Drive more important than intelligence for success?

[Deleted]

Too many variables. Im sure there is some form of evidence that "drive" is more important than intelligence, but there are extremely many different situations where the amount of both will vary in order to reach "success" in different fields. One thing is for sure, having both intelligence and "drive" at high levels is for the best.

[PaladinBash]

Definitely. I cannot fathom how intelligence (or any native ability) is at all useful without considerable application and desire for more.

[Jersovic]

Something like 90% of those people had no uni/masters degree and something like 15/20% didn't even finish high school.

Dropping out of high school isn't a sign of low intelligence. I dropped out of high school, and later went on to maintain a 4.0 throughout college without ever taking notes, or applying myself.

That being said, I do agree with the majority of your thread. That part just kind of frustrated me because education is generally a privilege, not a reward for high intelligence.

[Deleted]

Should it not be curiosity? I personally think that the 'drive' to do something will come when you are sufficiently curious to those things that interest you

[Kheirn]

It all depends on the subject. Say you want to be a theoretical physicist, and you have a passion for it. You're not very smart, but you like the idea of the whole thing. Somewhere along the way, someone will come who's smarter than you, if you're an avarage person. The difference between you and the smarter person is that he will see things that you don't. Drive gives you knowledge, but it doesn't make you think outside the box, which is oftenly required for being a good theoretical physicist. There is a reason why the Nobel prizewinners are extremely smart. It's not just because they have drive, it's because they have the ability to think and see things that your avarage people can't. In this case, drive will only get you so far.

Should it not be curiosity? I personally think that the 'drive' to do something will come when you are sufficiently curious to those things that interest you

This kind of feeds into my point aswell. Physicists has a way of asking questions, and they want answers to them, so they set out on a journey to seek the answer to these questions. Curiosity is what drives them to go further and explore what they haven't yet explored.

[Toccs]

My take on it; Drive will give you the knowledge which will lead you to success.

If you work hard, do you job your career will only progress, if you hit a stopping point you can always go out and learn the skills required. If i don't know something I will go out and learn it, I learn it because I have the drive to do it. You don't need to be intelligent to learn.

Drive is more important in my opinion.

[Bolson13]

Dropping out of high school isn't a sign of low intelligence. I dropped out of high school, and later went on to maintain a 4.0 throughout college without ever taking notes, or applying myself.

Yes true but back (note my WW2 remark) then often the more intelligent men (not women yet) in a family went on to keep studying. The one who had the highest chance because school was still expensive. The others had to keep working in the field or factory or whatever to support the family. So chances are they weren't the smartest to begin with.

So it is not black and white like you said but the situation at that time does show a little why I noted the drop out of highschool rate among the most succesfull.


And in the end succes is also relative of course.

[Deleted]

i personally believe that succes is the only reliable measure of ability... if they're so smart they would have realised they need to try harder,yes?

[Total Crica]

i personally believe that succes is the only reliable measure of ability... if they're so smart they would have realised they need to try harder,yes?

success at anything? or just certain things?

[Shammywan]

In order of likelihood of success:

1. Drive - with or without intellect.
2. Big boobs.
3. Winning the lottery.
4. Intellect - without drive.

QFT /10 char

[melodramocracy]

I personally believe someone with an average IQ and tons of drive and ambition will be way more successful than someone with high intelligence and less drive and ambition.

And you'd be right.

---------- Post added 2012-08-15 at 02:51 PM ----------

i personally believe that succes is the only reliable measure of ability... if they're so smart they would have realised they need to try harder,yes?

This, of course, falls apart when you discuss areas where ability skill doesn't equate directly to success. See: pop music, most job interviews, etc. It also doesn't apply in fields where skill / ability isn't the only criteria.

The more I think of it, the more I conclude that your measurement system is quite flawed.