When you disagreed in your first comment you disagreed to this:

> But it boils down to the hours that kids put into their interests.

While you then go on to say that that is exactly what you yourself did. That you don't like being forced to learn is besides the point, but also sort of confirms it. You spend time (learning) on things you enjoy. That's how you become "gifted". The trick is having kids be engaged with something productive and not spending time on [insert subjective detrimental activity here]. Whether parents can influence that or it's down to luck is debatable, but I definitely lean towards the former.

You're just describing one of the most well-established facts about learning: the dominant factor is intrinsic motivation.

Whether you call them hobbies or studies, the fact that you were intrinsically motivated to pour effort into them is why you got so good at them.

> Those weren't my studies. Those were my hobbies.

Then your case does not contradict the OC's view that "Gifted children are "gifted" with a laser focus on the unusual things that they find fun - math, music, what-have-you."

I didn't have lazer focus, in fact I spread myself over many different subjects. I studied zoogeography, physics, chemistry, history, etc. because I thought those things were interesting. This didn't stop me from finding calculus to be approachable and easy.