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These lines resonated with me: "We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump
by naish 17y ago
These lines resonated with me:
"We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump ability—legs, in Saxe’s formulation, can overpower arms—because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coordination."
I would argue that this holds for many endeavors and should be kept in mind when facing daunting situations.
- ellyagg 17y agoIt's best to tell yourself that the precious resource is effort, but in truth, you need skill and effort.
- colins_pride 17y agoDid you read the article? The primary example in the article is that of a team with no skill destroying all of their opponents (some of whom had a lot of skill) through good strategy and effort. In other words, Gladwell offers a compelling counter-example to the belief that skill is a requirement. EDIT: All of their oponents save one. They fielded a four person basketball team that day.
- nebula 17y agoWell, did you read his comment? He is also saying the same thing that effort can trump skill.
- ellyagg 17y agoYep, and my point stands. No amount of effort allows you to start, say, github.com if you don't also have skill. Now, you can say that you can acquire skill from effort, and that's certainly true, but someone else who puts in the same effort as you but who has more talent will still do better.
- eds 17y agoIn other words, don't let there be somebody out there that puts in the same effort.
- jcl 17y agoIn truth, it is far better to tell yourself that you are succeeding because of your effort than because of your talent: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ You can get skill from effort, but not the other way around.
- ellyagg 17y agoYour tone almost makes it sound like you disagree with me, even though my comment agrees with yours. I'm well aware of the research that shows that people who believe effort is more important than talent are more successful than those who think the opposite. People like to pretend the research show that the effort-believers are right. That hasn't been shown. If you control for IQ, the hard workers win. This is not controversial. The recent research was carefully presented to give the impression that it said more than it did. Despite what effort-believer think, IQ is highly correlated with success. However, we can apprehend the world rationally and still believe in hard work. I work extremely hard. My IQ isn't going up, but I can control my effort.