I do believe that there is a natural inherent component to intelligence and ability that is either innate or developed shortly after birth. Certainly I knew that some of the students I tutored in maths were naturally more capable than other students. Likewise I personally put a LOT of practice into developing my skills as a cricketing batsman in high school - more hours than I put into a number of subjects that I excelled at - and yet I was (and still am) a terrible batsman. Technically correct, yes, but still not going to score a lot of runs. This natural component is more like a learning-rate capacity than an absolute limiter.

I believe that this capacity is, in many cases, never even nearly reached by most people. The reason that I was such a successful tutor was that I got the students believing that they could do the maths if they applied themselves - and then motivated them to work. This is where “type 2″ thinking really can help. The willingness and motivation to learn new things is something that will make an individual successful.

Unfortunately our education system promotes “Type1″ thinking. Until our education system rewards hard work and stops trying to dumb everything down then we will continue to produce adults who believe that they either are smart and therefore know everything or dumb and therefore can never be successful. A lack of challenge at high school and some “type 1B” thinking meant that when I got to university I was significantly behind a number of students who were not as “gifted” as myself.

I guess that the purpose of this was not to contradict what Paul has written here, but to paint what was said in shades of grey rather than as a black and white divide. All said and done, the most important factors are motivation and belief. You can have all of the self-belief in the world, but if you are not motivated to improve you never will (the reverse is also true).