Greatness isn't born. It's grown

The Talent Code

'Talent. You've either got it or you haven't.' Not true, actually. 
 
In The Talent Code, award-winning journalist Daniel Coyle draws on cutting-edge research to reveal that, far from being some abstract mystical power fixed at birth, ability really can be created and nurtured. 
 
In the process, he considers talent at work in venues as diverse as a music school in Dallas and a tennis academy near Moscow to demonstrate how the wiring of our brains can be transformed by the way we approach particular tasks. He explains what is really going on when apparently unremarkable people suddenly make a major leap forward. He reveals why some teaching methods are so much more effective than others. Above all, he shows how all of us can achieve our full potential if we set about training our brains in the right way.

Daniel Coyle is the Sunday Times bestselling author of several books, including The Culture Code, The Talent Code, The Little Book of Talent and Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force. He lives with his wife and four children in Homer, Alaska, and Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

'Talent. You've either got it or you haven't.' Not true, actually. 
 
In The Talent Code, award-winning journalist Daniel Coyle draws on cutting-edge research to reveal that, far from being some abstract mystical power fixed at birth, ability really can be created and nurtured. 
 
In the process, he considers talent at work in venues as diverse as a music school in Dallas and a tennis academy near Moscow to demonstrate how the wiring of our brains can be transformed by the way we approach particular tasks. He explains what is really going on when apparently unremarkable people suddenly make a major leap forward. He reveals why some teaching methods are so much more effective than others. Above all, he shows how all of us can achieve our full potential if we set about training our brains in the right way.

The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

The Culture Code

A ground-breaking exploration of how successful groups operate – whether in sport, business or society as a whole – and what we can learn from them

I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book – I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerising read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water. Read it immediately.

The Culture Code is the perfect leadership manifesto for entrepreneurial startups, established enterprises and all manner of businesses in between.

If you want to understand how successful groups work – the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity – you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code. This is a marvel of insight and practicality.

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

A relevant mix of solid academic research along with practical advice and not-quite-usual . . . anecdotes from the trenches.

Max Levichin, co-founder of Paypal, Books of the Year

It’s great . . . Dan went inside incredibly successful organisations like Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs, and SEAL Team Six to uncover how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind.

Coyle’s book examines how successful groups of people – from the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six to the San Antonio Spurs – work together so well . . . Promises to “demystify” the murky topic of organisational culture by examining the key skills that prompt group cooperation.

The Culture Code is a step-by-step guidebook to building teams that are not just more effective, but happier. Whether you lead a team or are a team member, this book is a must-read.

Laszlo Bock, former SVP of People at Google and author of Work Rules!

There are profound ideas on every single page, stories that will change the way you work, the way you lead, and the impact you have on the world. Highly recommended, an urgent read.

Shares the simple changes you can make to work better with others . . . Coyle spent four years researching military units, professional basketball teams, comedy troupes and even a gang of jewel thieves to better understand how groups thrive, along with what doesn’t work.

Pop science meets a business pep talk in a useful primer on building better organisations . . . Useful throughout.

Well-told stories, with actionable lessons . . . The Culture Code yields some useful findings.

The author of the bestselling 2009 The Talent Code focuses on how ongoing learning, genuine collaboration, thoroughgoing trust, and sustainable change can contribute to better innovation and problem-solving.

An essential book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides readers with a toolkit for building a cohesive, innovative culture.

The Culture Code examines the dynamics of company culture through stories of success and failure, offering valuable insights on leadership through change.

Anthony Noto, CEO of Sofi, Books of the Year

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'A marvel of insight and practicality' Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit 
____________________________ 
 
How do you build and sustain a great team? 
 
The Culture Code reveals the secrets of some of the best teams in the world - from Pixar to Google to US Navy SEALs - explaining the three skills such groups have mastered in order to generate trust and a willingness to collaborate. Combining cutting-edge science, on-the-ground insight and practical ideas for action, it offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded. 
 
____________________________ 
 
'There are profound ideas on every single page, stories that will change the way you work, the way you lead, and the impact you have on the world. Highly recommended, an urgent read.' Seth Godin, author of Linchpin 
 
'Truly brilliant . . . Read it immediately' Adam Grant, author of Originals 
 
'Well told stories, with actionable lessons' Financial Times

Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

The Secret Race

The award-winning story of Tyler Hamilton, who takes us deep inside the secret world of professional cycling and his years as Lance Armstrong's teammate.

Brilliantly detailed and wholly convincing: with Coyle's skill and Hamilton's honesty, the book was always likely to be excellent. This is no generalised or theoretical exploration of a doping culture but a forensic description of how it worked. Armstrong used to say there would always be sceptics who didn't believe in his story, but now the sceptics are those who, ostrich-like, continue to believe. They should be compelled to read this book, and though the collision with reality will cause them to shudder, the good news is that they will be riveted by a well-told story and will be the better for knowing the truth.

The broadest, most accessible look at cycling’s drug problem to date.

The news leaks about The Secret Race have vastly undersold its importance. Tyler Hamilton's book is a historic, definitive indictment of cycling's culture of doping during the Armstrong era. Here's the reality. The Secret Race isn't just a game changer for the Armstrong myth. It's the game ender. No one can read this book with an open mind and still credibly believe that Armstrong didn't dope. It's impossible. That doesn't change the fact that he survived cancer and helped millions of people through Livestrong, but the myth of the clean-racing hero who came back from the dead is, well, dead. The book is the holy grail for disillusioned cycling fans in search of answers. The book's power is in the collected details, all strung together in a story that is told with such clear-eyed conviction that you never doubt its veracity.

Astonishingly candid... an extraordinary confessional.

Riveting... Just about every significant detail in the USADA evidence is here. And it is brilliantly conveyed by an insider who can see both sides of the story: the institutional corruption, which eats away at the culprits, as well as the crippling pressure on riders to conform. We can expect plenty more books to be published on this conspiracy, for it is arguably the most audacious ever plotted in the world of sport. But it feels as though Hamilton's is likely to become the definitive work on the subject.

The book that finally broke Lance Armstrong.

The mysterious world of cycling holds a certain fascination in the public consciousness - now more than ever following the recent home-grown success in the sport. The Secret Race lifts the lid on that world and delivers a shocking and jaw-droppingly frank account of what it's like to compete at the highest level.

Graham Sharpe, William Hill Sports Book of the Year

A landmark publication... absolutely brilliant. The Secret Race stood out because it fundamentally changed the sport it described. I wish it hadn't had to be written, but it is a book that has to be read.

The insight into the sporting mindset is uncanny; the detail unforgettable. A gruesomely compelling instant classic.

Sunday Telegraph, Sports Books of the Year

The book inspired in me not surprise so much as the occasional jolt of shock at the grimy practicalities and the odd drop of my jaw at the means Hamilton says that he, Lance Armstrong and others used to stay ahead of the testers and the police... A deep insight into the evidence that Armstrong refused to confront when he opted out of arbitration in the case that the US Anti-Doping Agency had built against him and his associates.

Eye-popping revelations... The strength of Hamilton's testimony lies in the forensic detail with which he describes how the doping system operated and how riders managed to cheat the testers for so long.

A searingly honest piece of work, a forensic and hugely important study of how a sport turned rotten.

Brilliant... Daniel Coyle and Tyler Hamilton finally lay bare an awful truth and back it up with hard forensic evidence. The result is a book of searing honesty, the clearest possible description of what had been going on behind the scenes at many pro cycling teams for decades. The Secret Race draws the curtain back on cycling's cheating and corruption with admirable ferocity.

I wasn't expecting to be moved by Hamilton's book. He broke my heart in 2004 and he's a self-confessed cheat after all. But it is an honest, harrowing, eye-opening account that is a must-read for anyone interested in competitive cycling in the late '90s and the early 2000s. I came away with a better appreciation of the professional cyclist, under pressure to succeed. I came away with a renewed respect for Tyler Hamilton despite his misdemeanours. But most surprisingly of all, I came away with a renewed love of the sport. For underneath all the talk about things he did wrong - and he points the finger at himself more than any other - there runs a passionate dialogue about cycling. A sport that defines him. A sport that ruined him. But ultimately, a sport that is all the better for Tyler Hamilton's candid portrayal of life in the peloton.

A valuable document and a well-timed one.

2012 was the year in which a handful of books changed what we thought we knew about the games we love to watch and play. None more so than the recent William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Secret Race. Cyclist Tyler Hamilton's confessional of his time on Lance Armstrong's US Postal Service Team, written with Daniel Coyle, is a fascinating insight. It revealed in such incredible detail the culture of systematic doping, in which Hamilton took part, that the whole sport was changed forever. Within a month of its publication, combined with the damning USADA report, Armstrong had been stripped of his Tour de France titles.

An obvious choice, ultimately. A book that went beyond entertainment or education in their normal senses. This is the book that opened the world's eyes to the incredible doping scandal in cycling and the crimes of Lance Armstrong. A book that will be on almost all awards lists for books this year, and will surely migrate to the lists of all-time great books as its impact becomes more apparent over time.

Explosive... a stunning and sometimes sickening account of the doping pervasive in the pro peloton.

Haunting... takes readers deep inside the gory cult of back-alley phlebotomy that ruled cycling as Armstrong launched and nurtured his Livestrong brand.

WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 
 
On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner in Boulder, Colorado. Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell Coyle his story, and his sport's story, in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The truth would set Tyler free, but would also be the most damning indictment yet of teammates like Lance Armstrong. 
 
The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven – and some flawed – characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

The Little Book of Talent

52 ingenious rules for being better at whatever you turn your hand to.

DANIEL COYLE is the author of The Talent Code, as well as the New York Times bestseller Lance Armstrong’s War. A contributing editor of Outside magazine, he lives with his wife and four children in Alaska and Ohio.

- Don’t fall for the prodigy myth 
- Take off your watch 
- Embrace struggle 
- Take a nap 
- To learn it more deeply, teach it 
 
The Little Book of Talent is packed full of 52 simple, practical, proven tips that will help improve any skill. Whether you want a better singing voice, a more powerful golf swing or success in the business world, The Little Book of Talent’s method will help you realise your potential.

The Hidden Structure of a Fulfilling Life

Flourish

We all want to flourish. We want to create harmony, well-being and joy in our lives and those around us. The question is, how? 
 
Daniel Coyle has spent the last six years researching and visiting 'holistic hotbeds': groups, teams, businesses, and communities which have, accidentally or on purpose, created deep, thriving relationships that generate high levels of shared success and well-being. From a small town in Vermont that has produced 11 Olympians over the past 40 years - where most of the Olympians return to live and work after their athletic careers are over - to a Michigan deli that accidentally grew into a $70 million business. And from a grassroots organization in an impoverished Kenyan settlement that has produced Ivy League students, to a successful multi-billion dollar company that functions like an extended family. 
 
Coyle discovered that all these groups flourish using three skills, which form the three parts of this book. In Skill 1 - The Surrendering - we'll learn about our brain's holistic-awareness system and how to use it to create connection and belonging. In Skill 2 - The Unleashing - we'll learn how creating small instabilities can ignite energy, ownership, and self-organizing action toward a shared horizon. In Skill 3 - The Deep Fun - we'll learn how audacious experiments can generate new versions of yourself and your group. 
 
The overarching idea is that flourishing is created by a matrix of quiet but powerful group interactions that create interdependence, energy and growth. Flourishing isn't a puzzle you solve alone; it's a set of living relationships that generate the shared capability to shape your future, together.

Daniel Coyle

60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed

What is great culture made of? How do you get more of it, or turn around a group that needs improving? In The Culture Playbook, Daniel Coyle delivers a field-tested guide for building strong, cohesive, high-performing groups. 
 
Coyle, author of the New York Times bestselling The Culture Code, has spent the last six years studying and consulting with some of the most successful groups on the planet - including Pixar, Navy SEALS Team 6 and others. Here, he distils his findings into 60 concise, actionable, scientifically proven tips for building safety, generating trust, and establishing purpose - plus a set of conversation-igniting exercises to help you assess and improve your current culture. 
 
The result is a book that will sharpen the skills of any leader and strengthen the cohesion of any team - because it demonstrates that great culture is not controlled by fate or luck; it's controlled by you. 
 
Praise for The Culture Code 
 
'A truly brilliant, mesmerising read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water. Read it immediately.' Adam Grant, author of Originals 
 
'An essential book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides readers with a toolkit for building a cohesive, innovative culture.' Business Insider

Daniel Coyle

Books by Daniel Coyle

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