Well, intelligence DOES help a lot though. Following is an example of what lack of intelligence brings to the table. This is presumably written by a teenage or grade-school girl:

"Marie Curie ? polonium ?Science fair !?

I get what you mean Angela but like many other words, intelligence tends to have different definitions. To some intelligence is about quantity not quality. What's the point of knowing a lot if you don't know how to apply that knowledge? Brad is smart, but his intelligence is not necessarily from how much he knows but how he applies what he knows thru those 3 items above. Had I worked in Stardock I probably would have been fired too because I also lack #1 and #3. It's something I have been working on for quite some time now but the progress is very slow.

Intelligence is important but it's about how you apply it not how much of it you accumulate.

A few years back I went on a recruiting trip with some of the H.R folks to various technical schools- I got to be the techie type in the group asking actual practical questions while the H.R asked "and how did that make you feel?" personality-type stuff. Anywho, it was a great experience because at each school we were treated very well by the staff and instructors..we were there to employ some of their students starting one day after graduation, something all schools will jump at the chance to accomodate. At each stop we were wined and dined by the faculty and it was a great chance to pick the brains of the people that had been antagonizing me only a few short years prior.

At each school, I asked the veteran instructors what the biggest challenge their current batch of graduates was facing. At each school, the answer was the same. The ups and downs of the industry, the challenges of "breaking in" without any experience or the breakneck pace of changes in technology were not an issue. Nor was the intelligence of the students.

At every single school, the biggest challenge facing the students was that most of them had NEVER made a single decision of importance in their lives. In most cases they were all very intelligent, but mommy and daddy had decided their course in life for them. This in turn has bred all sorts of problems- students believing they were entitled to pass a course (rather than having to earn it) and involving their parents at every turn when something went wrong. One instructor had stories from friends in the industry who had been contacted by the parents of students when Johnny or Suzie didn't get offered the job after the interview.

Another instructor was harangued and even threatened by some parents because he was legitimately failing their son, and so it went.

I think that you are correct that discipline, passion and judgement are indeed key ingredients or "base stats" for what matter, but a person will rarely ever develop those traits until they have to face the world on their own. I left home shortly after I turned 18 and remember working two part-time jobs while being a full time student and going through the couch to find enough change to be able to throw in the sunday special of diced up hot-dogs with my K-D. At the same time, many of my friends were still living at home, driving a car fully paid for and insured by their parents, and getting sent on trips to Mexico at the like as rewards for the hard, hard work of laboring through a semester at college (also paid for by Ma and Pa) The end result of such things are people who are technically intelligent but practically dumb, and also believe they are entitled to everything as well!

A few years back I went on a recruiting trip with some of the H.R folks to various technical schools- I got to be the techie type in the group asking actual practical questions while the H.R asked "and how did that make you feel?" personality-type stuff. Anywho, it was a great experience because at each school we were treated very well by the staff and instructors..we were there to employ some of their students starting one day after graduation, something all schools will jump at the chance to accomodate. At each stop we were wined and dined by the faculty and it was a great chance to pick the brains of the people that had been antagonizing me only a few short years prior.

At each school, I asked the veteran instructors what the biggest challenge their current batch of graduates was facing. At each school, the answer was the same. The ups and downs of the industry, the challenges of "breaking in" without any experience or the breakneck pace of changes in technology were not an issue. Nor was the intelligence of the students.

At every single school, the biggest challenge facing the students was that most of them had NEVER made a single decision of importance in their lives. In most cases they were all very intelligent, but mommy and daddy had decided their course in life for them. This in turn has bred all sorts of problems- students believing they were entitled to pass a course (rather than having to earn it) and involving their parents at every turn when something went wrong. One instructor had stories from friends in the industry who had been contacted by the parents of students when Johnny or Suzie didn't get offered the job after the interview.

Another instructor was harangued and even threatened by some parents because he was legitimately failing their son, and so it went.

I think that you are correct that discipline, passion and judgement are indeed key ingredients or "base stats" for what matter, but a person will rarely ever develop those traits until they have to face the world on their own. I left home shortly after I turned 18 and remember working two part-time jobs while being a full time student and going through the couch to find enough change to be able to throw in the sunday special of diced up hot-dogs with my K-D. At the same time, many of my friends were still living at home, driving a car fully paid for and insured by their parents, and getting sent on trips to Mexico at the like as rewards for the hard, hard work of laboring through a semester at college (also paid for by Ma and Pa) The end result of such things are people who are technically intelligent but practically dumb, and also believe they are entitled to everything as well!

You're absolutely right......but it's all in how you define success.....

and discipline...

and passion......

I find myself having a hard time getting my kids to understand this. Sometimes I feel like I come across as the evil father who they will hate till their old enough to get it and to be honest I can't stand the idea of my kids seeing me that way. But I also think that if I don't do what I think is best for them, even if they seem to ahte me for it, I feel they will fail in life as they will never learn to do things on their own. My wife constantly does my younger sons homework annd I have noticed he seems to be tricking her into doing it. They won't try it with me cause they figured out I was too smart for them. I want my kids to understand how hard it could be since we never really know what curveballs life will throw at us. I simply want them to be able to at the least have a fighting chance as oppose to giving up or losing before they even start.

Arty, you know we don't always disagree!  And this is a case where we do not.

I read a study somewhere that said anything higher than an IQ of 116 has no bearing on successfulness however I think you have the order of importance backwards. Discipline and passion can be traits possessed by the intelligent or the simple minded however without judgment, which is solely a product of intelligence, they’re blind. It could be said that Forest Gump was a disciplined runner with a passion for ping pong but it would be just luck that those traits made him successful.   

Judging by Five Factor Personality Theory from psychology, "Discipline" is "Conscientiousness" and "Passion" is "Extraversion."  I recommend adding the book Spent to your pile for a discussion of how conscientiousness is the most desired personality trait by employers.  When you ask yourself why people don't take it easy instead of running marathons and keeping beehives, usually the answer is "I can become higher status by doing things only conscientious people can achieve."

If I had known that businesses and universities are secretly judging people on conscientiousness (via projects, hobbies, and credentials), maybe I'd have realized 99th percentile SAT scores weren't going to get me anywhere.  On the other hand, you can't really fake conscientiousness if it's not in your personality (for me it's not) so I might have done just what I did and say "Success isn't worth all the extra work."  The extra work needed for success is legitimately as much harder for a low-conscientiousness person as the extra reading needed in college is for a low-intelligence person.

Edit: I hope you can tell where the links are in this post -- I must be colorblind between blue and black.

Spent, for me it's not.  maybe just your monitor is going bad.