Although talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we have more potential than we might ever presume to guess.

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.

The staggering babies embody the deepest truth about deep practice: to get good, it's helpful to be willing, or even enthusiastic, about being bad. Baby steps are the royal road to skill.

To sum up: it's time to rewrite the maxim that practice makes perfect. The truth is, practice makes myelin, and myelin makes perfect.

The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp. Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.

Baby steps are the royal road to skill.

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