A friend just forwarded this article from Fortune Magazine to me. It is called What it takes to be great and it explores the "talent myth" in fields like sports, music, chess and investing.

My question, upon reading the article: What does it take to "be great" in the field of Biblical Studies? If, as the article contends, innate talent has little to do with "greatness" and more to do with intense, purposeful practice; then how does one practice Biblical Studies intensely and purposefully?

For me, it means reaching beyond my comfort zone.

It means reading things that are hard to understand but fighting to grok them.

It means reading footnotes and even looking up (and buying!) the books that sound interesting and central to the argument. And then reading those, and looking up those footnotes ... you get the picture.

It means surrounding myself with folks who know more than me but who are willing to guide me along. My humble thanks to those of you out there that do this for me (you know who you are), I do appreciate it greatly.

It means stretching to submit and present papers at academic conferences (e.g. ETS, SBL) where the bar is high.

It means writing papers and articles at home to work through things that nobody will likely ever read (nor need they read) in order to better understand the issues at hand.

It means writing blog articles (here, on PastoralEpistles.com, and on the Logos Bible Software blog) and potentially looking really stupid with my observations and thoughts on particular passages or concepts.

In short, it means work. I'm curious, though — what am I missing in the above list? How do y'all purposefully and intensely "practice" Biblical Studies?