Why Nick Saban’s Definition of Talent is Superior to Other Definitions
Just because Nick Saban is arguably the greatest college football coach of all time doesn’t make his definition of talent better than Merriam-Webster or anybody else’s definition of talent. Nick Saban’s definition is better not because of who he is, it’s better because of the mindset it instills.
If you Google the definition of talent you get things like:
- natural aptitude or skill,
- the natural endowments of a person,
- the capacity for achievement or success you are born with,
- a natural ability to be good at something, especially without being taught.
Unquestionably, each of these definitions use the fixed mindset. They focus on the nature aspect of talent and ignore nurture. If you adopt this fixed mindset definition of talent, you concede that you are a finished product at birth. You either have talent in a specific area or you don’t.
Nick Saban’s Definition of Talent
Here is Nick Saban’s definition of talent as he defined it in his book How Good Do You Want to Be?:
Talent is putting skills into productive use.
As you see, Nick Saban’s definition of talent starts with the process of first learning a skill, and then applying that skill to something productive. Given that, this is a growth mindset definition of talent. No one can be born with talent. You must first invest in your skills before you can have talent. What’s more, investing in your skills requires work and nurturing. Nature may be able to help, but nature can’t get you from skill to talent.
If you adopt the growth mindset, you see yourself as a piece of clay that you can mold into many different things. Yes, if you’re 5 foot 5 it will be extremely hard to be an NBA all-star, but that doesn’t mean you can’t develop a talent to be a productive basketball player in high school or college if you have a deep passion for the sport. This thinking applies to nearly all areas of skill and talent.
As far as using the growth mindset as a mental skill, it’s all about focusing on what you can control. That means you must focus on how you can use nurture and hard work can overcome nature. Although nature can and does create barriers to entry in certain fields of talent, there are still ways to navigate through those barriers using the growth mindset coupled with hard work.