Practice makes myelin, and myelin makes perfect.

Skill is a cellular insulation that wraps neural circuits and that grows in response to certain signals.

There is no substitute for attentive repetition.

Failure is not a verdict; making mistakes is the price of the ticket.

Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways-operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes-makes you smarter. Or to put it in a slightly different way, experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them-as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go-end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.

I fall in love with certain stories. Those stories tend to be connected to my life some way - for instance, with my first book I was writing about the experience of coaching Little League in the Chicago inner city. But the common thread tends to be exploring some kind of mystery. Simple questions that spiral deeper.

A true leader is someone who maximizes the potential of their people; who ignites their passions and gives them the opportunity to make the most of their gifts in the service of a larger goal. The leaders I met at the talent hotbeds embodied those values.