However, on the internet, there is a worship of "hard work" that strikes me as emotional more than real.
Hard work is 1/2 of the equation.
The other part is your wiring: intelligence, skill, etc.
Not everyone can do everything.
We can dumb down any task to the point where anyone can do it... but at that point, it's a bubble waiting to pop.
Is the equation 'success in life as measured against everyone else,' or is the equation 'success in life as measure against yourself'? If the question is the latter--which is the only question a person should care about--then hard work is very close to 100%. This isn't an emotional claim, it's a rational and evidence based claim.
The reason that there is a rightful reverence to hard work is because working hard is the variable we can change. Not only that, it's guaranteed to produce results. If you intentionally build 180 web sites in 180 days, you will get better. You may not get better than someone more intelligent, but you can't be that person, you can only be who you are.
Not everyone can be everything, but anyone who does nothing will be nothing.
I'd say the full equation is to find a worthwhile goal to work hard on. While learning, the 'How to build 180 websites' goal works fine.
Hard work is fruitful only when applied in the right direction. Work 16 hrs/day in a large corporate and all you will get is some middle manager taking credit for all your work, grabbing all the milk and honey for himself and throwing some peanuts at you along the way.
If you are good, find a lofty goal, which is in your best interest and work on that.
'Success in life as a measure against yourself' is only a part of the consideration, though. Another part is 'Should I be doing this?'
You allude to this in your discussion but don't come out and say it, which is why 'success [sans the "in life" bit] as measured against everyone else' is an important question as well.
After n units of hard work, how much closer will I get to that someone more intelligent than I? Close enough to be competitive, or simply closer to my potential? Is my optimum potential competitive against my peers? If the effort is to be more than a hobby, the answer to that question (borne from the first of your two potential equations) is the key to deciding if the hard work is a variable we _should_ change.
In the case of that first equation/gate check, might wisdom and intelligence be the weightier reagent?
Absolutely. I intentionally alluded to this but didn't enter into that discussion because I didn't want to draw from the point I was making, but it's just as valuable of a discussion to have.
> "Is my optimum potential competitive against my peers?"
I would say that your peers could only reasonably be defined as those people who have the same upper-bound of potential (optimum potential) as you. I'm not in the same optimum potential league as John Resig; both because I haven't worked as hard as he has up to this point (focused in the right areas) and because I don't have the same optimum potential (I would imagine). He and I are not peers in this sense, despite being peers across many other areas.
But if I interpreted the question of my success in terms of my self or my peers through the filter of that fact, I would do myself a great disservice. I can't live the life where he and I are peers and I can make changes in my life to compete with him. I can live in the life where I can make changes in my life that will affect my success compared to people in the same optimum potential as I am.
Besides that, despite the differences in optimum potential, I may still be able to reach the level he is at now after, say, twice as much work. In other words, his level is not unobtainable for me, I just have a lot further to run in the race.
And I, for one, welcome that challenge. Anyway, great point, thanks for making it!
Doesn't that seem kinda sad to imagine?
Maybe that's another variable people can change: If they can identify the similarities amongst what they enjoy doing, then they can form more abstract goals that can be satisfied by multiple approaches. If they've done that, then the ability to recognise their relative strengths and weaknesses becomes more important again.
I can't agree here. Success is measured in terms of what you accomplish, and that's not solely a personal measurement. Life is not subjective.
Then again, success isn't entirely external either.
However, I can't agree with the notion that "hard work" (a conveniently vague term) is 100% of anything. If it is, that means the work is robot-work.
More likely, it's a lot of careful thought, applied by the amount of work required to make the idea come into reality, and then the missing "fourth wall" of creation, which is: is it actually useful?