"Let’s say, as a crude approximation, that Success = talent + practice + luck. Those who are richly endowed with talent [or luck] may find it easy to excel in multiple domains, to be Renaissance men and women, to be decathletes of life. (The example of Leonardo da Vinci comes to mind.) The rest of us, however, must lean heavily on the practice part of the equation. If success is what we’re aiming at, then perhaps we should seek out the “kindest” learning environment open to us and give it our all. If, on the other hand, we want to live well by sampling a smorgasbord of human goods — learning a bit of quantum mechanics, running a marathon, playing viola in an amateur string quartet, fighting for local justice — then we might be doomed to fall short of transcendent achievement."

Have a lot of salt on hand when getting advice from the successful and famous.