Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise

by K. Anders Ericsson

the chess players who were devoted enough to the game to take it to a level beyond playing in their school chess club — there was a tendency for the ones with lower IQs to have engaged in more practice. We don’t know why, but we can speculate: All of these elite players were committed to chess, and in the beginning the ones with higher IQs had a somewhat easier time developing their ability. The others, in an effort to keep up, practiced more, and having developed the habit of practicing more, they actually went on to become better players than the ones with higher IQs, who initially didn’t feel the same pressure to keep up. And here we find our major takeaway message: In the long run it is the ones who practice more who prevail, not the ones who had some initial advantage in intelligence or some other talent.