Let's take the remarks in blocks.
...if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
I suppose President Obama is suggesting that the successful people he knows, when asked to explain their success, propose it is either because they are smart or they work hard or some combination of the two. President Obama then argues that it can't be because they are smart because "there are a lot of smart people out there." Is that an argument? Intelligence can't explain success because many people are intelligent? Does he mean that there are many intelligent people out there who aren't successful?
I think most intelligent people are successful. I'd like to see data that refute that. I'm sure some intelligent people make bad choices or have bad luck, but by and large smart people enjoy successful lives. Is President Obama really "struck" by people believing that they owe their success to intelligence? Isn't one of the main objectives of the Democrat Party to increase access to education? If intelligence doesn't promote success, why bother with education?
Maybe he meant the super-successful can't explain their degree of success with intelligence alone. That may be true; many of the most successful people out there aren't the smartest people in the world. But I don't think they would submit the intelligence answer in the first place. Steve Jobs would be a good example. He was successful not because he was smart but because he had a sense of what consumers wanted and provided revolutionary products. By doing so, he both enriched himself and served consumers. If someone asked him to explain his success, do you really believe he would have said it was due to his intelligence?
I also don't think people would answer "because I worked harder than everybody else." Most people realize that there's an upper limit to how hard you can work, and many people hit that limit with little success. I'm confident that most successful people realize that. This is just another example of President Obama building straw men so that he can knock them down.
Most successful people do work hard. Many people who are not successful also work hard. Hard work alone does not explain success. Only in President Obama's mind (or speeches) does anyone argue differently.
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