THE BIOLOGY OF SUCCESS
for success? Are we born with these qual-
ities, or can we acquire them? Does suc-
cess lead to happiness? And how can par-
ents give their children the best chance at
success in life?
A British scientist named Francis Gal-
ton was among the first to delve into those
questions formally, publishing a slim vol-
ume in 1869 called Hereditary Genius: An
Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences.
He argued that humans inherit our nat-
ural abilities and that, inevitably, those
of us with the greatest innate talent are
the ones who reach the highest levels of
achievement.
Not coincidentally, Galton’s book
came 10 years after another Brit, Charles
Darwin—who happened to be Galton’s
half cousin—published his On the Origin
of Species. Galton was the first to attempt
to apply Darwin’s principle of natural se-
lection to humans.
His assertions hardly went unchal-
lenged. One of the very scientists whose
family lineage Galton had featured in his
book took issue, offering evidence that en-
vironmental factors—things like upbring-
ing, education and life experience—play a
more significant role than genetics in pre-
dicting whether people will succeed.
That challenge sent Galton back to the
drawing board, and he conducted a survey
of nearly 200 of England’s preeminent sci-
entists. The resulting book, English Men of
Science: Their Nature and Nurture, was the
first to explore the impact of such factors as
education, socioeconomic status and even
birth order on success.
The nature/nurture debate has raged
ever since. Now, as then, one of the great-
est obstacles to the scientific study of suc-
cess is determining how to measure it.
Who’s to say what constitutes success?
Like most psychologists studying suc-
cess, Ericsson focuses on areas of achieve-
ment with objective metrics, evaluating
subjects such as Olympic-level athletes,
chess players and elementary-school
math teachers. In various studies, he has
repeatedly found that the key factor in
one’s level of achievement is not genet-ics or innate talent but deliberate practice
of a particular skill. Among athletes (he
has studied gymnasts and dart throwers,
among others), a primary predictor of cre-
ative achievement is how much time the
individual spends engaged in the activity
in circumstances in which the person re-
ceives immediate feedback from a coach
or teacher.
That’s not so far from the findings of
another prominent psychologist, Dean
Keith Simonton of the University of
California, Davis, who studies creative
achievement and has also studied U.S.
presidents. Hard work is essential to
achieving success, Simonton says. But it’s
also essential to find the area in which you
can thrive. “If you pick the wrong domain,
you may instead experience the ‘spin-
ning your wheels’ effect,” says Simonton,
the author of The Genius Checklist. “You
work and work and work and yet still re-
main mediocre.”
For those aiming to achieve in the cre-
ative realm, Simonton says, the primary
predictor of creative achievement is the
sheer number of attempts. “Successful
poets write more poems, successful inven-
tors claim more patents, successful sci-
entists publish more journal articles,” he
says. “Yet only a small proportion of those
poems, patents or articles will actually
carry the weight of the creator’s success.”
While hard work and innate talent are
undoubtedly important, so is attitude.
Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at
Stanford, is the author of Mindset: The
New Psychology of Success, in which she
explains the difference between what she
calls the “fixed mindset” and the “growth
mindset.” People with fixed mindsets feel
that their own intellect and talents are lim-
ited, so they avoid challenges and give up
easily. People with growth mindsets, on the
other hand, perceive that they can culti-
vate their abilities through hard work and
mentoring. Fixed-mindset folks see fail-
ures as disasters. Growth-mindset people
see them as opportunities.
The good news is that people can
learn to change their mindsets, as DweckPeople
with “fixed
mindsets”
feel their
intellect
and talents
are limited,
so they
avoid
challenges.
People with
“growth
mindsets”
cultivate
their
abilities.