especially in postmodern life, where rote tasks are increasingly automated and pretty much any fact can be discovered with a web search, the rules aren’t straightforward. What it takes to be great is intellectual flexibility.

Eventual elites typically devote less time early on to deliberate practice in the activity in which they will eventually become experts. Instead, they undergo what researchers call a “sampling period.” They play a variety of sports, usually in an unstructured or lightly structured environment; they gain a range of physical proficiencies from which

... See more