Obviously, working on the right thing is the best choice. The problem is that knowing the right thing is probably a function of mental abilities of one sort or

Obviously, working on the right thing is the best choice. The problem is that knowing the right thing is probably a function of mental abilities of one sort or another, and you may be deficient in that area with respect to your competition, which is the point of the post. You can't control whether you're good at knowing what the right things to work on are (although you can get better at it, maybe).