When people think about genius, the word is usually associated with some natural excess of talent or ability. But research and data strongly suggest that genius is more a product of effort than luck.

Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Grit, which examines the power and development of perseverance, spoke about the subject at the Qualtrics Insight Summit, held this week at the Grand America Hotel. She said while talent is still an important factor of success, a far greater one is the passion and work ethic a person brings to whatever craft they’re engaged in.

“Grit is sustained passion and perseverance for especially long-term goals,” she said. “There is something about people having different gifts. But without effort, without working at something, you’ll never develop skill. Skill is talent multiplied by effort.”

For her research, Duckworth has looked at high achievers in a number of different fields, including professional athletes, academics, West Point students, spelling bee champions, and even middle-schoolers. What she found was that one of the key differences between those who succeeded and those who fell short was not just that the person put in hard work, but that the effort was targeted and the practice was deliberate, citing a fallacy in the idea that working for 10,000 hours on a skill will make a person an expert.

“It’s misleading to think that 10,000 hours is the secret to success. You’ll meet countless people who have put in 10,000 hours and are mediocre. What makes a difference is not so much the quantity of effort as the quality of effort,” Duckworth said.

Deliberate practice, Duckworth said, means setting a specific goal of a way for a person to stretch themselves in one way—for example, a world-class swimmer might set a specific goal to shave a few seconds off of a set length. The person must also be focused on what they’re doing, she said, and fully dedicated to improving themselves during that time of practice. And when they have made an effort, successful people get feedback on how they did—and then seek to improve based on what that feedback showed.

“Human beings like every other living organism only learn from feedback—ideally immediate feedback. What happens when you do something with your whole heart and it didn’t do what you wanted to? Well, that depends on if you do the fourth goal. World-class experts truly listen [to feedback] and refine their processes,” said Duckworth.

Initial interest and inclination are undeniable aspects of success—after all, Duckworth said, if a person doesn’t have interest or aptitude for something, they are unlikely to work hard and stick with it. And if a person sees a purpose behind what they’re doing, their chances of success through grit are even greater.

“People will never be passionate about things they aren’t interested in developing. The first seed of passion is interest,” she said. “Purpose is an enormously important driver of passion. If you don’t have passion for what you do, you either don’t have interest in it or you don’t see how it fits into the bigger picture.”

For those feeling like they’re lacking a little in the grit department, the good news is that grit is a developable attribute, Duckworth said. One way to increase grit is for a person to look at the four qualities of deliberate practice—setting stretch goals, being focused, getting feedback, and refine processes as the feedback indicates—and see where they might be lacking in one of them. Understanding that confusion and frustration are often parts of the growth and educational process is also a means of increasing grit. Duckworth said a group of middle schoolers who were taught about deliberate practice, and that frustration was a necessary part of growth, afterwards had better attitudes towards school and higher grades.

Another means of increasing grit is to adopt a growth-oriented mindset—in other words, viewing the world with optimism that people individually and collectively can become better versions of themselves with work and dedication, Duckworth said. Virtually all of the high achievers she has interviewed had that hopeful outlook on life, she said.

Finally, high achievers also tended to have someone who cheered for them when the going got tough, whether it be a parent, another family member, a friend, or a boss or mentor, she said.

“In my interviews with paragons of grit, somebody in their life does not let them quit on a bad day,” she said. “That is what I find about paragons of passion and perseverance.”

So while talent is certainly a factor in success, Duckworth said, perseverance has continually been shown, both by her studies and research done by others, to be a greater indicator of achievement. For Duckworth, whose father routinely told her in her youth that she was no genius—and in 2013 was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant—the importance of hard work is cause for optimism. After all, she says, everyone’s good at something, so with hard work, and the right kind of work, everyone can live up to their potential.

“If genius means getting something automatically in life because of some inborn talent, then my father was right and I’m not a genius,” she said. “But if genius is working with all your heart for something you love that has a great purpose to you, if genius is working on your weaknesses every day and having a growth mindset, then I would tell my father that I am a genius, and he is a genius, and everyone can be a genius if they choose to be.”