The gift of adaptability

Ericsson spent his career studying experts. He argues that what looks like natural talent is mostly the result of training that reshapes the brain and body.

He gives the example of perfect pitch, long thought to be a rare gift, which research has shown many young children can learn with the right training. In one of Ericsson’s early experiments, a student who started out able to remember only a few digits trained to recall more than eighty.