Why Hard Work Alone Won't Guarantee Success

We've all heard the saying, "hard work pays off," but is that really the case? For years, many have believed that if you just put in the hours, you can be successful no matter what field you're in. The 10,000-hour rule to become an expert at something has been touted for years, and many are convinced that dedicating yourself fully will yield results. But what if we told you that was all wrong?

Inspired by Sierra 6 from The Gray Man, the most skilled CIA operative in the world, we're left wondering how somebody becomes the best at what they do. Is being a top CIA agent a skill earned through hard work or natural talent? Or is there another factor at play?

Let's take a look at some examples to understand why hard work alone won't guarantee success.

Genetics

In sports, research studies have taken groups of people and subjected them to the exact same training regime to see what their results would look like. Even though they all did the exact same work, everybody saw different levels of improvement. But interestingly, individuals who were related by blood saw similar improvement, indicating that their genetics were playing a role in their athletic potential. If your parents or siblings saw amazing results, so would you, and these people were deemed high responders.

After doing more statistical analysis, it's been estimated that around 50% of athletic improvement is linked to genetics. Good athletes are born with good trainable genes. But these studies also found that individuals had different baseline abilities too. Without any training, some people were just fitter than others, and this was found to be linked to genetics as well. In the case of cardio, these genes may have coded for larger volumes of blood, giving an early advantage. If we look at muscle growth, we know that the size of your muscles is under pretty strict control of a protein called myostatin. As your muscle reaches its limit, myostatin prevents any further growth. But some people naturally have lower myostatin levels, allowing them to achieve greater muscle growth. Belgian blue cattle actually have a deletion of the gene GDF8, which creates myostatin. As a result, without any special diet or exercise, they have incredible muscle mass.

This highlights the hugely important role of genetics and how you can start with a high trainability for a skill, a high baseline, or both. Now, chances are that our best athletes have both a high baseline and a high trainability on top of pushing themselves really hard to reach those potential limits. But there are probably just as many, if not more, people putting in the same amount of hard work that will never see the same extraordinary results.

Environment

Your potential for greatness goes beyond just your body - your circumstance can matter just as much. Take a look at these SAT scores for an average U.S. college, which are out of 800, by the way. Those that have the highest SAT scores end up representing over 50% of the people who get degrees at these schools, while the lowest SAT scores only represent around 18% of people who actually graduate. Not so surprising, but now let's look at a top school like Harvard. Here, the students with the lowest SAT scores are still smarter than the best students at an average school. And yet when we look at their rate of completion, it looks awfully similar. The top students represent just over 50% of people who graduate, while the lower SAT scores represent around 15% of people who actually graduate.

This phenomenon is known as the big fish little pond effect. Simply put, we compare ourselves not globally, but to our neighbors or people who are in the same boat as we are. As a result, students at top schools compare themselves to their brilliant peers. And if you're in the bottom half of your class, you're likely to have feelings of inadequacy even though compared to the rest of the world, you are one of the most talented.

We can even see this effect translated into real-world success or failure. A study looking at publications produced by economists in their first six years after graduation showed that the top students in the 99th percentile, i.e., smarter than almost every other person at the school, from the top five schools in America were producing an impressive amount of publications. But those in the 75th percentile, still the top quarter of the best students, are publishing next to nothing, essentially failures in their field.

But if we now look at the best students from the 30 worst schools, we see that they're publishing more than those in the top quarter of the best schools in the country. Clearly, your surroundings and peers matter. So even when you put in the hard work, your circumstance and environment can dictate just how valuable all those hours are.

Time

This brings us to the concept of time. Do super-talented people put in more hours of practice or work? Nope, well, at least not in the way you probably think. In particular, their developmental paths may seem surprising to you. If we look at this graph of practice time in athletes from childhood, you can see that elite athletes typically devote less time early on to deliberate practice in the activity that they will eventually become experts in, and this pattern holds true for most fields outside of sports too. How does this make sense at all? It turns out that people at the top of their game, whether that's an athlete, a musician, or even a scientist, are more likely to go through something called a sampling period when they're younger. Instead of being told to pick one topic and specialize in it, they often try a breadth of activities, whether that be multiple sports, instruments, or fields of science. It's only later on in life that they see a narrowing focus, increased structure, and an explosion of practice in one area.

It's believed that this not only gives them a range of physical and mental proficiencies from the different fields that they can draw on, but it also allows them to explore and learn what their own abilities are and figure out what they like by trying different things. Studies on musicians show that the sheer amount of practice is not a good indicator of exceptionality. In fact, the best students often come from less musically active families and are less likely to have an instrument at home. Those deemed as exceptional most often turn out to be the ones who distributed their efforts and explorations more evenly across multiple instruments and only later in life focused on one.

Even if we look at Nobel Prize winners, they're actually 22 times more likely to partake as an amateur actor, dancer, magician, or other type of performer. Nationally recognized scientists are much more likely to be musicians, painters, woodworkers, mechanics, writers, etc. Having lots of experience to draw on from other fields, even if some of those fields are just for leisure and not only specializing and zoning in on one thing, seems to provide a huge benefit at the end of the day.

Conclusion

So, what does this all mean? Does hard work matter or not?

The answer is, of course, complicated. Hard work is certainly important and can help individuals improve their skills and achieve success. However, it's not the only factor at play. Genetics, baseline abilities, circumstances, environment, and developmental paths can all impact an individual's potential for greatness.

Furthermore, the idea of simply grinding it out and putting in the hours may not be the most effective way to become the best at something. Instead, a more deliberate approach to practice and skill development, as well as a focus on overall well-being and balance, may be more beneficial.

In conclusion, the idea that hard work alone is enough to achieve success is a myth. While hard work is important, other factors such as genetics, circumstances, and environment can also play a significant role in an individual's potential for greatness. It's important to take a more nuanced approach to skill development and to focus on overall well-being rather than simply putting in the hours.