Genius versus skill accumulation

For example, a young child may not be able to tie his shoelaces. No one suggests that it is lack of talent. We just keep teaching him, he keeps trying and eventually learns how to do it. What would happen if he looked at an adult doing it and thought 'he is a genius! i would never be able to do that!
We often shoot ourselves in the foot by assuming a talent we see in others is due to 'talent' and so we dont even bother to try learning it.
Daniel Chambliss studied swimmers for many years. His findings:
- Best performances are the result of accumulating countless small skills
- The athletes dont have anything special or superhuman 'talent'
- They achieve results by continuous effort