How Much Talent Does It Take to Be Successful?

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Hanifmr.com - What makes a self-employed person successful? Some people think that above all you have to have talent.

Is that so? Do you have to bring a lot of talent to be successful in the long term?

In the following, I will investigate this question, describe my experiences, and would be happy to hear your opinion.

How Much Talent is Required?

How Much Talent Does It Take to Be Successful?

Every founder wants to be successful and it should be clear that various factors are important for this.

However, it is not quite so clear which factors are how important in self-employment.

How important is your talent and how important is it?

Why You Should Bring Talent

Of course, talent is always something positive. Anyone who has a good feel for the ball should be more interested in a footballing career than someone who barely hits the ball without falling over their legs.

Skills and talents that we have acquired since childhood are a good basis for success, even as self-employed people. You don't have to start from scratch, you already have certain requirements.

Your skills and talents should of course ideally match your chosen independence. If you want to blog, you should like to write and have a good vocabulary. Anyone who wants to become a programmer should be familiar with computers and be tech-savvy.

All of this helps to get started and also to have fun with it, which is very important.

Why Talent is Overrated

However, one should by no means rely solely on one's talents. It is not for nothing that talented people often fail because they think that their talent is enough, which is rarely the case.

Success is based (roughly :-) on 60% hard work, 20% talent, and 20% luck. The percentage points are of course not to be taken that seriously, but the relationship between work and talent or luck is.

Many who fail often blame external reasons or bad luck. In most cases, however, it was simply the lack of willingness to work that was decisive.

The nice thing about self-employment is that you can acquire most of what you need. No master has fallen from the sky yet. The experience gained over time and the acquired know-how form the basis for success and at some point are worth much more than talent.

Self-discipline and perseverance are crucial

My first few years were tough and I had to turn every euro twice. Only through 6-7 working days a week and a lot of overtime did I gradually build something up. In the first few years, I hardly had any vacation and we couldn't afford much either. But I didn't give up and kept going.

In my experience, perseverance and self-discipline are much more important than talent. Self-employment is not a sprint, but a marathon, which is why it is important to persevere.

I've been self-employed for more than 10 years and it has been a long way from my beginnings as a founder to my business today.

Still, I keep getting emails from readers who think they can do the same thing in 4 weeks. But that's not how it works and whoever approaches self-employment with these expectations can still be talented. Most give up, especially those with a lot of talent.

Conclusion

For example, many see professional footballers and assume that they were just very talented and now earn huge sums of money. Anyone sees that they sacrificed their entire childhood and youth, trained a lot, and had hardly any free time, and also moved out very early.

Talent is helpful and can bring advantages, but in the end, it is not so important for the success of your independence how much talent you have. It is much more important whether you show perseverance and self-discipline and do so permanently.

That may not match the dreams of some founders who only see successful and well-paid entrepreneurs, but who did not get there like them. It is not “cool” to work a lot and to sacrifice free time for it, at least in the beginning. But only in this way will most of them be successful.

I would be happy about your experiences in the comments and your participation in the following voting.

What is most important for success as a self-employed person?

Endurance (69%, 141 votes)
Self-discipline (69%, 140 votes)
Contacts (24%, 49 votes)
Luck (9%, 19 votes)
Talent (7%, 14 votes)
I have no idea (0%, 1 votes)

Number of participants: 203 (4 votes)

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