Tutors and riches can't make up for lack of interest. If you look at top sports athletes many of those who reached the top did so because they had a motivation

Tutors and riches can't make up for lack of interest. If you look at top sports athletes many of those who reached the top did so because they had a motivation to train harder and longer than the rest. I remember a story about our best skier. She said her sister had more natural talent than her and was better. However her sister did not have the zeal for getting better and training hard, that is why she never became a top athlete. I think there is a lot of truth to this. I drew better than my peers and I tended to do better in math. But if I reflect on it, I'd say it was mostly about interest. I drew a lot of drawings as a kid and I obsessed a lot about problems which are mathematical in nature. I wanted to understand how things worked. It wasn't enough to just get the right answer. I had to know why it was right. The people I talk to who aren't very good at math typically strikes me as simply having no curiosity for why things work the way they do. They just want the answer and move on. My brother e.g. has no curiosity like that, but he was born with better math skills than me. He could always do mental arithmetic better than me e.g. But as soon as math started getting abstract he fell behind me. Ability simply can't carry you if you have no motivation, curiosity or desire. I believe "genes for math" is simply genes for having a personality that is curios and patient.