How can we account for the fact that many of the greatest things in the world are done by one-talent men, while the ten-talent, the versatile man is never heard from? Everywhere we see young men succeeding apparently out of all proportion to their ability, and we do not understand it at all. We cannot understand why the boy who was at the foot of our class in school or college has distanced us in the great life race, for he did not have half the ability we possessed. We laughed at him at school, but, somehow, he has focused his energies upon one thing and, like a tortoise, he kept plodding until he "arrived." He has managed to keep ahead, to accumulate a competence with one talent, while our ten talents are still drifting without aim or results.
The very consciousness of being dull and stupid has spurred many a boy on to make the most of what little ability he had. The very humiliation of being told so often by teachers and parents that he is not bright makes him determined that he will not be a nobody. The very comparison of himself with his brilliant brother has perhaps made him set his teeth with a resolution to show that the brother has not absorbed all the ability of the family.
Discovering or haying it impressed upon him how limited his abilities are, he makes great efforts, and not being versatile, he does not have the temptation to dissipate his energies on a score of things, but simply develops his one talent and makes the most of it. He can concentrate and focus his powers more easily than can the ten-talent man. He does not have to meet constantly the arguments on this hand and on that, that perhaps he could do something else better. He knows if he succeeds at all it must be by developing his one talent, and he focuses all his attention upon it.
We hear a great deal of talk about genius, talent, luck, chance, cleverness, and fine manners playing a large part in one's success. Leaving out luck and chance, we grant that all these elements are important factors in the battle of life. Yet the possession of any or all of them, unaccompanied by a definite aim, a determined purpose, will not ensure success. Whatever else may have been lacking in the giants of the race, the men who have been conspicuously successful, we shall find that they all had one characteristic in common — doggedness and persistence of purpose.
It does not matter how clever a youth may be, whether he leads his class in college or outshines all the other boys in his community, he will never succeed if he lacks this essential of determined persistence. Many men who might have made brilliant musicians, artists, teachers, lawyers, able physicians or surgeons, in spite of predictions to the contrary, have fallen short of success because they were deficient in this quality.