Super champions showed great interest in their sport, liked practicing, training and competing. They did not specialize in a single sport during their early childhood.

Almost champions also loved the thrill of competition, but they remembered having an aversion toward practice an...

Super champions were driven from within. Their primary concern was self-improvement. They held themselves to high standards, but judged themselves against prior versions of themselves, not against others.

Almost champions, however, were focused on external...

It’s true that not everyone can be a world-class performer. Our inherited traits still matter, and even our willingness to exert persistent effort may be at least partially genetic. Some of us are born with lower sensitivity to the feel-good neurochemical dopamine, which is widely known to underp...

With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.

• Demonstrate persistent effort to follow your interests.
• Practice foremost to get better, not to outdo others
• Derive satisfaction from within

The difference between the greats and the almost-greats (which, by the way, applies well beyond sports) also appears to be at least partially driven by one specific thing — how each group responds to adversity. The greats rise to the challenge and put in persistent effort; the al...