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Talented or Hardworking

If you could only have one, which would you pick?

Vuyo Ngcakani
2 min readOct 7, 2020
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

The answer isn’t as easy as you think.

In my mind, I’d pick hardworking. I think hard work beats talent every time.

But does it?

Does it depend on the event?

Is it different for basketball or chess or sprinting or learning a language?

Why you would pick talented.

1. Talent is innate while hard work is learned. You don’t have to do anything to be talented. You were born with it, baby.

2. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan. Sometimes you just need to win a game. Maybe it’s an elimination game. The team with the most talented player(s) usually wins those games.

3. When talent does work hard you get exceptional people. Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Yoyo Ma, Picasso, etc. Talented people can work hard but hardworking people can’t get talent no matter how hard they try.

Why you would pick hardworking.

1. When you learn to work hard you can succeed at anything. You may not be a talented chess player but if you work hard, you can be a great one. Same for piano…

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Vuyo Ngcakani
Vuyo Ngcakani

Written by Vuyo Ngcakani

writer, husband for 29 years, father of 3, grandfather of 2. I write about fatherhood, parenting, Christianity, & other topics.

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