The difference between Good and Great
The is a lot of "good", "competent", "informative"...but not a lot of "great", "compelling", "transformative".
Often, it really is a small thing that separates good from great. The problem is that bridging that little space often takes the most amount of energy and courage. I think that applies to everything from music to writing to science to politics.
There are many examples of Great in our history. These include such things as: The 1% (Occupy movement) The 10,000 hour rule (Malcolm Gladwell) Kind of Blue Album (Miles Davis) Gutenburg Printing Press I Have A Dream speech (Martin Luther King) e=mc2 (Albert Einstein)
Talent without hard work is wasted. I know a lot of talented people who think that their talent alone should be enough. I don't think that was ever true. Like any Great author will tell you: there is no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing. Most Great songs start with an idea, but need a lot of work to become the final finished expression.
Getting to Great is never giving up and never settling. If you want to make a mark on this world, then you need to find that proverbial needle in a hay stack, that one nugget of truth that resonates with everyone. Many of us will work a lifetime just to get a glimpse of that...