The Lie of Overnight Success

The Myth of Effortless Talent: Mozart and Federer

Effortless genius is a myth.

We admire Mozart and Federer, and we may wish we were half as talented as they were.

When we see someone have overnight success, we often believe that they are special. That they posses some kind of unique talent, that we don’t have. But is this really an accurate judgement to make?

When you conclude all that matters is talent, then you're selling yourself short and you're selling them short too.

As effortless as their craft appeared, the illusion of effortlessness and otherworldly talent would never have happened without crazy amounts of hard work.

How do you discern talent from hard work?

Can hard work result in the perception of talent?

If we were to ask Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Roger Federer, then they would likely answer yes.

I want to stress, Federer and Mozart obviously possessed talent, but their hard work magnified their talents to another level where they were considered maestros in their respective fields.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was widely considered the poster child of innate talent, already touring royal courts to perform as a little kid together with his father.

However, is it really true that Mozart got by on talent alone?

In the words of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.” - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

According to Mozart, all this appearance of effortless talent is actually hard work.

Roger Federer, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, recently retired from tennis. When he was playing, he was widely considered the most elegant and beautiful tennis player ever. When he played, commentators always called out how effortless and beautiful his playing style seemed.

The effortless comments immensely frustrated Roger Federer during his career.

"I say that as someone who has heard that word a lot. 'Effortless.' People would say my play was effortless. Most of the time, they meant it as a compliment... But it used to frustrate me when they would say. 'He barely broke a sweat!’

The truth is, I had to work very hard... to make it look easy. I spent years whining... swearing… throwing my racket… before I learned to keep my cool... I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents." - Roger Federer, Speech at Dartmouth College 2024

Whenever you see success that appears effortless, rest assured it’s rarely talent alone. You can be sure there’s a massive amount of hard work that supports that success.

You can’t control talent, you can control working hard. And when you work hard, you can create the perception and appearance of talent. When someone sees you in action, nobody actually knows how hard you’ve worked. That part is invisible. All they can see is how you’re performing on the court, or how your music sounds.

John Denver’s monster hit Annie’s song was created in 15 minutes while he was daydreaming on a skilift. Does that make the song any worse or better? Would you be able to tell by listening to the song?

Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, one of the best albums of all time, was actually their eleventh studio album. Their first five albums failed to hit any significant numbers, and they slowly worked towards greatness, with all the expected ups and downs. It wasn’t like every album they made was better than the previous one but they kept on going.

Do you listen to Rumours any differently now that you know how much work they put in to get there?

No, I don’t think it really matters. As long as it sounds good, that’s what you care about.

Don’t worry too much about talent. Worry about whether you enjoy what you’re doing, and are putting in the work necessary to get where you want to be.

Who knows where you’ll end up? If Fleetwood Mac would have given up after their 5th album then they would never reached the current level of fame.

You can’t control for talent, you can control for working hard.

Nobody knows where you can end up if you keep on working hard.