I am currently reading Serious Creativity by Edward De Bono. It’s a great book by the way, I’ll write a review once I’m done reading it. In one chapter on misperceptions about creativity, Bono wrote:
CREATIVITY IS A NATURAL TALENT AND CANNOT BE TAUGHT
This misperception is actually very convenient because it relieves everybody of the need to do anything about fostering creativity. If it is only available as a natural talent then there is no point in seeking to do anything about creativity.
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That some people are naturally creative does not mean that such people would not be even more creative with some training and techniques. Nor does it mean that other people can never become creative.
Natural talent vs. hard work is a topic that has been debated by people of all professions throughout history. It’s also known as Nature vs Nurture, the difference between one’s innate ability vs. ability affected by personal experiences.
The term “talented’ or “gifted” is often mentioned in the artistic field. The achievements of artists, both in fine art and performing art are more obvious and visible. I have yet to find the reason why people have the need for such debate or self-awareness. Perhaps for some, it’s to gain self assurance, while for others it is to be hopeful.
I read a lot fables as a kid. Many of them touched upon this topic. For example, the race between the rabbit and the turtle. As a fan of the anime Naruto in recent years, my favorite character is Rock Lee (pictured above). He has no natural talent that other ninja students posses, but he makes up for it with his tenacity.
But fictions are fictions, they teach us the moral of being humble and diligent. Reading Bono’s excerpt, I can’t help but to consciously wonder if there’s such a thing as natural talent, especially when it comes to creativity. Last year I read an interesting and passionate discussion regarding this topic on Conceptart.org, and supporters of both sides raised some good points.
Here’s my opinion on natural talent vs. hard work: (P.S. as redundant as it may be, I’d like to point out this is just my opinion. Agree or disagree, that’s what the comment section is for).
Of course there’s natural talent, it’s not a myth. My statement comes from the achievements of people like Mozart , Michelangelo, Einstein, Michael Jordan etc. and my association with some very smart people in real life. I believe some people have more natural aptitude than others in certain areas. This is what I call natural talent.
However, the verdict of someone being naturally talented is often skewed. For example, when we see a fine piece of art or music, we often conclude that the artist must be really gifted. We come to this conclusion because we’re judging the end result - the art work itself. We tend to forget about the process and the journey of getting there. The artist may have been practicing for many years to get to that point. In which case hard work plays a huge role, regardless of whether he/she is naturally gifted or not.
In many discussions I’ve seen, talent and hard work are often talked about in a dichotomical way. E.g., Gifted people are perceived as complacent and lazy; while non-gifted people work harder to make up for it. In reality, talent can only carry you so far, the rest is hard work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I also believe tenacity itself is a form of natural talent. It’s not something everyone is capable of. Being able to work hard towards a goal, consistently, despite hardship, is a gift. It’s easy to judge talent by a painting, photo, music score or fanbase because they’re more conceivable.
Another factor that’s often ignored in such discussions is Passion. Passion makes us strive for excellence. Talent + hard work + passion is a winning formula for success.
My views are formed based on my personal experiences, I’d love to hear yours.
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I am also a huge fan of Naruto, and it really does showcase how far one can get with hard work and no talent.
How does this apply in real life? I feel that I have little to no natural talent in the variety of fields I have interest in. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with that, because it seems I am surrounded by people who exhibit talent in some form or another. My dad has a fantastic mind, and can understand theoretical math and science better than anyone else I know. My best friend is fantastic at a variety of arts, and she also has the tenacity you mentioned. She decided in college she wanted to be a video game artist, and she is! My husband seems to be gifted at practically everything he tries from video games, to art and photography to writing, I can’t think of a single thing that he can’t do if he decides he wants to.
But, I digress… If I have no talent, and am not really a fan of hard work, where do I stand? Am I destined to live a life of mediocrity?
I suppose I have chosen to be a support person for all the people in my life that I care about. In that, I feel that I do have some talent. Maybe that is one area you forgot to mention, the people who stand behind and beside those with talent, pushing them to move forward when they falter. Supporting them even when things aren’t going well, and stepping back from the spotlight when they achieve their dreams.
My general theory is that anything involving creativity is natural, logic is learned. For example, you can be a naturally talented designer, you cannot be a naturally talented programmer. Anyone can learn to program and think programatically. No one can learn to be an artist. You can learn “tricks of the trade” and go off of inspiration, but you cant learn to come up with artistic ideas if you dont have a naturally strong artistic side.
Physical things, such as Michael Jordan as you used as an example are probably also less likely to be natural. Anyone can learn and train and then be able to run fast and jump high.
Theory of course.
Naruto = Awesome
Natural talent with hard work will produce genius and usually the sky is the limit for a naturally-talented, hard-worker.
A hard worker who has no talent, however, can only reach a certain level in an area that they have no natural affinity in…
Just my two cents. By the way, good post. Keep it up!
@Rob
not true. You cannot jump like Michael Jordan also because his *body* is different then yours (”physical” talent), even if you train for 1000 years.
Agreed. Naruto = Fun to watch. When he wins, it’s usually good.
Artists are different, it’s hard to judge. There will always be people better than you (esp those English people - drinkers, womanizers, fighters, and now artists too)
Live for yourself enjoy what you will. If you like supporting that’s fine, one day you might feel like smacking your husband which may also be fine ;)
I would agree with you. As an amature painter I completely understand how important are both talent and hard work :)
@kaske well yeah of course your right about that. i wasn’t saying that as a definitive answer. obviously the longer your legs/torso/arms are will add variables to what you get out of training. but with training you could be equally skilled as compared to your body style.
as an example, michael jordan reached the highest level his body would allow, you could do the same if you wanted.
so you do have a valid point, but i still dont think that’s reason to believe that physical skill is a natural talent. i still think it’s learned talent.
Thank you all for your thoughts, much appreciated.
One may wonder, what’s the point of even talking about natural talent vs hard work. I wondered about that too. After all, if we’re looking at the end result (say certain achievement level), it seems hard work alone can get to that point.
One real life application I can think of: if you’re in a managerial type of position, it’d be good to identify your team’s strengths and weakness therefore you can delegate more efficiently. Certain people are fast learners, or have an talent for certain area of the project.
Thanks.
OK I’m a Porco Rosso fan from way back…
But that aside. You may get a lot out of reading The New Yorker article from October 20 titled Late Bloomers. It discusses the difference between someone like Picasso who was born with talent and Cezanne who couldn’t even draw well until he was at least 30 and wasn’t discovered until his late 50’s. Cezanne simply had a passion and worked hard…
The major part of the story is about a writer named Ben Fountain who was said to burst onto the writing scene… which was untrue, he had written for 20 years…
I taught graphic design students to code XHTML and CSS for a while and found many of them copped back to a stance of being visual people, it was too hard. They tended to find that as a good reason not to expect themselves to achieve in other areas. My personal take is that regardless of talent (it’s a pet peeve actually) we get good at the things we do. And we do the things we get acknowledgement for. So designers need to learn about coders and coders need to pick up a few design books and get a pencil and sketchobook, or contes or something.
I think it’s good to discuss the natural talent versus hard work thing because otherwise those without natural talent - the Cezannes - don’t get the opportunity to blossom. The article Late Bloomers asks - what if Cezanne had a high school career counsellor? How many of our children are being dumbed down to not follow their passion due to our obsession that talent must be present.
Ah the article mentioned that Cezanne also had an experimental methodology to his learning, which takes time. A natural talent might peak young like a Picasso, but a life of experimental refinement of skills can also make a master… :)
having natural talent means u’r already half the race ahead.. but it doesnt mean winning the race.. hardwork, craftiness, dedication - the intangibles.. those are, i think, what will really win the race, with or without talent..
at the end of the day, i guess, only time will tell..
In my book passions equals talent in some way. If you got passion, you’ll be great. If not, you simply won’t.
Is that hard work or talent? Who cares? It’s the end we’re after, the means can be whatever suits the person. What should be discussed is how different techniques works for different people since that is far more important when achieving ones goals.
Just my 2 cents. :)
Natural talent comes from the resources available for human, but that often would be underdeveloped . every human have various resources, such as physical ability, extent of emotions, imaginations…. but the environmental resources that shape up that talent into artistic form.
a kid with a physical ability raised to depend on his family, might not develop a talent in basketball because he misses the practicing.
I think it is really hard to say whether a person has a natural talent or someone who work hard. it is probably both at least in most cases .
[...] regularly crops up among designers, photographers and artists. Jin over on 8164.org is asking about talent versus hard work and whether natural talent exists? My take on that question is to suggest there is no doubt the [...]
@Steven, Gary, Tommie and US, thank you very much for the comments.
As for why natural talent matters? If we’re talking about achievement a goal, I don’t think it does matter, but not too much. As many commented, hard work and passion will get you there too.
Another reason I brought up this topic: raising three young kids, I can already see them showing strong talent in certain areas, even without me exposing or influencing them. My eldest is very creative when it comes to constructing things. He has a very keen sense of geometry and aesthetics when it comes to objects. My second son is very good at sports. While my youngest loves art and music. They were raised in the same environment, exposed to the same things.
What do I do as a parent? Naturally, I think I *should* encourage them in the areas they excel and have strong interests in. (that’s what I started doing). However, I wonder if there are other things they could be good at, but simply haven’t experienced yet.
Thanks!
I think that natural talent needs to be nurtured and cultivated. For me writing has always been easy and up until the advent of the internet I was not good with computers.
What did I do to cultivate my writing skills? I read everything I could get my hands on about being a writer, I wrote in my spare time and well just read everything I could get my hands on author wise in the genre I was interested in. I paid attention to their writing styles, mannerisms, how they developed their story.
It wasn’t as easy with digital design I had no clue where to start and who to follow or what was wrong and righte in copyright infringement. I seriously learned through trial and error on that.
So for me writing came easy and was fun as well as comforting, offering me solace in rough times. Later in life as a late bloomer digital design became an additional source of comfort. I do relate to the late bloomer with respect to digital design. I didn’t get good at it until just last year.
We’re in a similar position Jin with our youngest, she is 13 and a very talented young artist / designer / photographer. Basically if she feels creative we support it as much as possible with easels and paper and opportunities to expand. But ultimately she wants to be a marine biologist, which doesn’t mean she won’t be a scientist with a passion for painting or photography.
And nowdays careers don’t necessarily last a lifetime. I think if you support them to be who they want to be, and keep the communication channels open, then you can’t go too much wrong. In the end they’ll make their own choices about life.
“The two are not mutually exclusive.”
I strongly agree.
Hard work is nothing without the aptitude to achieve a skill, and yet skill does not come from sitting around and not working hard.
I am sure that even Mozart had difficulty with the piano when he was starting out. I often tell people that if they are going to do a job, they must play as hard as the rest of the people in the field, and always work toward improving. There is always room for improvement, whether in design or in any other field - no one person is perfect, but we must always work hard in order to become better at what we do. And in the ever-changing field of web development and design, this is significant because what is the bleeding edge one day will always shift to a common concept, and the edge will always move to another new thing.
And here again, passion. I do believe I made a post a while back in my blog about the driving force behind good design - passion. But could passion ultimately be the key to “natural” talent? After all, a person is more prone to pursue a subject which they are interested in, and thus hone themselves to know much about it - it may or may not, in the end, be perceived as hard work. A mentor of mine once told me that I should pursue something I am passionate about - not for money, not just because I liked it, but because by enjoying what I did, I would be more prone to invest more time into that subject, and similar to a hobby, rather than investing what feels like a great amount of work I would only put in (or at least perceive myself putting in) a small amount of effort.
@Joe, Steven and Kim: thank you for your comments!
I think passion definitely plays a huge role. We may be interested in different things in the course of our lives. But I think we all have that one thing we tend to stick with, or going back to. That’s passion there.
I am skeptical about “natural talent”. I have never seen a person described as a “natural” who didn’t work very hard or had an insatiable passion for their art (whether that be engineering or painting or music or sports).
That said, I’ve never met a Mozart or a Jordon.
I have worked with a lot of brilliant physicists and computer scientists. Some of them internationally recognized for their contributions. All of them became “brilliant” through hard work and had a deep passion for their fields. That, perhaps, is nature or nutured at such a young age that it may as well be nature.
There is a person that has a natural tendency to write with a left hand. Why? Because it has a *left hand talent*. It’s simply obvious and nobody can deny that - there are people with predispositions. Accept that. Accepting that is not a talent. It’s an observation. It’s an ability. A talent is something completely out of our wish, out of our control. It has been *given* to us. By whom? I don’t know. It doesn’t mean that our talent is our passion. Our passion shouldn’t suffer from our talent. Our passion is what drives us to do something. Our talent is an extraordinary tool, if needed. There are many people with talent that they have never wished for. Life is still mysterious. Wonderful topic. Thank you Author.
To me, talent is on the left, and hard work is on the right. When one is able to combine the two, it’s pure genius because the limbs are coordinated cooperatively to move the body. Ok, so now I’m going to show my “point of view”. I believe that God created us beautifully this way and so very complex. The word intricate describes to me what can only be carefully planned creative unleashing. How glorious the outcome! So, in summary I’m saying that greatness is found in the blending of both creativity and hard work. It has a presence one can’t deny.
Guys, I heard that Michael Jordan is not that talented, he gained his skill through hard work. He was even rejected on his highschool basketball team but after that he practiced so hard. I’ve watched that on his Above and Beyond film.
If any person has natural abilities, then that is a plus point for him. But I believe that with hard work you can achieve anything.
as an advent fan of naruto I was very happy to see rock lee as your spokesperson. In fact I ma in the process of laving my nine to five job and relying soey on the money I make as a freelancer. It is funny because early naruto is what made me want to chase after my dreams without giving up.