Think about your accomplishments. Do you feel that you have an innate ability that is fixed and doesn’t change, or do you feel that you have been propelled forward as a direct result of skills you have cultivated over time? I honestly don’t know of anyone – in any industry – who has excelled as a result of luck alone.
Studies researching the impact of talent versus training and education seem limitless. The logic becomes circular – is a woman good at what she does because she is talented, or is she good at what she does because she enjoys what she is doing and has put in the extra hours?
My personal experience in both athletics and business leads me to lean towards the school of thought that practice makes perfect. I did not have any particular privilege in my upbringing and I was not fostered to demonstrate talent. My ability to be successful has come from having a capacity for adaptability.
As an engineer at Microsoft, it was critical that I learn specific computer programming languages, and doing so was instrumental to my ability to take on projects that fueled my career growth at the company. As I have since moved on from that position, new skill sets have become key.
I now need the ability to create technical documents and statements of work for international joint ventures, including the technical detail required to solidify the commitments that have been made. This has required me to adapt and learn an entirely new set of skills that enable me to progress in this new career.
Excelling at just one or two skills is not enough: you need to be able to cultivate the right skills for the task at hand. The world we live in is so fast-paced that our skill sets often become outdated before our very eyes. We need to always be open to learning the things that we need to know if we want to stay current in our jobs, while preparing for the next challenge.
And throughout it all, we must be iron men and iron women; that is, we must cultivate the grit and self-control that are required if we are to achieve our most important blaze goals.
The most successful people in the world have had very difficult pathways to the great success they eventually achieved. Richard Branson is dyslexic and did poorly in school. Bill Gates’ first business – Traf-O-Data – failed. Fashion designer Vera Wang fell short in her quest to make the U.S. Olympic figure skating team. Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts – twice. J.K. Rowling was a single parent living on welfare when she wrote the first Harry Potter book.
So many great business and creative heroes and heroines have experienced failure – some of them many times over. But they never gave up. They had the grit and determination to succeed, regardless of the challenges that faced them. They learned from their failures, and they used what they learned to get ever closer to achieving their goals.