Josh Kaufman contends that people can learn any skill reasonably well in about 20 hours of focused deliberate practice.

“in my research you can go from from knowing absolutely nothing about something to being reasonably good in much less time than than you would expect so in my experience that's about 20 hours of focused deliberate practice”

A skill consists of a chain of adaptive behaviors, and mastery involves breaking these down into smaller, quantifiable sub-skills.

“A skill is a chain of adapted behaviors. All right, that means you learn multiple things. Same condition, new behavior, same condition, new behavior, same condition, new behavior. When you chain those together, that is a skill.”

True mastery involves letting go of rigid control and embracing variability, rather than seeking a fixed, perfect technique.

“And then, the result is adaptation of all these elements inside to keep you in the sleeve. The sleeve is not constricted as we once thought, "Oh, beautiful technique." There are many ways to skin a cat, and that experience, and that variety, that diversity goes into virtuosity.”