What made Mozart great? Or Micheal Jordan? Or Serena Williams? Or even Lebron James?

The answer sits somewhere on the scales of human achievement. On one side: natural talent. On the other: hard work and lots of hours of practice. Many would argue that success hangs in some delicate balance between them.  But after tons of thought, I beg to differ.

After a long and thoughtweighed process involving a lot of reading and observation, I believe that “talent” is often the excuse we give ourselves to justify our own failure or to shield ourselves from the possibility of failure.

Anders Ericsson, author of the book, "Peak: Secrets From The New Science Of Expertise," co-authored with Robert Pool, writes:

This is the dark side of believing in innate talent. It can beget a tendency to assume that some people have a talent for something and others don’t and that you can tell the difference early on. If you believe that, you encourage and support the ‘talented’ ones and discourage the rest, creating the self-fulfilling prophecy. … The best way to avoid this is to recognize the potential in all of us — and work to find ways to develop it.

To underscore his point, Ericsson engages in a systematic takedown of the myths of famous prodigies, including Mozart and Paganini.

Masters of their crafts? To be sure.

Hard workers? Clearly.

Naturally gifted? Not so fast.

“I have made it a hobby to investigate the stories of such prodigies,” Ericsson writes, “and I can report with confidence that I have never found a convincing case for anyone developing extraordinary abilities without intense, extended practice.”

So what is the importance of this "practice"?

The most optimal way to improve your performance is to find a teacher or mentor who has been helping other people to reach the level of performance that you want to attain. The ain here is that teacher will be able to tell you the most effective ways to improve. A good teacher will also be able to find suitable, gradual and consistent measures of improvement, so you don’t push yourself more than you can do. The teacher or mentor will be able to help you set reasonable expectations.

If practice is so key, how is it there are child prodigies. Do you believe they’re simply kids who’ve practiced a lot?

It is very rare if not unheard of to find somebody with this innate ability to do something really well and not back it up with practice. And in every example, once you look closer at what was happening before, you find a series of practice activities, many of them meeting the criteria of deliberate practice.

In Mozart’s case, most people aren’t aware that Mozart’s father was a pioneer at designing training for young children to master musical instruments. He worked intensively with Mozart from age 3. So, when Mozart started to perform, he had been in training for several years and was being trained by someone who was very motivated to help his son reach a high level.

How important are parents in this whole equation?

Parents are very vital to the development of any child. It is a pretty unique opportunity to be able to spend time with a child developing some kind of activity together. Now, there are abuses, where parents really push their children to perform. But, if you take the view that you’re really trying to help the child develop this ability and become increasingly more able to monitor their own learning so they will eventually become independent, it is something that would be very beneficial for the parent and the child.

Whats this "Talent" myth all about?

The idea that some people are born with gifts is a very counterproductive view — that your task as a high school student or college student is that you’re supposed to go around testing things to find your gift.

It’s much better to think of something you want to attain and then get the help of teachers and parents to start you on the path of creating that. On that path, you may decide you want to go in a different direction. That’s fine.

What is the difference between playing regularly and deliberate practice that leads to improvement?

Say you’re playing football in tennis. And you just miss a penalty. Now, the game will just keep on going, and, if the same situation emerges a couple of hours later, you’re not likely to do much better.

Now try a thought experiment — practicing with a coach. That coach allows you to stand on the spot, ready to take your penalty — and then makes it increasingly more difficult. Eventually, he forces you to run up to the spot to do it and then embed it in regular game. You can improve your performance more in those one or two hours with a coach than in 5 to 10 years of regular game time with your peers.

Some of us have, over the years, convinced ourselves that we’re simply not good at somethings. Statements like; ‘I’m just not a math person.’ How true is all that?

Let’s look at adult activities that are consequential. Say you’re starting a new company; being able to make budgets and other things is going to become important to you. When that becomes important, you’ll have the motivation and willingness to do the training that will allow you to reach a high level of proficiency.

The issue with traditional education is that, with certain kinds of math activities it’s hard to see how they will actually benefit you as an adult. In the near future education will evolve into being more skills-based, where students will be able to see how, by learning certain skills, they’ll be able to do things that they couldn’t do before.

Motivation is key to student learning.

Albert Einstein once said; "Imagination is greater than knowledge, because knowledge is limited to all we know but immagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand."

It is vital that the student be motivated with the constrains of they seek to master. Knowledge without the passion and imagination behind it is ineffective and wasted.