Being at the right place at the right time is only a small piece of the puzzle. I do not believe that success only comes from hard work, luck and opportunity. Those things help, but only after you found, and realized your true gift.

I believe people are born with gifts, its all a matter of realizing what those are. Only a few of us discover the hidden potential, and that is why we only have the few geniuses in the world at any given time. Those geniuses happened to realize what they had and acted on it just by pure interest, and passion, not because they felt forced to succeed in it. Most successful people are successful in something they love doing and were doing way before they became successful the outcome was only a bonus.

I strongly disagree with the fact that anyone can do anything, if it’s not in your DNA to have passion, or interest in something why would you try to succeed in it? Why would you want to? You would never have those opportunities, or luck because you wouldn’t surround yourself with them.

To reference the book by Malcolm Gladwell Outliers: the story of Success. It is true that people like Bill gates might have succeeded in the technology realm because they were exposed to a computer early on when most people didn’t, but so did other students in his classroom. His true passion that was buried within him became apparent. The other students just didn’t have that interest. We can’t force people to do something they don’t have a care for.

I do not believe Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs at some point said “I will build this new operating system to be rich and famous”, they had a passion for computers and that passion led them to success, and opportunities in a newly emerging untapped industry.

There are many students out there with the same passion and determination to succeed in their fields, but there will always be the ones that do better with less effort. If you have it you have it. I see that all the time in my own field of design. I saw it all through my college education, people that were never meant to be designers tried and tried and never got far enough in skill or creativity compared to others that just had the gift.

Those people were a bit unique because even though they had no gift for design they had passion and determination, but that again, only proves my theory, that hard work and passion is not enough to make you successful.

So, I do agree that circumstances might play a role in the upbringing of an individual, the people you surround yourself with, the opportunities, luck and hard work, but I believe that all those things only play a small part in uncovering your own genius and not creating it!

Another good example is child proteges! 5 year old’s with brilliant piano skills or Math skills. Those kids just have it!

Please feel free to argue and share your thoughts…