Talent vs. Hard Work

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
STEPHEN KING

I have a rival. I don't consider him a rival, but he considers me a rival. I'm just not into the rivalry thing. I never have been. I am more prone to celebrate the successes and virtues of others while downplaying my own. I've always considered ego to be a bad thing instead of a good thing because it leads to hubris. The result is my self-deprecating wit, my amiability, and criticisms of my "low self-esteem."

I don't respond to compliments. I pay awards and recognition no mind. I don't care about status. I like to win, but I still play hard no matter how the game turns out. The reason I am like this is because I don't believe in talent. I think talent is virtually worthless.

The reason I have this rivalry with this person is because he is talented. He has the spark that could lead to greatness. But he is lazy. He readily admits this. His own father has told him this. This is no big deal to me because like Stephen King I think talent is common. We might celebrate a guitar virtuoso like Slash or Eddie Van Halen, but there are a hundred guys that can play every one of their solos note for note. They usually end up teaching music at a guitar shop. You can apply this wisdom to just about every field of endeavor you care to name.

Hard work is different. A good work ethic is rare. Very few people want to work. People are prone to laziness. It is their nature. In my previous roles as boss and business owner, I can attest to this fact. I have met many talented people. I have met very few hard workers. There is no shortage of talent. There is simply a shortage of people willing to do what needs to be done.

My rival is the opposite of me. Despite being lazy, he has pride. He likes to brag. I think it is ridiculous. When I do something praiseworthy, I ignore the praise and move to the next project. He has to stop and glory in it for awhile. He wants credit for his accomplishments. I just want to keep working. For me, the best reward for good work is more work.

I have always ignored this guy's stupidity on this. But I started to wonder why he feels this rivalry. As I said, I'm not talented. I am average at everything I do. I just try really hard. But the rivalry comes from his sense of inferiority. He knows that he is a lazy bum coasting on his talent. He is an underachiever relative to what he is able to do.

This is not the first time I have encountered this rivalry. On another job, I ran into tons of hatred there. Even there, I was not the best guy. I was average at best. I often made mistakes and what have you. Yet, I provoked all this hatred. I could understand if I was some braggart. I would need the piss taken out of me. But I'm not like that. I just like working a lot. I enjoy it.

That is where the hatred comes from. I represent a different mindset and a different set of values. These values come from the Puritan work ethic I gained when I was a Calvinist. You learn to not glory in yourself but to work as a sanctified activity. I am an atheist now, so I enjoy the work as an autotelic activity now. Otherwise, I am no different now than I was then.

Most people aren't like this. When I do meet others like this, I feel an immediate kinship. I know a woman that works three jobs. I have deep admiration for her. When I don't have work to do like I do today, I feel an inner revulsion that tears at me. Not working brings shame to me.

Talented people hate me because they are lazy. I am a mirror in which they judge their own faults. When I look at other people that believe in hard work, I feel inadequate, but I don't hate on them. I try and improve myself. I know I need to work more and get off my lazy ass. When talented people see a hard worker, they hate them because they realize their special edge is not so special after all. Their competitive advantage is no advantage at all.

For the talented person, they say to themselves, "Nobody else can do what I do." But this isn't true. I know lots of talented people. The hard worker says to himself, "Nobody else will do what I do." And this is totally true. The more talented the person the less willing that person is to do the dirty work, be a team player, or anything else. Look at all the superstar athletes who have fallen prey to this mindset.

Talented people hate me the same way pampered Americans hate Mexican migrant workers. They see the work ethic threatening to swallow them, so they respond with calls for protectionism. Likewise, talented people love to trumpet their superiority, point to their achievements, score brownie points, or do whatnot to promote the image of their value. Hard working people don't do this. They just work and produce value. Their work speaks for itself.

I am not a superstar. My rival is a superstar but not me. But I started to understand him when he called me a "superstar." I hope he understood it when I called him "lazy." He lied on me, but I told the truth on him. I celebrate everything he does, but I know his own slack is what holds him back. I'd rather have a team of blue collar grunts than a team of superstars. That's because the superstars would spend all their time showboating instead of getting shit done.

I just work. If I fail, I always believe it was because I didn't work hard enough. I've tempered that view somewhat with the reality that luck does play a role in our success. But I've learned to ignore outcomes and focus on processes. I just think if you work hard good things will happen for you. And I believe that if you are lazy, you will be miserable even if you have luck and talent on your side.

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