• A team of scientists at Vanderbilt found after a 45-year-long study, that drive and persistence can only take you so far to be successful.
  • Some of the most influential leaders of our age had what it takes at birth: super intelligence.
  • The study showed kids who scored in the top 3% on the SAT by age 13 had two main abilities in common: they could solve math problems they’d never been taught and they had exceptional spatial awareness.

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An ongoing study suggests that drive and persistence can only take you so far. That’s what a team of scientists at Vanderbilt found after a 45-year-long study.

In fact, some of the most influential leaders of our age had what it takes at birth: super intelligence. That means scoring in the top 3% on the SAT by age 13.

Kids who achieved this impressive feat had two main abilities in common: they could solve math problems they’d never been taught and they had exceptional spatial awareness – meaning they could remember spatial relationships between objects exceptionally well.

"When you look at the issues facing society now - whether it's health care, climate change, terrorism, energy - these are the kids who have the most potential to solve these problems." said, David Lubinski, co-director of SMPY, Vanderbilt University.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published on June 14, 2017.