If a middle school student was to come to me, a hypothetical English teacher, with an essay including the following: "There are three ingredients in great work:

If a middle school student was to come to me, a hypothetical English teacher, with an essay including the following: "There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three", I would tell them, my friend, come back with some ideas of yours, please do not list simplistic views just to get the nod of approval of your audience of middle-school students/ bored teachers/programmers. PS. We all have seen plenty of people who did great work with top natural abilities, little effort and little practice. Such is life. I had a similar reaction of disbelief when at a work-sponsored leadership development program, the instructor told us that one of the special traits of Fortune 500 CEOs (they all like to talk about CEOs) is empathy. It sounds good, yes it does; the only problem is that it contradicts what one can see with their own eyes every single day.