[Fleury29]

I've always wondered, when are you good at something, and when does the work make you good at it? Working at something will always make you better, but sometimes you are just good at something without requiring much effort. How can you tell if it is a talent for something, or if it is just the fact that you work really hard at it?

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[berthegel]

Hello ,
usually other people tell you if you have talent , like when bands send demos to record labels , artists go to college , friends family, but either way if you want to be professional or earn money from your talent , you need to work hard , even like you naturally talented people, say like Jimmy Hendrix (guitarist) was always practicing ,

I suppose if you were good at something without much practice then you could call it pure talent or aptitude.

Most people who are really, really good at something have practiced it a lot, though. Maybe they wanted to practice because they have a basic talent for it. Have you ever heard of the "10,000 hour rule"? It says that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in a field.

Not everyone agrees with it, but it's mainly pointing out that people who are very, very good at things usually have spent an immense amount of time doing them.

Part of me wonders if you've heard someone say something like "Well, she SHOULD be good at X; she's spent enough time practicing."

I have also heard people argue that if someone is "talented" at something, then they are naturally good at it and don't have to practice it a lot. There may be not-that-difficult things that that holds true for, but in my opinion, being good at something without practicing is not superior than being good at something because you've practiced.

A Mozart comes along occasionally, but it's rare. Thomas Edison's formula for "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" will get you a lot further in life.

[Webgoji]

Oh man, I was a great example of that in college. I got my degree in Chemical Engineering through a crazy amount of hard work. I typically only slept about 4 hours a night. (I went an entire week once on 2 hours of sleep ... total.) Hour after hour after hour of studying, homework and working problems and such.

Then there was Pat. He usually had his studying and homework done by 7 PM, would take a few hours to relax and was in bed by 9 PM. The guy just got it. He was a natural.

Both of us got our degrees, but I struggled and scraped to get my 2.8 gpa where he slid on through with a 3.8 gpa (there's a reason that didn't have to do with his work that he didn't get the 4.0).

Another example is the difference between NFL receivers Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens. Jerry Rice is known as the GOAT (greatest of all time) he had so many records that he probably just kept them in a banker's box in his garage. And the guy worked HARD! Always running drills, studying the game, working, working.

Then there was Terrell Owens. He was oozing with natural talent and could have taken every record Rice set. But he didn't work at it. He managed to grab one (or two) records to which Rice said, "I've got so many, he can have one."

So what I'm saying is that hard work can get you to X and talent can get you to X. But if you combine them ... you've got a superstar.

Now go be the superstar you know you are.

[seeker1950]

Originally Posted by Webgoji

Oh man, I was a great example of that in college. I got my degree in Chemical Engineering through a crazy amount of hard work. I typically only slept about 4 hours a night. (I went an entire week once on 2 hours of sleep ... total.) Hour after hour after hour of studying, homework and working problems and such.

Then there was Pat. He usually had his studying and homework done by 7 PM, would take a few hours to relax and was in bed by 9 PM. The guy just got it. He was a natural.

Both of us got our degrees, but I struggled and scraped to get my 2.8 gpa where he slid on through with a 3.8 gpa (there's a reason that didn't have to do with his work that he didn't get the 4.0).

Another example is the difference between NFL receivers Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens. Jerry Rice is known as the GOAT (greatest of all time) he had so many records that he probably just kept them in a banker's box in his garage. And the guy worked HARD! Always running drills, studying the game, working, working.

Then there was Terrell Owens. He was oozing with natural talent and could have taken every record Rice set. But he didn't work at it. He managed to grab one (or two) records to which Rice said, "I've got so many, he can have one."

So what I'm saying is that hard work can get you to X and talent can get you to X. But if you combine them ... you've got a superstar.

Now go be the superstar you know you are.

Webgoji, those are great analogies.
Then, there are those of us with talent, plenty of training and education in a respective field (mine is Art), but lacking the aptitude for success. I think artists are the least inclined to climb the ladder of success since our instincts and products are so personal. Those artists who make it at "success" are usually very adept at marketing. This often, IMHO, equates to less talent but more business savvy.

[Webgoji]

Originally Posted by seeker1950

Webgoji, those are great analogies.
Then, there are those of us with talent, plenty of training and education in a respective field (mine is Art), but lacking the aptitude for success. I think artists are the least inclined to climb the ladder of success since our instincts and products are so personal. Those artists who make it at "success" are usually very adept at marketing. This often, IMHO, equates to less talent but more business savvy.

I agree 100%. There are so many writers and painters and designers out there that will never sell a single thing because they don't have the knowledge or talent to market themselves. There are works of utter genius sitting on shelves around this country just because those that made them couldn't get other people to notice. And you're right, often less talented artists reach success just because they have the business savvy to get there (heck, Snooki sold 10,000 copies of her book and she can barely read a stop sign ).

[Fleury29]

Thanks I was uncertain if this was a linguistic discussion or a psychological one . It's always been a topic of interest to me,.

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Talent is inborn... genetic. Persistence is a character trait.

[alty]

If you have a natural aptitude for something, the progress you make will feel slightly less like battling a gale force wind as you walk up the icy hill to success o.o Then again, I have accomplished very few things.