Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.

By shifting the balance away from the individual we open the door for the individual. Because we make it obvious that anyone can do it given the right circumstance.

I worry that track is going to enter into an impossibly complicated stage, where our understanding of the complexities of human physiology - and our ability to accentuate and exploit them - is going to make the notion of pure competition impossible.

When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement. If a white student from a prestigious private high school gets a higher SAT score than a black student from an inner-city school, is it because she’s truly a better student, or is it because to be white and to attend a prestigious high school is to be constantly primed with the idea of “smart”?

Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

The act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.

the 10,000hr rule is a definite key in success