What you're missing: That many people do "deliberate practice" and yet there are large differences in skill.
Of course flailing around isn't practice. The notion that "perfect practice makes perfect" or "practices doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent" has been around forever, no need for special studies to explain that.
But everyone at the Olympics, for example, has done extreme, deliberate practice, and yet most of the competitors are so bad they don't even televise it.
Finally, the point of the article IS NOT about HOW to become an expert, it's questioning the notion that becoming an expert is necessarily the goal.
Or, saying that you become successful at [anything] as a by-product of your work, not because you become "an expert" and THEN do interesting work.
And further, that people (like Penelope) shouldn't get hung up on being "an expert" by some arbitrary definition when she's in fact quite successful and could be just focussed on what to do next.
I agree with the last 3 points, I was only responding to your previous post.
Take a look at the original studies, or the Scientific American article for a quicker read. (I read it in paper form, so you can probably find it as easily as I can).
As for deliberate practice, the idea sheds some light onto the right and wrong ways to do it. It seems to come back to the theme of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Deliberate practice is paying attention to the quality of the practice, and continuing to improve the quality. If this is accurate, then it should increase the differences in skill, as the individuals address their own various physical limits. It seems that the difference in the quality of the practice is one of the reasons people pay more for experts to teach them. I think the Olympics can just as easily be used to support the idea, as everyone's practice routines will vary.
Furthermore, studies of conventional wisdom often reveal conventional wisdom to be wrong, so I can't dismiss them. If the results make it easier for people to successfully perform "deliberate practice", then they will probably be well worth the money spent.
Of course flailing around isn't practice. The notion that "perfect practice makes perfect" or "practices doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent" has been around forever, no need for special studies to explain that.
But everyone at the Olympics, for example, has done extreme, deliberate practice, and yet most of the competitors are so bad they don't even televise it.
Finally, the point of the article IS NOT about HOW to become an expert, it's questioning the notion that becoming an expert is necessarily the goal.
Or, saying that you become successful at [anything] as a by-product of your work, not because you become "an expert" and THEN do interesting work.
And further, that people (like Penelope) shouldn't get hung up on being "an expert" by some arbitrary definition when she's in fact quite successful and could be just focussed on what to do next.