Lessons on Success and Deliberate Practice From Mozart, Picasso, and Kobe Bryant

My basic approach to understanding prodigies is the same as it is for understanding any expert performer. I ask two simple questions: What is the exact nature of the ability? and, What sorts of training made it possible? In thirty years of looking, I have never found an ability that could not be explained by answering these two questions.

K. Anders Ericsson, a professor at Florida State University, found that outstanding performance isn't a result of natural talent. Rather, it is a result of hard work in the form of deliberate practice.