Author Shenk to kick off Virginia Festival of the Book

Those who coached baseball great Ted Williams lauded his “natural ability.”

Men who pitched to him in the pros would marvel at his “laser-like” eyesight. It was even believed that the Hall of Famer could read the spin of the ball as it left the pitcher’s hand, giving him a clue as to where it would cross the plate.

Uncanny instincts, exquisite muscular grace and spectacular eye-hand coordination all have been used to describe Williams’ playing abilities. But the man himself said that talk of the superhuman gifts he was said to possess was all “a lot of bull.”

Williams said he got as good as he did with “nothing except practice, practice, practice.” To illustrate his point, it’s known that, as a kid, he batted balls until the grip of the bat was smeared with his blood.

So the question arises — are great athletes, musicians, writers and others born or made?

Best-selling author David Shenk decided to look deeply into the subject of what really elevates some people to levels of accomplishments mere mortals only can marvel at. The result is his recent book, “The Genius in All of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent and IQ.”

Shenk will be in Charlottesville on Wednesday to help kick off the 17th annual Virginia Festival of the Book, which runs Wednesday through March 20. He will be the speaker at the Annual Leadership Breakfast (formerly called the Festival Business Breakfast) in the Omni Charlottesville Hotel Ballroom starting at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

“During my talk, I’m going to basically boil down the concepts in my new book and ask people to consider the idea that basic concepts we use in everyday language like innate, giftedness and natural-born talent and intelligence are flawed concepts,” Shenk said during a recent telephone interview.

“It turns out that anywhere you look, you may hear this little myth about how someone was a natural at something, or it just came to them. But when you look closely at the actual lives of these super-achievers, you see that there is a painstaking process behind them becoming so good.

“What you come away with after looking at so many of these different people who are truly great at what they do is the question of whether or not it’s possible to be phenomenally good, but still maintain some sort of balance in your life. There just seem to be so many people who, to get to that truly superlative level, have to have something about their life that was damaged.”

Shenk happened onto the subject while doing research for his previous book, “The Immortal Game: A History of Chess.” One of the topics he addressed was what makes a great chess player like Bobby Fischer.

“The question I was looking to answer was whether or not to be a good chess player you have to be born with a talent and all that,” Shenk said. “It turns out that this has been studied quite extensively over the years, as has everything with chess.

“It also turns out that there’s a whole new body of science called expertise studies. These research psychologists study how people get good at doing stuff, and where all different skills come from.

“And they study what the difference is between people who are mediocre, good, very good and things like that. I also stumbled into this new way of understanding genes.”

Shenk, his agent and his editor at Doubleday all recognized the virtue of doing a book based on these new discoveries. The author couldn’t have anticipated the reactions he has gotten since the book came out.

“I tend to get all kinds of severe responses to the book,” Shenk said. “A lot of people shout at me, either figuratively or literally.

“They just hate the idea that they could have been good at something, and they’re not. They’re absolutely convinced that I’m dead wrong without opening the book.

“Then I get other people who are equally excited and tell me this is exactly what they need to hear. They say they’re going to go back and spend more time with the guitar, art or what have you.”

Shenk said the No. 1 point he wants to make in his most recent book is that we need to think about talent in a new way. He doesn’t imply that everyone is equal in potential, but that the process of how we get good at things doesn’t seem to differ.

“What scientists have come to realize is that we have to understand this as a very slow and long accumulation of tiny, tiny, basically invisible skills,” said Shenk, who has authored six books and also has contributed stories to magazines such as Wired, the Nation, the New Yorker and the American Scholar.

“The difference between me as a basketball player and Michael Jordan is not just a lot of practice and commitment. It’s literally these millions or billions of differences of skill level that you don’t even necessarily feel yourself gaining.

“You just slowly get there and there has to be this long process. And there’s no substitute for it, and no known exception.”

David Shenk will be the speaker at the Annual Leadership Breakfast, which starts at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday in the Omni Ballroom, Charlottesville. Individual tickets through today are $30, and $35 after. Tickets and a full schedule of book festival events are available at www.vabook.org.