What creates elite performance in any discipline? Author Malcolm Gladwell suggests that the right environment and plenty of practice (at least 10,000 hours) will lead to exceptional results. But are there other pathways as well?

Over the last 20 years New York Times blogger Gary Antonick interviewed hundreds of elite performers. He found that environment and practice are key ingredients to success, but he also discovered something surprising: a tiny fraction of elite performers did not, in fact, take the conventional route:

Barack Obama did not become a top law school student by studying legal cases.

Michael Phelps did not become the greatest swimmer in history by focusing on standard swimming technique.

Susan Holmes, Stanford Professor and coDirector of Stanford Mathematical and Computational Sciences Interdisciplinary Program, did not study conventional math in elementary school

Nick McKeown, the Stanford professor who recently sold Nicira Networks for $1.26 billion, has not achieved start-up success by developing what customers wanted.

What did these extreme outliers do differently? In what areas are you doing the same -- and how can you strengthen this ability for increased classroom and career performance?

Join the discussion by e-mailing LaCona (lwoltmon@stanford.edu). Sessions will run from 5:30 to 7pm on Jan 16, 23, 30 and Feb 6. (The series is limited to 8 students, so reply now.)