An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience.
Malcolm GladwellWhen it's easy to make money, you have no incentive to think about development of talent.
Malcolm GladwellIt wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses - ever makes it alone.
Malcolm GladwellWhat happens when two people talk? That is really the basic question here, because, that's the basic context in which all persuasion takes place.
Malcolm GladwellBasketball is an intricate, high-speed game filled with split-second, spontaneous decisions. But that spontaneity is possible only when everyone first engages in hours of highly repetitive and structured practice--perfecting their shooting, dribbling, and passing and running plays over and over again--and agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court. This is the critical lesson of improve, too, and it is also a key to understanding a puzzle of Millennium Challenge: spontaneity isn't random.
Malcolm Gladwell