Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Usually I don't read such books, but this one I read because of a trusted recommendation and because it was written by a professor who works on topic of performance.

The book's main ideas are these:
- There is no innate talent (giftedness).
- Using some principles of practice—which author calls "deliberate practice"—you can become an expert performer.

Beside of these points there are a lot of stories, proven by research, about different kinds of practice, changes they make in human's body and brain and effectiveness of deliberate practice. And this is a controversial side of the book: a lot of stories but little on what to do exactly to improve your practice. There are few pages from more than 300 about concrete steps one needs to take to improve their practice.

Another thing that the book states (implicitly): all expert performers use deliberate practice, but not all who practices deliberately are expert performers. There are a bunch of cases when somebody started to practice deliberately and become a pretty great performer, but in my opinion, not enough for convincing statistics.

So, from my experience author is right in general and the book is interesting and a bit useful ("a bit" because too little information about what steps to take for an improvement). If you are not interested in stories here are key points of deliberate practice:
- Learn from experts (you need to identify them first).
- Design your practice to aim specific skills that experts have, not knowledge.
- Aim to build a solid mental model of the thing you learn. This point is the most important.
- Ensure that you're leaving your comfort zone but not too much. It's also crucial for improvements.
- Constantly have a feedback. The shorter the cycle is the better.