[aneesh]

In short, practice is necessary but not sufficient for awesomeness.

In particular, this implies: "If you have not practiced, then you are not awesome."

So to be awesome at X, you need:

1) some natural talent for X, varies based on the field

2) a love for X that will allow you to practice for 10,000 hours

[aaronblohowiak]

3) the discipline to make 10,000 hours of your practice deliberate

[brlewis]

I was struck a few years ago by an interview with an olympic athlete. She was asked how she found the discipline to keep a grueling practice schedule. She answered that what many see as discipline is actually passion.

If you're having trouble finding discipline, the answer may lie in finding a way to love what you're doing more.

[marvin]

This is very important. Having the iron discipline to work very hard for a long time at something you don't really like, in order to achieve some unrelated goal (for example getting rich) is also known as obsessive-compulsive disorder. The worst thing is that this approach sometimes works - I have met guitar virtuouses who definitely have this disorder. But if it's at the expense of your well-being, it is probably not worth it.

There is a lot of this in the startup community. I'm pretty sure the early life of Cisco is a pretty good example, but unsuccessful instances are all around you.

[giles_bowkett]

"1) some natural talent for X, varies based on the field"

No. The trend in the research is that "natural talent" is a MYTH. It does not exist.

Agree or disagree, I don't care, but as a summary of my post, your comment is inaccurate.