Why Anyone Can Succeed

In who needs talent when you have intensity, I proposed that success has very little to do with talent. This blog entry by Brad Wardell offers even more proof:


This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/06/why-anyone-can-succeed.html

But Mr. Wardell is either disingenuous or self-delusional in believing that he has no special intelligence or talent that helped him to succeed.

I don’t think he’s saying that he has NO talent-- just that an excess of talent isn’t required to succeed. Dogged persistence and moderate skill are good enough.

“I would say that being able to program in C at all (or C#, or Visual Basic well)”

You lost me at the VB part.

Thanks for posting this. I relived the fun of running OS/2 back when Windows was just 3.0 and couldn’t multitask. It was a fleeting reliving of the fun days, but that’s what memories are all about!

I’ve met tons of people that CAN program but that doesn’t mean they SHOULD program. I have to agree though - talent/intelligence does have little to do with success - basically the only thing that can kill success in the long term is quitting. Having intelligence on top of determination is just one more tool in the toolbox, but ultimately only aids in achieving success - it does not determine it.

I’m not particularly intelligent. I don’t enjoy working any more than anyone else (just ask my mom). But I did what I had to do.

Assumes facts not in evidence. I would say that being able to program in C at all (or C#, or Visual Basic well) is prima facie evidence of above average intelligence.

My point here is that you can’t just take the inputs, an OS/2 machine and two books, cook them together with any person no matter how motivated, and find success. Certain professions do have absoloute minimum intelligence requirements, and programming is definitely one of them.

There are plenty of professions that don’t have those requirements at which one can be successful. But Mr. Wardell is either disingenuous or self-delusional in believing that he has no special intelligence or talent that helped him to succeed.

“I would say that being able to program in C at all (or C#, or Visual Basic well)”

You lost me at the VB part.

I meant that in order to program VB well, as opposed to programming it poorly, you must have a minimum (an not minimal) level of talent and intelligence.

What I got from this was simply that in order to achieve something, you actually have to do something in the first place.

For me, the challenge has always been getting from “wouldn’t it be cool if…” to actually doing it.