"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." The famous quote from Thomas Alva Edison can be recited by every pupil from all over the world. And here comes our question, what is the path to success, talent or hard work? Is it stupid to ask such a question, which has been answered clearly by a man who was believed to be one of the most successful man ever in history? Isn't it obvious that Edison is exactly the most convincing example?
Well, the answer is no, even if we know that there was a famous guy named Edison had already concluded that hard work weighs much more than pure talent, even if we are all familiar with his story that he had tried one thousand kinds of materials before he finally made his great bulb lit up, we do not actually believe it. We have seen in so many cases that people just accomplished great jobs with little effort. We believe they were born to be more talented, and we are the guy who sucked just because we do not have that quality which is decided by our genes.
But is that the whole truth?
At least Edison didn't think so, nor did many other successful men in human history. While looking back on those people's extraordinary lives, most of them owe much of their success to hard work. They agree that, talent, or IQ in another way to say, is necessary but not the key factor.
One of my most admired teachers used to tell me that, the best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. There's no such genius who can always come up with the best way, without even making a small mistake. Success is based on numerous trial and error. But in many cases, even if one has a high IQ score, he or she could turn out to be nobody because they just can't go through the errors, they can not bear the try!
Let's take a look at two examples, who I personally think were the two most intelligent people in history.
The first one is Leonardo Di Ser Piero Da Vinci, the great artist and scientist from Italy. He was famous for his talent in art. But most of us know more about him from Monalisa than from our science text book. Actually he was also a great contributor of the development of science in his times. He had a really wide range of interest, and he had studied in so many fields so deeply that we can not even believe they were done by a single man.
The second one is Albert Einstein, the most intelligent man in history accepted by many people. He did made the miracle of building the whole theory of relativity all by his own. The theory, which for most college students is even hard to understand, has become the basic part of modern physics. Newton had built the most fundamental laws of physics, which, in his saying, were based on the former work of giants. However, Einstein did not seem to need that. He created the whole theory, nearly without any other people's help.
I chose the two man because they were both thought to have the highest IQ and have the most creative and productive mind. Their contributions could not have been made without a clever enough brain. On the other hand, is it pure exceptional intelligence that made them different? I guess most people would say no, because there are so many factors that determine one's success, including some aspects of their family and society, and even some kind of luck. Hard work, which is another important factor, did make a big difference in their lives. You many have know from Einstein's biography that when he was at school, he was not at all the material of top student, some times even seemed stupid. However, at the age of 16, he started to think about the question of What will happen if I can travel as fast as light?, which later became the fundamental of his great discovery. Well, just think about what we were thinking at that age. I know there could be a number of people considering similar questions, however, how many of you kept thinking of it till now? We usually say it took Einstein only 2 weeks to reach the final equation of the special theory of relativity, but I think we should extend that time to at least ten years, because he had been thinking over the same naive question for the first several years. Then let's take a look at Da Vinci. He had a special notebook with him wherever he went. The book is for every inspiration that jumped into his mind, so that he would not forget them. That's the very secret of his amazing productivity, in so many fields. The secret is actually no secret at all when we look back at them, but they made the effort, so they won.
Path to success is more persistent than power, because the path to success is a really really long way to go.