By coincidence, I just finished Anders Ericsson's (the person mentioned in the article as arguing in favour of practice) book and he mentions pretty much exactl

By coincidence, I just finished Anders Ericsson's (the person mentioned in the article as arguing in favour of practice) book and he mentions pretty much exactly this. It's not that it's just about practice, but it's about practicing in the right way and having the correct mental models of what you're doing in order to improve. He believes that if you practice without focusing on the correct things and without knowing how to get better (usually by having a good coach who knows what it will take and what techniques you need to learn) then you can't expect to get as good as other people.