Hard Work Vs Talent?

mf said:
Practice and hard-work are not everything. I really dislike how in American schools we teach kids at a young age that if you work hard and try your best, you can be anything you want. That sounds nice and magical, but it is not true. Sometimes you will just suck at something no matter how much you practice, and some things you will always fail. That's life.

I think to be truly great at something, it takes hard work, talent, and a host of other things. For example, who you know can really be beneficial. Your personal history can change a lot of things as well.
Click to expand...

This^^^
 
Reon said:
I've been doing a bit of reading, as I always do, and a particular question crossed my screen, "Does it matter that I was never good in XXX subject?" This brought up quite a few questions. Some individuals believed that hard worked equals everything, no matter how intelligent you are, you had no upper hand on anyone who is willing to work harder than you to be on the same skill level. Others believed that natural, innate, talent mattered to a point. If you want to be in the higher echelon of your particular subject of interest, if you have a natural ability at it you will do better speaking in the long term (I believe someone cited a studied that stated that if two similar people are both trained equally in a subject (Think job training, for example), the person with an innate ability at the subject that is being trained will always do substantially better than the person without the talent. I don't recall the study, but I believe that the book "Soar with your strengths" by Donald clifton speaks on the subject)

Basically, this turns into a passion versus talent argument. What do you all think?

Personally, I think that it is better overall to have passion more than talent. You can be exceptionally skilled at something and yet completely hate it. If you're extremely passionate, while you may not have the natural skills, you can practice until you're fairly competent in your ability. Now, with that being said, real life wise, I think it's very important that you find a subject that you can do both in.
Click to expand...

I agreed with you; I think what's more important from the beginning is passion. But for me, passion is different from hard work; you can work hard and have no passion, and have lots of passion but no work at all.

Of course the person with more innate talent will do better given equal training than those who can't. 0+100 would NOT (DUH!) be better than 20+100. But that doesn't mean 20+50 would be better than 0 + 100), but surely that doesn't mean hard work is useless, or that someone with no talent and only hard work can't be successful?
Practice and hard-work are not everything. I really dislike how in American schools we teach kids at a young age that if you work hard and try your best, you can be anything you want. That sounds nice and magical, but it is not true. Sometimes you will just suck at something no matter how much you practice, and some things you will always fail. That's life.

I think to be truly great at something, it takes hard work, talent, and a host of other things. For example, who you know can really be beneficial. Your personal history can change a lot of things as well.
Click to expand...
it depends on how we define 'sucks' (one's trash could be another's treasure) but in case of objective failure; I also agreed, sometimes there's just something we can't do. And it takes a mixture of other things.
 
Last edited:
Everyone has the same potential for creativity. They just have to know how to effectively execute it. There is no such thing as certain people being born talented in something; everyone has the same potential.
 
slant said:
Everyone has the same potential for creativity. They just have to know how to effectively execute it. There is no such thing as certain people being born talented in something; everyone has the same potential.
Click to expand...
How would you explain the tendency of identical twins (including those separated at birth) to exhibit similar patterns of talent?
 
TheLastMohican said:
Aren't there also a lot of people who persevere to little or no benefit, due to to lack of talent, genius, education, and the like?

Coolidge should have applied the same scrutiny to persistence and determination before declaring them omnipotent by default.
Click to expand...

Actually, taken in full context, the idea behind the quote was: don't just sit around and rely on talent, genius, education and the like... If you are fortunate enough to have it, do something with it.

The flip-side of putting talent (or genius or education) above all else carries the dangerous tendency to rest on your haunches and let yourself take the free-ride until your luck runs out. Or, better yet, thinking that just because you don't have any natural talent (or genius or education) you might as well never try.

Success is often a little mix of everything, with a bit of luck thrown in for good measure. I think the mistake that most people make is thinking that there is some perfect formula for success. As many posters have pointed out, success in any venture is largely circumstantial. Talent aside, in order to actually execute your hard work and apply an attitude of persistence, you need resources (time, money, education, etc.) that are not freely available or accessible to everyone. Some people are just in a better place in their lives to achieve what it is they want, where others are are limited in what they can do.

That being said, however, if you had to choose between sitting around and waiting for things to happen versus actually taking your fate into your own hands, you will up your chances with a bit of elbow grease. That's where an attitude of persistence and a good work ethic (aka getting off your ass) trump all else. After all, we might not all end up being millionaires and retiring by the time we're 35, but we can, at the very least, improve on what we already have... and that can count as success too.
 
Last edited:
I think it is a mixture of hard work, talent, and luck.

One of Gladwell's books (Blink or Outliers or whatever) talked about Bill Gates' success. He was brilliant, he also worked hard, but he also had the fortune of being born in an upper-middle class white family in the Pacific Northwest, with access to computers at a time when 99% of America did not.
 
Very interesting stuff...it reminds me of the old saying, "It's better to be lucky than good". What about being lucky AND good? Wouldn't that be the best of all worlds? To me, passion implies hard work. Passion is great all-encompassing interest, not talent. If you are truly passionate about something, work becomes like play. Is not independance a two-edged sword? I use myself as an example. I'm made pretty good grades in HS even though I didn't study. In college, I had a 4.0 with two weeks in my Freshman semester. Then something seemed to click in my being. I just couldn't tolerate vomiting back information to my professors, and I quit studying, never graduating. Boy do I wish I could go back and change that one. I started work in Surgery at a local hospital, and trained to be a Surgical Tech. I bleeping loved it and developed great passion for learning about Surgery. I guarantee you I have Masters level understanding of Biology, Anatomy, Physiology, and could teach at the college level, but I don't have the paper. How the hell did I know I had the ability and werewithal to be a Surgeon myself? I couldn't. It's the same way with music for me. I have perfect pitch, and became a darn good guitar player, playing professionally and in the Studio. No paper required there. I just couldn't stand the road and the way you had to live coming up from the bottom. I think we do what we like, what interests us, and many of us never discover what talents we really have. I've learned that some have more talent than I have, but they cannot outwork me. This knife cuts both ways!
 
You need both and then some more, too. I'm a good classical pianist as amateurs go. But, compared to a truly great musician, I'm nothing, despite years of practice. When I hear what genius performers such as Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Horowitz, Vladimir Ashkenzy, Angela Hewitt et al. can, or could, do, I'm deeply humbled. And, it doesn't take one of these "greats" to humble me.

Despite Malcolm Gladwell's thesis in The Outliers, it takes a lot more than 10,000 hours to be really great at something. But, he has to sell a lot of books, and simple ideas sell, even if they're not completely true. Genes first, then drive, ambition, passion, focused energy, deliberate practice, active support and continual encouragement of friends and family, resources, and more.

Few people are truly creative in the sense of doing extraordinary, totally new things. A narrow example I'm familiar with is that, in a nation of more than 300 million people, only a little less than 8 million US patents have been issued since 1790. And, that doesn't mean that there have been 8 million inventors even though many patents list multiple inventors. Many inventors have multiple patents and many US patents are issued to citizens of other countries. And, most patented inventions are narrow and pedestrian.
 
Last edited:
Reon said:
Question: How much does the environment affect talent. Is talent created at home by the environment or is it something that people find that they already have.
Click to expand...

a conducive environment would help bring out whatever talents you have that much faster, but it wouldn't necessarily increase them.

although i agree with PJ, technique is more important than 'natural' talent, which might not even exist. maybe those who we see as talented really just stumbled across an effective technique early on, and never had to search for what works.
 
I appreciate everyone's effect.

I have some my own thoughts. Never put them in vs. mode. You will damage yourself. They both are needed to go ahead. Like friend of each other. Just simply follow them, even if you want to understand both factors, read above messages go for following straight forward. I have done this and enjoyed the journey. See, many people talk about such things. Hardwork is that and talent is that. You will never get this things unless you try.

Good luck.
 
I don't think you can make a worthwhile theory about whether talent is more important than passion (hard work). It would vary greatly on an individual basis. For some people hard work is more important, for others its talent, but for most it is both.

Personally I think narrowing down the reasons for a persons success to two factors is a little simplistic. Doing that would be like trying to summarize The Encyclopedia Britannica in two words, you miss a lot of important material that way. In other words people are complicated, trying to understand them from a strictly dualist vantage point fails to encompass the depth and complexity present in each individual.
 
April said:
technique is more important than 'natural' talent, which might not even exist. maybe those who we see as talented really just stumbled across an effective technique early on, and never had to search for what works.
Click to expand...

This is what I was trying to say in a nutshell.

Genetics also play a part though.

No matter how hard I practice, no matter what techniques I use I will never be the fastest runner in the world.

That takes genetics, luck, perserverance and technique.

They are all just ingredients in a cake. You can't make a cake with just one ingredient. Although, if just one or two of your ingredients are spectacularly good, you can just eat them as they are and it tastes alright.

It's still better to be able to mix all the ingredients together into a cake though
 
Lucifer said:
I don't think you can make a worthwhile theory about whether talent is more important than passion (hard work). It would vary greatly on an individual basis. For some people hard work is more important, for others its talent, but for most it is both.

Personally I think narrowing down the reasons for a persons success to two factors is a little simplistic. Doing that would be like trying to summarize The Encyclopedia Britannica in two words, you miss a lot of important material that way. In other words people are complicated, trying to understand them from a strictly dualist vantage point fails to encompass the depth and complexity present in each individual.
Click to expand...

True, makes for good conversation though :p. I honestly wanted to see if there was a camp here who thought hard work == everything. I wanted to ask them if they felt like, because they worked hard, they deserved to have amazing ability at something. That camp hasn't popped up yet.
 
I take talent to mean something which is initially innate, given, like intelligence or various kinds of ability (like motor-coordination). Nevertheless these can be developed so that if you start with x amount of talent, you can develop it into 20x.

Hard work is necessary to develop an increase in talent. However, the OP question seems to ask something like: is it better to start with 20x and end with 20x, or is it better to start with 10x and end with 20x?

In terms of being gifted, it is a better gift to start with 20x, in terms of praisworthy development, starting with 10x and doubling one's talents/ability is better.

However, I think that increase in talent becomes difficult exponentially - so that the effort of initially doubling one's talent/ability is less than doubling it again afterwards. So that hard work being equal, a more talented/gifted individual is far better off if they apply themselves - which means that ability is better than hard work, because it is has the potential of yeilding a higher benefit than low ability.

Practically, this means I would prefer employing someone brilliant who has never applied themselves much - and encourage them (with incentives/affirmation/threats/whatever) to apply themselves over someone who has worked their guts out and have achieved close to their maximum potential - because the scope for increase is more promising in the unapplied, but talented individual.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
I take talent to mean something which is initially innate, given, like intelligence or various kinds of ability (like motor-coordination). Nevertheless these can be developed so that if you start with x amount of talent, you can develop it into 20x.

Hard work is necessary to develop an increase in talent. However, the OP question seems to ask something like: is it better to start with 20x and end with 20x, or is it better to start with 10x and end with 20x?

In terms of being gifted, it is a better gift to start with 20x, in terms of praisworthy development, starting with 10x and doubling one's talents/ability is better.

However, I think that increase in talent becomes difficult exponentially - so that the effort of initially doubling one's talent/ability is less than doubling it again afterwards. So that hard work being equal, a more talented/gifted individual is far better off if they apply themselves - which means that ability is better than hard work, because it is has the potential of yeilding a higher benefit than low ability.

Practically, this means I would prefer employing someone brilliant who has never applied themselves much - and encourage them (with incentives/affirmation/threats/whatever) to apply themselves over someone who has worked their guts out and have achieved close to their maximum potential - because the scope for increase is more promising in the unapplied, but talented individual.
Click to expand...
This. All of this.
 
Reon said:
I've been doing a bit of reading, as I always do, and a particular question crossed my screen, "Does it matter that I was never good in XXX subject?" This brought up quite a few questions. Some individuals believed that hard worked equals everything, no matter how intelligent you are, you had no upper hand on anyone who is willing to work harder than you to be on the same skill level. Others believed that natural, innate, talent mattered to a point. If you want to be in the higher echelon of your particular subject of interest, if you have a natural ability at it you will do better speaking in the long term (I believe someone cited a studied that stated that if two similar people are both trained equally in a subject (Think job training, for example), the person with an innate ability at the subject that is being trained will always do substantially better than the person without the talent. I don't recall the study, but I believe that the book "Soar with your strengths" by Donald clifton speaks on the subject)

Basically, this turns into a passion versus talent argument. What do you all think?

Personally, I think that it is better overall to have passion more than talent. You can be exceptionally skilled at something and yet completely hate it. If you're extremely passionate, while you may not have the natural skills, you can practice until you're fairly competent in your ability. Now, with that being said, real life wise, I think it's very important that you find a subject that you can do both in.
Click to expand...
There are two types of people in the world hard workers and brilliant people. Those who are one in the same get more noticed than the rest.
 
I find it best to have goals rather than dreams. I can dream every night to my hearts content free of charge. But my goals, need to be earned. Rolling up the sleeves and applying ones self has rewarded me. Even if I'm not observant at times to notice these rewards, like warmth, shelter,friends, health etc.

Passion and Talent are good if you have them, but unguided and misused they can be your downfall.

Moderation and responsibility, the two least sexiest words in the dictionary but the most useful.

Good thread, plenty of food for thought.
 
Reon said:
To continue on with your analogy, do you think the inventor of the skill would be better at using the skill himself or do you think that the individuals with the natural talent for the overall area might be better able to use it or come up with new inventions based off of what the inventor has done?

Random insert: I tend to think of this subject in the terms of an RPG spreadsheet. Everyone starts with a nice allocation of starting skill points and stats based on genetics and what have you and then people have starting bonuses based on genetics as well (For example +10 to vitality for every skill point you invest into your endurance stat). You can stat grind to increase your skill points and become better at a particular skill but you'll never get the starting bonus someone else has.

Edit: Practice. I'm not sure if practice is everything. Of course, I could be forgetting that life over an extended time teaches you many skills and ability that can usually transfer to others skills and abilities. Hence why some people seem more 'natural' at something is because they have exercised the type of thought needed to perform an action and, as such, see a short cut much quicker than the individual who is starting from scratch. But. How do we explain geniuses and normal people who invest the same amount of time into something, and yet the genius seems to out perform the normal person completely. I'll admit, I'm thinking more child genius with this to reduce the whole experience with other similar thinking patterns and practice vibe.
Click to expand...
again I think it depends on too many different factors
the reason some people have natural talent may be that they accidentally stumbled across an effective technique early on and just stuck with it. Ultimately, their long term potential may be no different from anyone else who learns the technique
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top