Have you heard of the saying: and if it doesn't work the first time, try and try again? 

Although perseverance may be seen as essential for success, Barabási argues that personal quality matters. The hard truth is that, however long you persevere and keep pushing the rock up a hill (think Sisyphus) "if you don't have what it takes, you just don't have what it takes". 

This view seems to run in contradistinction to the 10,000 hours rule, where you put in 10k hours of practice and you become an expert in a given field.

Physicist Albert-László Barabási, in a TED talk, shared his thinking on the maths that goes into thinking about success.  

He came up with a simple equation: 

S = Qr

S stands for success, Q is that person's ability (to...