Dent 2026: Adam Gopnik on How We Get Good at Hard Things

What if getting very good at something hard, like building a company, drawing a face, or baking a loaf of sourdough, follows one hidden sequence of steps?

We are glad to welcome Adam Gopnik to the Dent stage. A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1986, Adam has written more than a million words for the magazine and published eleven books, among them Paris to the Moon and The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery. He has won the National Magazine Award three times, was made a chevalier of the Legion d'honneur, and in 2025 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Adam Gopnik, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery.

Magicians have a phrase for the accumulated craft that makes an effect work. They call it the real work. Adam has chased that idea across practices that look nothing alike: learning to drive in mid-life, caring for a dog, baking, playing piano, doing magic, drawing a face so it reads as a face. The question underneath all of them stays the same. How do we get very good at something that seemed impossible the first time we tried it?

In his talk, Adam takes apart what we assume about getting good:

• Mastery comes from the process, the missteps and the practice, more than raw talent

• The steps carry across fields, from drawing and boxing to baking and business

• The people who master hard things make peace with being bad at them first

At Dent 2026, Adam walks through the sequence he found, the steps that turn a hard thing into a mastered one. His answer speaks to someone starting a company as much as to a middle-aged man learning to drive.

At Dent in Santa Fe, you will find entrepreneurs, executives, and creatives who know that getting good at hard things is the whole game. Adam Gopnik has spent a career mapping how that happens.

Dent 2026 runs September 13-15 at La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe, alongside speakers including Maria Konnikova, Julia Ioffe, and Deborah Berebichez. Apply now to attend Dent 2026.