Understanding Who to Emulate

One thing which some people may misunderstand is what a world of difference it is to achieve based on talent, strategy or hard sweat.

The talented achieve success despite using the wrong strategy or having a lack of effort. In sports, you see these people as the Paul Gascoigne's, or the Shaq's. In academics you see these people as the one's who do everything to the contrary of what is expected and yet outperforms everyone else. They are adequate without strategy/effort; with either one they become spectacular. They will succeed regardless of anything else (for the most part). They've got the "genes".

The strategic achieve by using strictly the right method. They are the epitome of effectiveness and efficiency. They circumvent talent; they don't have to "waste" effort. These are the people who think before they do.

The people who always give maximum effort overcome a lack of talent and planning to achieve success. They're the bulldozers; the John O'Shea's; the study-till-late-night-every-night kind of people. They spend more time or more intensity of effort to reach their goals.

And yet all of them would succeed. And usually it is a combination of the three, with varying degrees of dominance.

Of course the ceiling of success is highest for the talented. You can always strategize properly and give more effort, but you can't overcome your talent. To copy the talented is useless, unless if you're talented as well.

You can always give more effort, but with diminishing returns as you give more and more effort. There would come a time when giving more effort would start to eat into your time and energy for other endeavors, with only a slight increase in results. If the endeavor you're trying to improve in is your only endeavor, this path might be useful for you.

The one to copy is the one who is strategic. They employ methods suitable for the masses, aka "the rest of us", allowing us to maximize our potential. The methods they use allows for efficiency; you don't have to use more effort to achieve the same success. And should you actually be either talented/hardworking or both, being strategic means that your success will fly trough the roof, becoming like the Stephen Hawking's, Michael Jordan's and the Steven Gerrards of the world.

P.S. Of course there's also the "cheaters". I don't have to tell you not to follow them.