how to grow your own passion (and talent) even if you don't think you have any (or: develop your own interestingness, part five)

Perhaps one of the most crippling beliefs in this culture is that talent is an inborn, fixed, unchanging quality. Either you're born with it or you're not.

The revelations about something called deliberate practice point up a different truth. Talent starts out as a spark, a glimmer, that is protected, coached and nurtured through years of hard work and expert feedback. Two artists may start out on equal levels, but if one engages in focused deliberate growth and the other ...