[webwright]

Funny, earlier on HN was a headline that said to praise your children for their effort and NOT their intelligence.

Grades are a sign of effort. Effort wins most of the time.

What really surprises me about the wildly successful people I meet is that most of them aren't brilliant. But all of them work their asses off. Non-stop. I haven't met one who was brilliant and had a good work/life balance. Unsurprisingly, these habits often (but not always!) start early... Most of these successful people went to great schools and got great grades.