I think of the relationship between talent (or whatever you want to call natural ability) and hard work/practice like a rubber band. Everybody is born with a rubber band of a certain size for a given activity. Practice and hard work stretch the rubber band, but if you start with a small rubber band you have a limited potential for the eventual size. If you start with a larger rubber band you have a greater ultimate potential, but if you don't put in work you can be outperformed by those with less ultimate potential who put in more work. Everyday there are people who have less potential but work harder to come out ahead of people with greater potential. The opposite of that is we all know a person who doesn't really try or put in the work but is naturally better. The kid who always aced the math test but didn't study, can run the fastest, or the guy who never practices or bothers to learn aerodynamic theory or the rules but always beats you around the course.

But, when you have a person with the greatest potential and put in the most work you have Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Glenn Ashby, Darren Bundock, etc. At the other end you have those who are so hopeless in an activity that they can never learn calculus, make a free throw, or round the weather mark first.

Sorry, but we all have limitations. Given infinite access to coaching, time and constant conditions there would still be a front of the fleet and a back of the fleet. With more time some could become the best, but not all.

Eric