[jacquesm]

This is an excellent point. Perseverance is the key to most achievements unless you are one of those very lucky people that are naturally gifted and able to do something with only a very small fraction of the practice of the 'regulars'. Even then that isn't a guarantee because you still need motivation.

[antihipocrat]

Are there any real examples of these naturally gifted people? For example, someone who picked up an instrument and could play at a professional level within days without ever having touched an instrument before?

We hear stories of kid prodigies, but are we forgetting that kids have a lot of free time to practice if they focus their efforts?

[jacquesm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tori_Amos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinu_Lipatti

And many, many others besides. The musical child prodigy is a well documented phenomenon and even though 'a lot of free time to practice' is a common theme lots of people with a lot of free time to practice will never even get close to that level. Compare to math prodigies, and other ways in which some people appear to stand out from the crowd.

Of course then you can drag in all kinds of circumstantial evidence that amount to a 'no true prodigy' version of the one about that dude from Scotland but I think the evidence is solid enough to show that there is something there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_music_prodigies

FWIW I also know plenty of the opposite: people that have worked really hard their whole life long to master an instrument and who will never be at the level of one of these gifted children. They play beautifully and there is absolutely nothing wrong with them but they are not under any illusion that it came hard to them when it seems to come so incredibly easy to some others. Outliers do happen.

[alimov]

Yeah, the perseverance “muscle” must be trained