We are naturally fascinated by individuals at any age who have reached world class levels of performance in their chosen field so the processes for developing such levels are worth considering.
Arne Gulch, Michael Barth, David Hambrick and Brooke Macnamara reviewed recent literature on young and adult high performers in Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance and revealed several interesting patterns. They found that young high performers engaged in extensive discipline-specific practice and achieved early progress. In contrast adult world-class performers had limited discipline-specific practice, greater multidisciplinary experience, and achieved gradual early progress.
Moreover, they found that the young high performers were not the same people as adult high performers. Across several fields (e.g., chess, music, athletics, school performance) they found that adult high performers are nearly 90% different than young high performers.
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