“At an early age, you started hearing it: It's a virtue to be "well-rounded."... They might as well have said : Become as dull as you possibly can be.”

“When we studied them, excellent performers were rarely well rounded. On the contrary, they were sharp.”

“Rather, your smartness and your effectiveness depend on how well you capitalize on your strongest connections.”

“Well, more than likely you will never entirely dissolve either your fear of your own failure or your small pleasure in other people's.”

“There is one sure way to identify your greatest potential for strength: Step back and watch yourself for a while. Try an activity and see how quickly you pick it up, how quickly you skip steps in the learning and add twists and kinks you haven't been taught yet. See whether you become absorbed in the activity to such an extent that you lose track of time. If none of these has happened after a couple of months, try another activity and watch-and another. Over time your dominant talents will reveal themselves, and you can start to refine them into a powerful strength.”

“Rapid learning offers another trace of talent. Sometimes a talent doesn't signal itself through yearning. For a myriad of reasons, although the talent exists within you, you don't hear its call. Instead, comparatively late in life, something sparks the talent, and it is the speed at which you learn a new skill that provides the telltale clue to the talent's presence and power.”

“The only possible failure would be never managing to find the right role or the right partners to help you realize that strength.”