Let's recap - Hard work outweighs talent.

Have you ever asked yourself if it is possible to accomplish your major life goals with only your talents or using the talents of others? Maybe the first thing you and I should do is to set clear our life goals. I am talking about the goals that will make us fulfill our major life purposes on earth.?If we are clear on our goals, we would realize that talents play a very small part in accomplishing them. Spiritual leaders, observational research on successful people in the world, as well as my personal experience have taught me that hard work counts more than talents.?

First and foremost, spiritual leaders throughout the history of human existence have taught us that it is through hard work that we can accomplish our goals to fulfill our purposes, in other words, to be useful to other living and non-living beings on the planet.?In the book of Matthew, chapter twenty-five from verses 14 to 30, Jesus Christ was teaching his disciples using the parable of talents. The two who were given five and three talents went to put those talents into work and they brought back to their master double of what they were given. The other with one talent did not do anything useful with it. Also, in the book of Proverbs chapter thirteen verse four, in the New Living Translation, King Solomon who was also a political leader for the Israelites says “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper”. There are many more examples from spiritual leaders, but in this example, both Jesus Christ and King Solomon are teaching us that regardless of our talents, innate or acquired, we can only produce good fruits if we put them into action.?

Furthermore, scientific observations of successful individuals have shown that their hard work counted more on their successes than their talents. A Swedish psychologist named K. Anders Ericsson in his book titled “PEAK” published in 2016 showed how great musicians, artists, gamers, and scientists have achieved their highest level of performance.?He has demonstrated how deliberate hard work made these individuals reach the peak of their performances. ?This has also been reflected in my personal experiences in search of academic excellence during my school years of studying medicine in Cuba. I graduated as the best student in the academic arena with the highest GPA in my University and the entire country in 2012. I had to study hard. I remember several sleepless nights that I had to go through to understand what I was studying. I also used to seek clarification from my fellow students and teachers almost every day tirelessly.

Many managers, including myself, believe that having talented people would propel the mission of our organizations.?We seek and scout for talented candidates whom we can entrust to perform as per the job description. We look at their polished CVs and their first good impression of what they can do; sometimes we go further by contacting their referees who most of the time provide good comments on the skills described by the candidates in their CVs. While the mindset of looking for talented people is real in our working societies, nonetheless its presence does not deny the truths given by spiritual leaders and the scientific research studies on the importance of putting hard work to attain individual and collective goals. As once the accomplished footballer from Brazil, Pelé said “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do”. All that means that regardless of the talents, practicing constantly is key to success.

Undoubtedly, our spiritual leaders and the science behind the process of success prove that hard work outweighs talent. Possessing a single or more talent is not enough to fulfilling our goals. We need to work hard for those talents to provide the best results we want for our own lives and for others.?