Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
- Thomas A. Edison
Studies on success and expertise point to the same surprising conclusion over and over again. Talent is massively overrated. It’s mostly the effort you put in and how smart you train that determines whether you succeed or fail.
But here’s the ironic part: most people believe in the concept of talent so strongly that they talk themselves out of even getting started.
It’s fun to believe in talent and marvel at the gifts god bestowed on Tiger Woods or Serena Williams or Mozart or Beyonce or whoever else seems to have been granted superstar status from on high.
It’s not so exciting to think about the thousands upon thousands of hours of grueling practice each superstar went through to get where they are. Practicing your craft until your fingers bleed isn’t something most of us fantasize about.
Think about our obsession with superheroes as well. The idea that you could one day wake up with abilities beyond human comprehension is fun to dream about.
The reality is boring by comparison. The fact that anyone who puts in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice can gain elite level skills just doesn’t have the same fantasy factor.
Actually, it’s not that the reality is boring, it’s that the reality makes us feel bad. The reality that our heroes simply worked much, much harder and smarter at something than we have makes us feel unmotivated or even lazy.
So we go on believing that they possess something special that we don’t have.
(some people reading this will come up with other special factors, about opportunities, about access, about general IQ, but they’re all just other excuses not to reach your own magnificent potential)
We are our own biggest obstacles. We talk ourselves out of doing incredible things because we’re afraid to find out if we have what it takes.
Anything we want to do is possible, but only if we’re willing to work for it. Believing too much in talent keeps us from doing what really matters: putting in the time and challenging ourselves to improve every day.
How are you challenging yourself today?
working my ass off!
and if feels soooo good!
very well put. talent is so overrated in this day and age! Lil Wayne is a perfect example.
We are taught this talent myth from an early age with things like aptitude tests in school.
Reading about the 10,000 rule in Outliers and Bounce was a very liberating experience for me. I stopped worrying about whether I had talent and started working harder.
Totally agree with you Corbett!
For most people hard work and deliberate practice just seems a bit too much of a hussle so everybody looks for a shortcut in life:) Or just as you said it – choose to be lazy and do nothing.
Good post!
Very true, and well written. The truth about succeeding at internet marketing, in particular, is not glamorous in the slightest (though all the sales pitches make it sound like no work at all). The truth is that writing is hard work, and the technology has a learning curve, and all the things you need to do to succeed, they’re not crazy exciting. They’re rather dull, actually. But they are learnable, and they are reproducible. This is a good reminder!
These posts make me wish you’d keep on writing daily for this blog after the 30 day stint. Thanks for the insights you’re sharing.
Right on, Corbett. It’s hard to imagine but for most people, it’s not even about finishing what they start, it’s about starting in the first place. I wonder how many great inventions, cures for so-far-incurable diseases, and brilliant ideas for humanity never get made because people are too afraid to begin. What are we all so afraid of? Failure? Maybe failure is just the ticket, to find out what doesn’t work.