jaclu wrote:Talent makes hard work redundant, unfortunately no amount of hard work can compensate for lack of talent

I must beg to differ, I'm sorry. Not true at all. With enough CONTINUOUS effort (helps to have passion or just be bloody-minded) one can *IMPROVE* and surpass Talent in the LONG-RUN.

It is like a race between a low-geared vehicle (Talent) and high-geared vehicle (Hard Work).

At take off, Talent takes the lead!

But don't be fooled, as the race goes on, CONTINUOUS EFFORT and HARD WORK defeat simple Talent in the higher speeds and RPMs.

See here:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywo ... tence.html

I wish I had more persistence myself.

They say it takes MENTAL HARDENING/SEASONING to get persistence. Small, difficult tasks completed build into larger, difficult tasks, it seems. Eat small portions of bitter at first, repeatedly, until you can swallow the whole lot. (Pervs need not comment, I am referring to the Kung Fu meaning, "to eat bitter").

Small baby steps of persistence and time leads to conquering even the most Talented of people.

It's best to have both, but you don't NEED Talent, it can be learned. You *DO* need persistence, because at some point in the way up, SOMEONE is going to try to stop you, and no amount of Talent isn't going to persuade them, the stakes are too high.

And some point you have to prove to the world YOU'RE SERIOUS about something, and most Talented people get stopped there.

And this PERSISTENCE is almost insane, futile, and unreasonable. Defies logic. But yet remains.

I think Will Smith talked about an unreasonable optimism and almost crazy fever that takes over and wins. I'd look up his quotes too at brainyquotes.com.

I hate to say it, but I agree with telesales/HotRecruiter here. I'm not the best at what I do, but I've found that my best success comes from working damn hard, and picking jobs carefully.

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Personally I think you need both, but hard work is easier to make up for, so I voted that Talent was more important.

Talent can often be a lot more intagiable than hard work.

Hard work! My step kids are considered "gifted" and are very smart but incredibly lazy. As a result they are happily bumming through life living at home with no great ambitions or plans.

I still remember my 5th and 6th grade teacher (called Denis) coming up my table and telling me and a friend who struggled at school, Dragan, that my natural ability was a curse because I wouldn't learn to work hard. After the teacher left, Dragan proudly said: "You're lucky you don't have to work hard, but I do!". At that time, I remember finding it oddly insulting but also flattering at the same time. For some reason, that minute has stuck to me to this day. He was right, that kid struggled in school and I'm curious as to where exactly he ended up. Having been a teacher, I also realize how frustrating it must have been to see a somewhat lazy student excel while another one struggled a lot yet seemed doomed to fail (or had to put in way more effort to get the same result).

In hindsight, that teacher was completely right. He was trying to pass a valuable lesson to both of us, which took me ages to fully comprehend. I sailed through most of my schooling without ever putting in much effort. Even went through one of the best universities in the world without much fuss while some classmates kept lamenting about sleepless nights and all the other usual undergrad wails (granted, I was slightly older and had more life experience than most of my classmates, which I'm sure helped). I'm by no means a wiz or anything, but I do realize I've had it fairly easy, especially when it comes to school/learning in general. But I eventually learned that that teacher was right...

Sure, someone with talent can just sail. But that's all they'll ever do: sail. It took me some time to realize that if I ever wanted to accomplish anything, I'd have to go ahead and put some hard work into it. Nothing comes out of talent alone. A good example is Michael Jordan. Many thought he was just talented, but his own biography and comments from his former coach show that it was hard work and dedication which made him a notch above the rest. Not innate talent. He'd take thousands of jump shots during the off season, study opponents moves to perfect his defense and would bring an intensity to practice that would inspire his teammates. Sure, he was talented, like every other NBA player, but what made him great was hard work. Same goes for any other athlete, busines person etc.

So yeah, you could just "sail" with talent, but the innate laziness of your average talented person might stop them from truly accomplishing themselves. In contrast, a hard-working person is used to adversity and knows it'll take a lot of work to get anywhere, so they're more likely to be successful.

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:So yeah, you could just "sail" with talent, but the innate laziness of your average talented person might stop them from truly accomplishing themselves. In contrast, a hard-working person is used to adversity and knows it'll take a lot of work to get anywhere, so they're more likely to be successful.

In senior high school a mate and I discovered something interesting - we could both solve quadratic algebra in our heads. Neither of us could 'give our working', but after about 30 seconds with a problem we could give the correct answer, 100% of the time. To this day I don't know how we were doing it so I can't explain it, other than puberty related neuroplasticity or somesuch. I can't do it today, although I can tell with certainty when I have solved an equation correctly (because to me the answer "looks complete").

Naturally the teacher was deeply challenged by this and accused us of cheating - in ways he couldn't determine - until he tested us to his own satisfaction. Even after that, he insisted that we had to "work for the answers" like everyone else, which frustrated us no end and we lost all interest in mathematics, despite both being annoyingly good at it.

Another dimension to the talent/work/laziness/effort question.

I combine my talent with puns and hard work as the key to my success in pissing off Mother Grundy types, lawyers, estate agents and bankers.

People respect talent more than hard work. They speak well of people who just seem to sail through challenges or a task. Whereas a hard worker is grudgingly given credit. So I voted Talent.

But in my heart, I am for the hard worker, like myself. Early in life, a talented person gets ahead quickly. Later, like the tortoise (and hare), the hard worker slips ahead and will always be there. Wish I could change my vote.