Practice Doesn't Make Perfect
This is a case where I really doubt that the studies referenced in the article were rigorous&#x2F;well controlled.  There are WAY too many talent &quot;hot zones&quot; (small training clubs that produce an extremely inordinate number of champions) for me to be swayed without iron-clad evidence to the contrary.<p>The author talks about being motivated, but I don&#x27;t think she really understands the scale of motivation.  Mozart would typically play until his fingers bled, and they grew somewhat deformed from the volume of playing as a youth.  When he wasn&#x27;t playing, I&#x27;m willing to bet he was thinking about or somehow otherwise engaged with music.  That is the kind of passion that makes a true master.<p>The author also talks about her teacher being good.  Compared to what?  How many music teachers did she have?  If teaching ability is normally distributed, even if she had 20 teachers (extremely doubtful), the best teacher in the country is probably two standard deviations above anyone she had in skill.  That is a freaking huge difference.<p>Outside of certain things like being a gymnast or a football lineman where body morphology is absolutely critical, I&#x27;m pretty sure talent is overrated.  The exact amount of influence it exerts certainly depends on the activity, but I doubt in most cases that it exceeds 2-3 percentile point shift in absolute potential.  Unfortunately, when you are at the highest level of competition (e.g. olympics) the spread is probably somewhere between 99.9 and 99.999, so someone at 96.9 isn&#x27;t going to be competitive.