Top Highlights

• The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice. Exactly what that is and isn’t turns out to be extremely important. It definitely isn’t what most of us do on the job every day, which begins to explain the great mystery of the workplace—why we’re surrounded by so many people wh...
• This matters because of why it’s happening: Contemporary athletes are superior not because they’re somehow different but because they train themselves more effectively. That’s an important concept for us to remember.
• High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task and performing the…
• Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it “deliberate,” as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in.
• When excellent musicians or typists look further ahead on the page than average performers do, they are literally looking into their own future. Knowing what lies ahead for them, they prepare for it and thus perform better. They may be looking only one second ahead, but for them that extra moment makes all the difference.