My teenage daughter and I were walking home from the library the other day. She wanted to know why social skills were so important. She seemed to think she could hide in a shell for the rest of her life and not have to interact with human beings. She would like to live life with her nose in a book (or at least a Kindle 2). Unfortunately, that won’t advance her life. It won’t help her to contribute to society.

Thus, we got on the topic of what was needed to be successful in life from a purely objective perspective. We qualified success as a combination of financial and social. Financial because it is a sure measure of how much a person values your labors, and social because a life without good relationships is rather hollow.

We isolated three factors: talent, determination, and social skills. But how important was each relative to the other and to success as a whole? We thought we would try to put together a formula. She had recently read some old paper-backs stacked up on one of my bookshelves, The Foundation Novels by Isaac Asimov. In it history is quantified and forced into algebraic formulas. This effort becomes so successful that the characters end up being able to predict the future (in broad historical sense). Our attempt to formulate success was based on this model. This is what we came up with:

S = success, t = talent, d = determination, k = social skills

Success =  (t + 4k)^d

As you can see, talent forms the smallest part. Social skills are important, actually far more important than talent. A good talker can make much of very little. But then again perhaps social skills are a talent;) The most important factor is determination. A little bit of drive and incentive can take you a long way. I have known work to be counter productive in the short run, but a person usually at least learns from his or her mistakes.

So keep on working hard. It will at least move you forward.

Will Rayment