Response to David's "Ability or Attitude?"

I was browsing through Google Reader when I found this (interesting?) post on David's blog and I just wanted to talk about it:

In my opinion, a small amount of success comes from ability while a lot of success comes from attitude. The reason is that if a person does not put any effort into what he or she is doing, there is no point in using any sort of ability. It mainly relies on the attitude of the person. Even though a person does not have the ability to do something, as long as their heart is in the right place, they will be successful because they are willing to learn how it does even without the experience and knowledge.

I agree with David in a way because success usually derives from attitude. Although an individual can fail if they have the motivated attitude but lack the ability, they usually become unsuccessful because they overestimated their ability and lacked enthusiasm. This is one of David's examples:

One example was mathematics project that a teacher handed out to the entire class for them to individually do. Over that assignment, I thought that this assignment was going to be easy and that even though I procrastinated, I was going to pass. Therefore, I waited two weeks until it was the last three days to finish the project. It turns out that I needed a lot of materials and it took me an entire day to gather them. Soon enough, I had two days left. I had to use them wisely but I got off task. I became behind and I used the last day to rush it. I turned it in incomplete and received a “C” mark on it.

David states that he had the ability to do the project but was lazy, decided to rush at the last minute, and failed. He overestimated his ability to complete the project because he thought that the assignment would be easy to finish. This proves that an individual with the ability but lacks the motivation will be unsuccessful because they believe that they can finish the project on time even if they wait until the last minute.