Hard work requires no skill

I subscribe to a number of blogs, including Financial Samurai who provides a bunch of investment advice. One of his latest posts included his core principles, the first of which I really like:

1) Never fail due to a lack of effort because effort requires no skill. You can fail because of superior competition, bad luck, or poor execution, but you cannot fail because you didn’t try your best.

It’s one of those elusive obvious facts that somehow still evades most people. You may not have certain skills, but if you’re disciplined enough to just work hard it’s likely you’ll get somewhere with your effort.