insights from a seasoned expert.

We can never make progress in the comfort zone because those are the activities we can already do easily, while panic-zone activities are so hard that we don’t even know how to approach them. Identifying the learning zone, which is not simple, and then forcing oneself to stay continually in it as it changes, which is even harder – these are the first and most important characteristics of deliberate practice.

- Geoff Colvin

The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won’t do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.

- Geoff Colvin

The differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain.

- Geoff Colvin

It’s nice to believe that if you find the field where you’re naturally gifted, you’ll be great from day one, but it doesn’t happen. There’s no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.

- Geoff Colvin

In a wide range of fields, including business, the connection between general intelligence and specific abilities is weak and in some cases apparently nonexistent.

- Geoff Colvin

Ambitious parents who are currently playing the Baby Mozart video for their toddlers may be disappointed to learn that Mozart became Mozart by working furiously hard.

- Geoff Colvin

IQ is a decent predictor of performance on an unfamiliar task, but once a person has been at a job for a few years, IQ predicts little or nothing about performance.

- Geoff Colvin