Does Talent Exist? Are Great People Born or Made?

Are great people born, or are they made? Are some people born with the required talent to become world-class chess players, scientists, musicians, architects, authors, or sculptors? Or is time and practice all that's needed for anyone to become great? In other words, are skills developed?

In Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success, Matthew Syed detailed some of the factors he believes led to him becoming a table tennis champion.

• His parents bought a table tennis set when he was young
• He and his brother spent hours playing together
• His school had a table tennis program

Syed says that a series of "accidents" set him on the path to becoming a successful athlete. If these accidents hadn't happened, he would have taken a very different path in life. Of course, genes and physical characteristics are also crucial to success in sports, but is it accurate to say Matthew Syed was born with the necessary "talent" to be a champion table tennis player? Or was he "made" by a series of accidents?

In Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Florida State University psychologist Anders Ericsson and science writer Robert Pool argue that innate talent is a myth. They say it's thousands of hours working on a skill that makes people great. Malcolm Gladwell agrees. In Outliers: The Story of Success, he asserts that deliberate practice is the key to success in any field. He claims it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a task. Gladwell calls this the 10,000-Hour Rule. Ericsson and Pool refer to a study by Japanese psychologist Ayako Sakakibara who enrolled 24 children into a training program designed to teach perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is the ability to name the pitch of a note without hearing other notes for reference. By the end of the study, the children had acquired perfect pitch. This was Ericsson and Pool's conclusion.

"The clear implication is that perfect pitch, far from being a gift bestowed upon only a lucky few, is an ability that pretty much anyone can develop with the right exposure and training."

When you examine the backgrounds of people who made it to the top of their fields, their paths to success are often very different. Lennon and McCartney are considered two of the greatest songwriters in rock music. When The Beatles started out, that was not the case. John Lennon said their early songwriting attempts were so bad; they often performed covers. When the Fab Four released their first album in 1963, they mimicked the styles of popular songs at the time rather than creating something uniquely their own. Malcolm Gladwell insists that constant practice and not innate brilliance made Lennon and McCartney great. The Beatles played 1,200 shows between 1960 to 1964, racking up more than 10,000 hours of training. Songwriting was a skill they had to learn, practice, and constantly improve to become one of the most respected rock groups of all time.

Of course, we can't discount the importance of genes. Record-beating sprinter Usain Bolt's longer leg length means he can take longer steps, leading to higher speeds. Due to Bolt's longer stride length, he usually completes a 100-meter race in about 41 steps, three to four steps fewer than his competitors. "Bolt is a genetic freak," according to former Great Britain sprinter Craig Pickering, "when he reaches top speed he has a massive advantage over everyone else because he's taking far fewer steps."

While innate ability may be necessary, genes alone can't answer the question of why some people excel over others. An accomplished classical pianist may be unable to play jazz. A scientist who appears to be a genius in one domain of science may be clueless in another. A top CEO in one industry may not do so well managing a company in a different sector. Brilliance in one area doesn't necessarily translate to brilliance in related fields. Great people are often only great at the skills they've spent years developing.

There is likely some complex interplay between genes, environment, and passion that lead to some people becoming great, some people becoming good, and others giving up. The things that lead to some people becoming great aren't always easy to pinpoint. Is a person born to be a great violin player? If not, what makes one violinist better than another? Is it simply passion, focus, persistence, and thousands of hours of deliberate practice where an individual constantly pushes the limits of what they can do? If passion, focus, and perseverance separate the great from the good and the good from the mediocre, that raises a critical question. How much of these traits are due to nature versus nurture?

Tiger and Earl Woods

It appears that a confluence of factors has to come together to make someone great. Going back to Matthew Syed, if his parents didn't buy table tennis equipment and if he didn't have a sibling to play with, and if he attended a school that didn't have a table tennis coach, it's unlikely he would have become a table tennis champ. A combination of opportunity (all those accidents), genes, physical characteristics, passion, and persistence made him a champion.

Many cite Earl Woods as the reason his son Tiger became a champion golfer. Did Tiger Woods happen to be born with the right genes to become a sports star? Or was his early start at the grand old age of two the main reason he became great? Scientific American points out that there are many paths to success in The Complexity of Greatness: Beyond Talent or Practice.

"By definition, very few people reach excellence in a domain, and no two paths are exactly the same. Some people actually invent a whole new path of deliberate practice for others to follow! The fact that two people can obtain the same result through a very different route opens up a new can of questions. It's time to go beyond talent or practice. Greatness is much, much more."

Can parents nurture talent in children?

What does this mean for parents who would like to nurture talent in their children? First, parents should understand that someone doesn't have to be the best of the best to be successful. Many people who aren't musical geniuses have successful careers in music. Many dancers, sports stars, scientists, and business people do well for themselves even if they never achieve elite status in their field. Starting a child at something when they're preschool age may be beneficial. Continuing an activity for years may help a child develop persistence and focus. It provides them an opportunity to become great at something. David Z. Hambrick, Fernanda Ferreira, and John M. Henderson disagreed with Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule in their Slate article Practice Does Not Make Perfect. However, even they acknowledge that early learning may play a role in future success.

"...[chess] players who started playing early reached higher levels of skill as adults than players who started later...There may be a critical window during childhood for acquiring certain complex skills, just as there seems to be for language."

Can parents create geniuses like Einstein, famous sports stars like Tiger Woods, or great musicians and composers like Mozart? Considering that "no two paths [to success] are exactly the same," the answer is probably no. Parents should give kids opportunities to become great at something without pressuring them. Give them plenty of free time to develop their interests and encourage those interests. Then let them decide for themselves what they want to do in life. Because ultimately, with so many often uncontrollable factors and a complex mixture of genes and environment leading to greatness, there probably is no recipe you can follow to ensure your child will become great in any particular endeavor.

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