Talent vs Hard Work

My understanding is that there is no innate talent for programming, math, art, or anything else. It's just a question of how hard you're willing to work at learning how to become the best. (This is the thesis of Talent is Overrated, which I highly recommend. Alternatively you can Google "deliberate practice".)The kicker is that even if this isn't true, people who live their life as if it is will be better off.

Talent exists, and is very real. [0] Talent is immensely important, and I find that there's a growing movement to dismiss it and pretend it's all about hard work.Most people can get pretty good at a particular task if they dedicate enough time. But you're never, ever going to be as good as Magnus Carlsen, Terrence Tao, Michael Phelps, Euler, or DaVinci just by hard work and a positive mindset.[0] <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/31/th

"Natural talent"? I'd chalk it to hard work.

Not just anyone, only those with already existing natural talent.If something comes very easy to you then you may believe that it's that easy for everyone. It's not. This is the fallacy of the author - he should try to get to 95th percentile doing something brand new that they don't have a natural talent for to understand how very wrong they are.I found learning to programming extremely easy but my best friend just couldn't grasp it even though she tried much harder th

In my observation, a person with average native faculties in a given activity make themselves top 95th percentile of the general population in that activity, with dedicated and sustained practice. This applies to most specific skills - violin playing, chess, calculus, computer programming, golf, basketball, quarterbacking, painting, etc. Of course, the reason for this is the typical person in the population has not dedicated that much practice time to a given specific skill. You may be a great

Top Talent is a myth... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth

>Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it.Sorry, that's like saying with enough math practice, any kid could perform at the level of young Terry Tao (e.g. teaching himself calculus at 8, winning a gold medal at the International Math Olympiad at 12). Some people are just intrinsically talented at certain things, and no amount of hard work in people lacking those intrinsic talents will get them to that level. This is indisputable when it comes to athletic

It's like talent in art or sports, some people are intuitively good at it, ie have a knack for it, others need to work at it.

I'd recommend reading "Talent Is Overrated" [0]While I agree that innate talent exists I disagree that it cannot be made up for.[0] - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class...

Ten thousand hours of practice will make you a hell of a lot better at something, no matter what your natural gifts are. I suspect that in most cases, ten thousand hours of practice will make you far better than the group of naturally talented people who haven't put in the work.Given that, I have a real hard time caring about the nature vs. nurture argument - it's only relevant if you're in one of those narrow fields where only the top 0.01% of people can be successful and happy, and that cer