Talent alone is not the foundation of success. A Stanford research has shown that when it comes to attaining long-term objectives, qualities like discipline, adaptability, and tenacity sometimes matter more than natural aptitude. Setbacks are inevitable in both life and business, so what motivates some people to keep going while others stagnate? “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,” as Thomas Edison once observed. Qualities that enable people to deal with uncertainty, accept failure, and continuously develop are necessary for creating sustained success. With views based on both experience and timeless human truths, several industry leaders share just one quality—beyond talent—they think is crucial for long-term success in this expert roundup series.
Editor’s Note: This feature contains personal anecdotes and opinions from contributors. Financial, legal, and business outcomes mentioned are specific to individual experiences and should not be considered universal advice or guarantees. Readers are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals before making related decisions.
Patience Yields Results Beyond Talent Alone
The recommended trait is patience because it grants individuals to develop endurance in the game of life. Someone with a healthy embodiment of patience will out perform anyone who holds talent without patience, which itself is a form of spiritual maturity. Patience isn’t a destination, it’s an on-going evolving trait that teaches people on how to nurture their self-development when it comes to coping and emotional regulation, cultivating a mindset to thrive (not just survive) and learning how to still prosper when the season of harvest hasn’t arrived.
When people are told to be patient, often many interpret that to be a passive solution. It’s what you DO during the moments of being patient that will dictate how well you’ve applied your talent to yield results. Sufficient people have talent but many dismiss their talent due to their lack of understanding that patience has a function in life, regardless of how we choose to contribute to life.
Sasha Laghonh, Founder & Sr. Advisor to C-Suite & Entrepreneurs, Sasha Talks
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Creativity Drives Unique Business Solutions
I would probably go with creativity. The businesses that are the most successful throughout time are the ones that are the most singular and provide unique solutions to problems. Creativity is necessary to develop businesses that do these things. Especially since the tech industry and the business world as a whole are changing so much every year, creativity is only becoming more valuable and critical for long-term success.
Edward Tian, CEO, GPTZero
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Discipline Creates Repeatable Results, Not Moments
Discipline is the trait that sustains success. Talent can create moments of progress. Discipline creates repeatable results.
In our business, discipline shows up in how consistently we execute, how we hold the line on quality, and how we make decisions when the work feels routine. It keeps operations running and growth on track, even when progress is slow.
Alex Smereczniak, Co-Founder & CEO, Franzy
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Grit Builds Lasting Success Through Challenges
Grit is my pick because it shows who stays and who walks away. It draws the line between people who quit and those who build something that lasts forever. Talent helps at the start, but grit is what keeps you going when things get hard. We have faced real problems like inventory delays, market drops, and unexpected issues that showed up on the hardest days.
Grit helped me stay steady. It is a mix of passion and not giving up. People may admire talent, but they follow grit because it feels real. Grit shows how you lead, how you earn trust, and how you keep moving. It keeps you going long after talent runs out of steam.
Ender Korkmaz, CEO, Heat&Cool
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Adaptability Powers Success Through Industry Evolution
I think I would say adaptability. In just these past five years alone, there have been so many major changes in the business world at large, from the pandemic, to AI, and more. I’ve had to make a lot of changes within my company to not just keep things running well but excel within all these evolutions in the industry, and that has certainly not always been easy. I think it’s safe to say that in the years and decades to come, we are only going to see more and more changes – and ones that we aren’t even anticipating right now. So, if my business, and myself, is to have long-term success, I have to be adaptable.
Steve Schwab, CEO, Casago
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Resilience Transforms Tax Burdens Into Business Victories
**Resilience** is the one trait that separates successful changemakers from those who burn out. After 19 years running my accounting firm and helping clients from startups to $100M companies, I’ve seen talent without resilience fail repeatedly.
I had a client who was ready to quit his chiropractic practice after owing $3,300 in taxes and dealing with two disappointing accountants. Instead of giving up, he took a chance on working with us. We went back three years, restructured his approach, and turned that $3,300 debt into an $18,000 refund. His resilience to try one more solution saved his business.
The average American household makes $60,000 but pays $14,000 in taxes, leaving them $7,000 short of covering basic living expenses annually. Most people accept this as “just how it is.” The resilient ones seek solutions, start businesses, and legally reduce their tax burden through proper structure.
Talent gets you the technical skills, but resilience keeps you fighting when the system seems stacked against you. It’s what drives you to find the legal loopholes, pivot strategies, and keep serving clients even when you want to quit.
Courtney Epps, Owner, OTB Tax
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Resilience Keeps Attorneys Strong After Setbacks
Talent brings you in. Resilience takes you through.
You need something more than talent to succeed in the long term. You need the ability to keep moving after there are mistakes.
Skilled attorneys leave because they can’t handle the pressure. The ones who last are those who rise after every setback. They learn from mistakes. They do not allow failure to define them.
Early in life, I lost a case that I felt certain that I would win. I spent time reviewing each of my choices. I changed the way I prepared and the way I approached the next case. Losing made me stronger. Resilience grows when you choose to keep going.
Talent may be able to open doors. Resilience is what keeps you in the game.
Tony Kalka, Personal Injury and Accident Attorney, Kalka Law Group
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Resilience Sustains Progress When Plans Fail
Resilience. Talent opens doors, but resilience keeps you moving when things stall, break, or fall apart. Long-term success is less about constant wins and more about showing up after setbacks. The ability to adapt without losing your sense of purpose is what makes change stick.
Girish Manglani, CEO & Co-Founder, ezcards.io
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Build Resilience To Overcome Business Challenges
Build resilience so you can keep going when things get hard. Things don’t always go as planned, and everyone has problems. Being resilient helps you change, learn from mistakes, and keep going.
Building resilience means being patient, dealing with stress well, and having a positive attitude. These habits help you deal with issues and get back on track when things don’t go as planned.
As a lawyer and businessman, I’ve seen that toughness is more important than ability when things get tough. You can stick to your goals, motivate others, and achieve lasting results if you’re resilient.
Mark Hirsch, Co-founder and Personal Injury Attorney, Templer & Hirsch
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Discipline Outshines Talent For Lasting Success
Talent diminishes when discipline prevails. If you want to achieve long-term success, establish discipline first.
I’ve had talented individuals who possessed all the advantages, top resumes, good communication, technical skills. But under pressure, they fell apart. Overdue deadlines. Excuses. No follow-through. Talent didn’t serve them when consistency didn’t. I’ve witnessed below-average skilled team members elevate quickly due to their reliability. They arrived early. They double-checked. They did not wait to be instructed on what needed to be corrected. That discipline instills trust you can’t replicate.
Discipline is doing what’s right even when nobody’s looking. Picking up a phone when you don’t feel like it to call a tired client back. Walking a job twice to ensure nothing gets overlooked. Taking responsibility for a mistake before someone else does. That’s what brings them back. That’s how your name remains in good standing once the job is over.
Talent can begin your career. But discipline determines whether you survive.
Shantell Moya, Business Owner, Roof Republic
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Adaptability Transforms One Ride Into Business Success
If I could develop one characteristic besides talent to create long-term success. It would be adaptability because one ride changed my entire business.
In the beginning of Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com, I received a last-minute booking from a Hollywood producer. She was traveling alone, needed a driver in 20 minutes, spoke no Spanish, plus had a meeting she absolutely had to attend. All of my drivers were booked for the day, except for one recruit who just started and didn’t know the routes.
So I drove myself.
Traffic was bad. Rather than taking the route recommended by the GPS, I adapted in real time- I cut through back streets that I used to drive in from childhood, and even. called a buddy to verify routes from Waze. We made it to the destination on time. She booked us for 6 more days, and referred 3 other producers!
That ride forced me to adapt. I stopped hiring drivers simply because of experience. I started seeking drivers who could adapt while they were on the route- emotionally, technologically, even linguistically. In fact, more than 80% of our five-star reviews mention how “calm” or “resourceful” the driver was while under pressure.
In a city that is chaotic, beautiful, and always changing like Mexico City, talent alone will not sustain you. What sustains you is adaptability. The one trait that can pivot fast, listen harder, and meet the moment, even if it’s not the planned moment.
Martin Weidemann, Owner, Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com
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Perseverance Conquers Obstacles To Achieve Success
I think I would want to really develop the trait of perseverance. Long-term success simply does not come without obstacles and challenges. Often what distinguishes someone who’s achieved long-term success and someone who hasn’t is their ability to get past those obstacles and challenges. To do that, you need perseverance.
Jeremy Yamaguchi, CEO, Cabana
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Persuasion Powers Success Beyond The Boardroom
I have been fortunate to work with, and learn from, several inspiring changemakers across many industries and yet only one or two of them have consistently sustained success.
Those individuals set themselves apart based on their ability to persuade. They persuaded the team to work over the weekend, they persuaded the board to sign off their speculative bet and they persuaded their counterparty to hand over more than they wanted.
Notably this skill was just as clear outside of work (complimentary upgrades!).
Jack Dowling, Business Transformation Leader – Strategy, Product, Operations & AI
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Resilience Turns Daily Problems Into Forward Momentum
Resilience drives long-term success more than talent ever will be able to. Talent may launch you into the good life. Resilience can return you to your feet, adapt, and keep going when things don’t work out as expected, and they usually won’t.
In this company, it goes wrong every day. Equipment breakdowns, regulatory changes, and last-minute call-ins. I’ve had days when everything goes wrong at once, cars inoperable, engineers stuck, and customer expectations building. Without resilience, you crack under pressure. You start to react instead of respond. Resilience means staying focused under pressure, adapting quickly, and coming back stronger the next day.
I did not have it previously. It was built up through experience. I used to take the failures personally. If a plan went wrong, I believed that I did not work. But with resilience, I learned to withdraw, correct what went wrong, and move forward. I’ve applied that line of thinking to how I train my staff, establish operations, and address problems. When things do not go well, I think about what’s going to go differently, who requires assistance, and what we can control in the immediate timeframe.
That is the mindset. If you remain consistent, your people remain sharp. Resilience is building a culture where failures are not failures, they’re just doing their job. That’s what propels you ahead. That’s what takes problems and turns them into momentum.
Lisa Clark, Director, Bell Fire and Security
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Accountability Earns Trust Beyond Fleeting Talent
Accountability means owning every step of the journey even the complex parts. We do not pass the blame or look the other way. Our customers trust us to care for the planet and their skin, we take that seriously. That trust is not given, it is earned every single day through our actions. We make honest choices, even when no one is watching.
Talent might get attention for a moment but accountability is what keeps people coming back. It shows we mean what we say. Without it words fall flat, promises break and once trust is lost it is hard to win back. That is why we always lead with accountability.
Lord Robert Newborough, Founder/Owner, Rhug Wild Beauty
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Cross-Disciplinary Knowledge Creates Sustainable Competitive Advantage
I would choose cross-disciplinary knowledge. That’s because the most innovative ideas exist at the intersection of two (or more) fields. And competition’s less fierce in these spaces because fewer people have the right combination of backgrounds to see the opportunity. In other words, you develop a competitive advantage that makes you likelier to sustain it for a long period of time. Plus, you’re more likely to want this since you combine multiple areas of interest.
In my own career, I work in finance and have a deep interest in emotions. That mix led me to work that explores the intersection of the two. It’s a space where I can contribute something distinct, and since it draws on multiple passions, I believe it has long-term sustainability.
Michael Schramm, CFA, Founder & Writer, Emotional Finance
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Sustained Focus Drives Innovation Despite Distractions
Maintaining and developing the capacity and ability to sustain focus for long periods of time. I think in modern society, we’re moving towards a society that creates a lot of stimuli and encourages us to be really good at context switching. However, I believe the best innovations and your best ideas will come from being able to stay focused for extended periods of time, and the only way to achieve that is through consistent training to develop the focus muscle. On top of that, developing awareness to understand when you are losing focus on the task at hand and being able to come back to it is crucial. You can also incorporate external tools to help you focus, but intrinsically, the most important trait will be the ability to sustain focus. To train yourself to stay focused, develop your focus muscle.
Marcos Ciarrocchi, Co-founder, Graphite
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Resilience Propels Success Through Inevitable Failure
Resilience. Talent gets you noticed, but resilience keeps you moving when things get hard, slow, or uncertain—which they always do. It lets you adapt without burning out or giving up. Long-term success isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about showing up after it.
Paul Bichsel, CEO, SuccessCX
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Resilience Sustains Careers Beyond Fleeting Moments
Resilience. Hands down. Talent might open doors, but resilience is what keeps you showing up when things don’t go as planned—when the pitch gets ignored, the campaign falls flat, or you feel like you’re ten steps behind. Especially in an industry as fast and personal as entertainment, you need thick skin and a deep why. That ability to keep going, keep learning, and keep evolving—that’s what sustains a career, not just a moment.
Trevor Perkins, Founder, PERK PR & Creative Agency
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Discipline Builds Trust Through Consistent Action
Discipline is greater than talent.
I’ve seen it firsthand myself over the decades in waterproofing. Talent gets you noticed, but discipline gets you progressing when work gets hard when results take time, and when no one is observing. In the absence of discipline, people give up. They cut corners. They get bored when things don’t turn out the way they desire.
When I started working in the trades when I was little, I was not the strongest or the fastest. I did not arrive in the world knowing how to solve all of those problems down there. What I did was simple: I kept coming. I watched. I learned. I erred, and I attempted again. That’s discipline, showing up and getting the job done every day, even when you don’t feel like it.
I’ve seen skilled people quit because they refused to stick it out. I’ve seen others with less skill succeed by working harder, staying longer, and never quitting when things get hard. This is true in any job. The ones who last are the ones who keep working through bad weather, problems, and frustration.
Discipline builds consistency.
Consistency builds trust.
That’s how you succeed long term.
Steve Karlik, Owner & Founder, Blue Umbrella Waterproofing
Have Your Say
- Which quality do you believe is underrated in professional success?
- Which trait has helped you most in your career or business?
- How do you develop resilience or discipline in yourself?
Alignment with the UN SDGs
- SDG 8: Promotes sustained, inclusive economic growth through professional development insights.
- SDG 4: Encourages lifelong learning through self-improvement traits.
- SDG 9: Supports innovation by highlighting adaptability and creativity.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in the content provided on this page are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organizations mentioned. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as professional advice. Readers should consult with relevant experts or professionals for guidance specific to their circumstances. The examples used are for illustrative purposes and results may vary depending on various factors. Any external links provided are for convenience, and we do not endorse or take responsibility for the content, products, or services available through these links.
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