Adams doesn't address the issue of quality of practice. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. There is a huge advantage to practicing somet

Adams doesn't address the issue of quality of practice. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. There is a huge advantage to practicing something useful even if you're not very good compared to the best. Like he says, he can beat 99% of people in eight ball, even though he'd probably be easily defeated by most professionals. Of course, playing billiards is pretty much useless. I don't consider my computer skills in any area to be top notch, but when I help out non-technical people they think I am some kind of wizard. I say "hey, I barely did anything!", but to them any interaction with a computer is a complete mystery. So I'm not a great programmer, and I'm definitely not a great sysadmin, but with just some basic skills 99% of people will defer to mean on technical issues. I agree that this is a vital lesson to teach kids. It is even more important to give them the freedom and support to discover what endeavor they really want to apply that effort to.