There are many times I see people saying that they are not good in doing something, they don’t have interest in doing something, what to do, what can I do.. Now I just want to share a famous proverb by the great Thomas Edison (google if you don’t know who he was) during his time:
“Success is 1% intelligence and 99% effort”
Ya that’s right. You don’t have to be a genius to succeed. As a matter of fact, geniuses are far and few in this world and yet they are many successful people. The keyword here: Effort! IQ, which stands for Intelligence Quotient, is a measure of how intelligent a person can be. Based on researches done previously, it is based on the normal distribution which is something like the graph below:

From what you can see above, the blue highlighted area represents people with an IQ of 85 to 115 and accounts for 68% of the human population. Whereas people with an IQ of 70-130 accounts for 96% of the human population. People with IQ less than 70 and more than 130 are 2% each.
An IQ of 90-109 is the IQ of a normal person and most of us falls in this category. (including you and me who are reading this. Those with scores below 70 are retarded people while those with over 130 scores can be considered geniuses. But do not worry, those genius/retards have only 4% in the world’s population. So most of us are normal.
So if most people are normal, why does people succeed? Is Bill Gates a genius? Is Tony Fernandes (CEO of AirAsia) a genius? I don’t think so. Then why they can achieve success? That’s because they take everything they do seriously. Do you ever hear Bill Gates say: “Oh, I am not good in this. Help?” Have you ever hear Li Ka Shing say: “What to do? My life is like that?” No, instead, they know their targets and once they have one, they will work towards their target and achieve it.
Right now many of the university students I know tend to say things like: I don’t like this subject. I can’t do well in this course. All I can say is, if they put “getting As for that subject” as their target, and strive to work hard to achieve it, there’s nothing that can stop them. If they have already gave up on themselves by saying those negative things, then not even God can save them.
Interest is only a mentality of a person. Sometimes it can direct someone towards a wrong path. Somebody may avoid doing a work when they “think” they do not have interest in it. Little will they realize that in the contrary, they can actually do well in something if they have really put in the effort. They never did. All they know is that they don’t have interest and thus they don’t want to do it. Interest is never in the equation of success! Who cares you really are interested or not? The more important thing is you want to do well or not? If yes then forget about the interest thing and live on. Don’t be a sore loser who did badly in something and then blames interest. You just did not do enough! Interest is only something for you to put preference in a group of things (I like this more than that but I can be good in both) and not as excuses!
I want to share a personal experience that happened to me during my university years. I was a student in software engineering. I had to take a subject called Basic Economics, Accounting and Management. Being an IT student, I have zero (I repeat: zero) interest in economics/management/accounting. But I managed to get A for the subject. Am I a genius? No, sorry. If I happen to take any IQ test, I am sure mine will be in the normal people group. Then how come I can score? That’s because I wanted to get the A. Even without interest in the subject, I was constantly finding ways to make me understand all the theories and facts in the notes and textbooks. I did not rely on memorize at all. (How much can you remember anyway? Management books are way too thick) All I did was understand every single thing I read and yet I did not like what I read at all (means I managed to study well even though I do not have interest in it)! And I want to stress again (I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN MANAGEMENT/ECONOMICS/ACCOUNTING!)
So before you want to say something like: I am not good in this or that/I have not talent in this/I am only good in that so I don’t want to do this, pls ask yourself:
- How much effort did you put in?
- Did you think of the reason why you are not good in a particular thing rather than blaming your intelligence/talent/interest?
- Did you find ways to improve your proficiency in the work troubling you?
- Did you just give in and say “What to do?” and not think of a better solution?
If you happen to answer “no” to any of the above, it just happen that you have the mentality that you cannot do it and never do your best.
So whenever, that happens, please remember.. Everybody can succeed if they believe in themselves and put in more efforts and not just blaming themselves/their IQs/anybody..
(Comments/Discussions welcome!
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