Hard work and persistence will take you 90% of the way to greatness; raw talent only accounts for the other 10% of success. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking you can just float through on your natural abilities.

Being naturally gifted, in fact, has an interesting effect of putting you at something of a disadvantage. You may feel more complacent if you don’t think it’s 100% necessary to practice and work as much as possible. Check out this blog post titled “Talent or Hard Work?” to find out more about this phenomenon.

Image via Flickr by hyekab25