Wayne Gretsky's Theory Of Eminent Performance

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Expertise is a defied as an expert skill or knowledge in a particular field, why do some people being experts in their field and a select few achieve eminent performance; performance where they go beyond available knowledge and produce unique contribution to the domain, such as albert Einstein and his theory of relativity or Alexander Fleming and his discovery of penicillin. Do you need to contribute something unique to your field to achieve eminent performance? Not just that, society would also believe that breaking world records would be bringing unique contributions to their field, such as Wayne Gretsky with his all-time scoring lead over his career in hockey. So eminent performance can be achieved by contributing novel ideas to the field or by breaking records within the field, and being a prominent figure. In this essay, I will attempt to argue that deliberate practice brings expertise, but innate talent or giftedness is needed to bring eminent performance. Before we get in to the argument however, we first must understand levels of predictability. In certain domains, the level of predictability (i.e. the degree to which the task environment can change while the performer is planning and executing an action …show more content…

The biggest argument here is child prodigies, showing that children who show an interest at an early age are only doing just that, an interest; not an inherent ability or capacity for unusual capacity. “Found signs of interest in music rather than objective evidence of unusual capacity…furthermore the vast majority or exceptional adult performers were never child prodigies. (729)” the argument goes on to state that exceptional adult performers were never child prodigies, backed by empirical evidence such as Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball

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