#108: Dr. Joe Baker on The Tyranny of Talent and Creating Athletes for Life

Dr. Joe Baker (@bakerjyorku) is the author of The Tyranny of Talent and a professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. 

Dr. Baker was one of my professors from my undergraduate degree, and while I may not remember all of the course material, I have always held a few lessons from his courses very close to me. 

We discussed what talent is, how we might define it, and what some of the implications of its misuse are. Talent is a REALLY hard thing to identify, and it turns out we as humans aren’t really that good at it. But the implications of the missed identification of talent have far-reaching impact that go well beyond sport. 

This conversation, and the book, do a great job of helping us to understand how we might better apply our understandings of talent and athlete development, to keep youth in sports for longer, and ultimately create athletes for life, well into adulthood. 

Follow Dr. Baker on Twitter, and be sure to pick up a copy of the Tyranny of Talent. 

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