Peak summary

London is a vast, sprawling city with thousands of streets that intersect at the oddest of angles. With a population of more than 8.5 million, the city is also home to hundreds of restaurants, housing estates, shopping malls, office buildings and all sorts of establishments catering to its many inhabitants.

And if you want to be a taxi driver in London, you’ve got to know your way around this maze!

When you read the words “Mona Lisa,” you probably think of the famous painting of a mysteriously smiling woman by Leonardo da Vinci. When this happens, your brain “sees” the picture.

This is called a mental representation. Mental representations are structures that are stored in the brain that correlate to particular objects, images, movements or anything that brain might have processed and stored for later retrieval.

Do you think that a professional musician, athlete, scientist or entrepreneur developed their skills and talents overnight? It’s unlikely. Instead, they probably used purposeful practice to achieve success.

This technique pushes you to build skills through several mechanisms, including setting clear, specific goals, being focused, leaving your comfort zone and receiving constant feedback.

Now we know that purposeful practice is essential to becoming a great performer. But what sets apart great performers from people who seem to touch genius?

They achieve this through deliberate practice, or purposeful practice that’s informed. For your practice to become deliberate, two things need to happen.

Now you know that highly specialized skills can be developed through diligent practice. But aren’t some abilities the result of sheer genius or a sort of talent bestowed by a higher power?

Many people tend to think this is the case, believing that outstanding performers owe their skills to innate talent, especially in cases where landmark performances are inexplicably accomplished early in a performer’s life.