“If we are not growing, we are dying. Stasis is not an option.”

Our brains look for the easiest path and stick to it. Think of a river flowing through deep banks. Habits are the mental river banks in our brains that drive our subconscious actions.

How many times have you driven home from work, pulled into the driveway only to realize that you have no recollection of how you got there? But you got there safely while your brain was focused on a million other things.

Your brain had already turned the task of getting you home into a habit so it could conserve energy. We are then free to use that energy on more important tasks – like singing our hearts out to our favorite songs or more purposeful things.

In the “The Talent Code,” author Daniel Coyle goes beyond driving home without thinking to unravel how the excellence is formed in sports, arts, music and math.

Coyle researched talent hotbeds like Brazil for soccer and Florence, Italy for artists to determine how so much talent was developed in these regions. What he found were three practices that drive the brain changes necessary to achieve greatness.

In the end, these three practices produce something called myelin in our brains. Myelin is like WD-40 for our brains. It works like the river banks that allow a river to flow fast and straight. Myelin greases the neural pathways in our brains so tasks that once took massive amounts of effort become easy and flawless.

A concert pianist does not think about every key they touch. They have played the notes so often that the music flows – effortlessly and flawlessly. But their piano playing did not start out that way. At first, playing the piano was difficult and tedious. That brings us to the first of Coyle’s three myelin builders.

Deep Practice: Deep practice is the foundation of myelin building in our brains. This is not a “going through the motions” kind of practicing. It is difficult. Deep practice pushes us beyond our current abilities. It is a struggle.

Athletes must push their bodies beyond what they thought was possible to improve. Great athletes keep pushing well after their brains told them to quit. It is only when they push against the edges of their abilities that they improve. Great athletes push until they fail, then they try again. Once a new level of performance is attained, the bar must be raised, or it is not deep practice.

To be great at anything the same level of intensity is required. Deliberate, time-consuming, difficult practice. Pushing to the point of failure, learning from that failure and pushing again. That is deep practice and it is required to develop true talent.

Commitment and persistence are a huge part of deep practice. Deep practice only works over time. Research has shown that those committed to long-term practice outperform the short-term hustlers by 400 percent even when the two groups put in the same amount of time to practice. Slow and steady wins the race. Deep practice is a habit, not a short cut.

What does this tell me? It tells me when things are hard, I should keep pushing. It tells me that pain and struggle are required. It tells me that my skills will only improve when I practice diligently and intensely; when I fail and get back up.

How can we develop the passion required to push this hard? That is the second practice Coyle uncovered.

Ignition: On May 18, 1998, Se Ri Pak won the LPGA championship. No South Korean had succeeded in golf before her. Ten years later South Korea had 45 players on the LPGA tour, winning one-third of the events.

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute-mile barrier. The running world had been chasing the mark and failing for almost a decade. Forty-six days after Bannister broke the four-minute mark, John Landy did it. Only a year later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race.

Deep practice is hard. To grind out deep practice day after day requires great vision. The vision is ignited by a spark. Se Ri Pak and Roger Bannister where chasing their own visions of accomplishing something that had never been done. They became igniters for many others.

Master Coaching: The master coaches Coyle uncovered were quiet and reserved. Most had been coaching for 30 or 40 years. They listened far more than they talked and rarely gave pep talks or inspiring speeches.

John Wooden was a master coach. Researchers recorded and coded 2,326 discrete acts of teaching by Wooden; 6.9 percent were compliments; 6.6 percent were expressions of displeasure; 75 percent were pure information. What to do and how to do it.

Remember that a great coach doesn’t have to coach you in person. We can be coached in many ways including books and tapes. Apprenticeships are great if we are willing to humble ourselves to take them.

To build talent, we must build myelin along the neural pathways that drive our performance.

That requires deep practice and a strong desire. A great coach can help us along the way.