Concrete in Your Brain, File Drawer Effect, & Limiting Beliefs: Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and Does it Apply to Jiu-Jitsu?

"So, I've got some data about the efficacy of hard work."
"Oh, well, it doesn't fit with my belief that others are more successful based on genetic advantages and other hidden advantages which I cannot recreate."
"Oh, well, it's science."
"Oh, well, I'm a 'science guy."

I read a post over at Inner BJJ regarding the Malcolm Gladwell some would say controversial book "Outliers". Let me preface that any undertaking in examing success and the lives/decicions of people is fraught with potential for over or under simplification.
That being said:

In short, the premise of Malcolm Gladwell's work (which as the Inner BJJ article points out other works now support/have hopped on the marketing bandwagon) is that deliberate practice, 10,000 hours leads to mastery/success/skill building and that often we attribute physical gifts or hidden advantages to success rather than a lack of deliberate practice to rationalize why we have not succeeded in various areas.
Italicizing and/or bold added by me:

The author and the article at Inner BJJ, however, promulgates that "you are never too old to start martial arts [but] There is such a thing as starting too early though. Kron is super good at BJJ, so are all the Gracie kids. And they have all been beaten. And all been beaten by guys who haven't even put in half the time as they did. So maybe they blame the rules. But maybe its not the rules, maybe they just started training BJJ too early."

To claim that losing in a sport such as BJJ is due solely or even primarily to starting too early (though burn out is a real phenomenon), is highly disingenous. I would argue Kron has likely lost to a combination of chance and a multitude of variables, not from "starting too early". That being said, who has Kron lost to? As a black belt, he nearly tapped out Marcelo Garcia at the ADCC. Marcelo started later in life than Kron did. Is Rickson not as good as he could be because he should have started Jiu-Jitsu later in life?
Taking Kron or any of the Gracies' losses as an explanation to avoid burnout or a rationale to avoid early skill building is highly generalized at best and deliberately misleading at worst.

The author then posits the addage regarding fighters and statements such as: "I've been training MMA since I was 5, my dad got me started." Or "I've been kickboxing since I was 6." I don't know how many times I've seen guys like that get knocked out in the UFC by a guy who's only been training for 5 years but was an athlete in every sport growing up."

Again, to attribute the loss in a combat sport as a rationale that more is less in the way of hours spent training is absurd.

Effect does not necessarily imply causation.

The massively overgeneralized example here is at the end to explain away and rationalize why it's not worth it to believe in the 10,000 hour principle...because, y'know, that kind of dedication is....like....hard. And it requires...y'know....sacrifice. And it's not popular to tell people signing up it will take years or work and blood and sweat and tears to become good at Jiu-Jitsu and that even then, a weight disparity, or an injury, or someone's latent understanding and feel for the sport may still give you problems.
Just "Keep it playful, bro."

These are such gross exaggerations and simplifications of so many different variables as to not even tenuously bring into doubt any of Malcolm Gladwell's work.

The article at Inner BJJ generalizes and concludes with "Sometimes you can do a lot more with less. People are so afraid they are not doing enough. Fight the right optimal dosage of training. If you are 50, you would be far worse off training twice a day every day in comparison to training 3 - 4 times a week hard" which while true is not the advice to generalize for any legitimate competitor.
The author then extends his faulty logic to apply to the recent spate of hate and decrying of anyting Lloyd Irvin associated. Again, unreleated and an oversimplification of tenuously related topics: "join my millionaires club, buy this bridge in Louisiana, if you do this it will supplement and improve your BJJ game and take it to the next level! You all need to relax and do what you can when you can."

What you actually have in the way of this loosely termed article are the rationalizations to explain someone who is not as successful as they would like to be and will help others hide from the reality that deliberate practice and dedicatded sacrifice of most of the things not directly supporting your singular goal are the only ways to truly maximize potential.

The author tries to justify a belief in things other than dedicated, long hours of deliberate practice by adding in closing that he " [is] a strength and conditioning guy [him]self, but I am also a man of science. We put too much emphasis on the crap we can buy and not enough on the stuff that person was born with."
Hello file-drawer effect.

This flies in the face of what research and other "science" he refers to demonstrates that natural ability is only one composite of what it takes to excell in any endeavor and to decry or minimize the ability of thousands of hours b/c not everyone can commit fully to one goal or pursuit is just rationalizing for those that don't have or want to make time for various reasons as a backhanded way of making the middle-aged, the family guy, the non-athlete, the half-dedicated student to feel better about the excuses they often make.

Here we come to the whole 3/97% debate that raged before and after the Lloyd Irvin scandal.
L. Irvin aside, I found it interesting that so many took the statement that only 3% of people are truly successful. Look around you. How many happy marriages do you see? How many happy employees do you see? How many people have even 1/10 the money in the bank that they could?
Is the system slanted against you?
To be sure.
Do you hamstring/sabotage yourself by eating out, drinking soda, drinking beer, and preferring sleep to getting up early to train?
Yes, yes, you *&^%ing do.
Am I less successful than I could be b/c I chose to spend nights out partying rather than going to bed early to wake up and train well-rested and having given my body good, quality, nutrient dense food with which fo fuel it?
Yes, yes, I am less successful than I could be.

Accept responsibility for your successes and failures.
You are the consistent element in your failures.
IF you accept this, then you also get to take responsibility for your success.