Natural ability only buys a head start. Steady workers spend whole careers reeling in people who had one.

A head start is a fixed advantage and effort is a rate, which means time favors the one that accumulates. Talent often works against its owner too, because progress came easily at first and the habit of pushing through difficulty never had to form. The gap closes slowly and then it keeps going.

Stop treating aptitude as the relevant question and start counting the hours. Compare yourself with where you were, not with who started ahead. The people you are looking up at are also standing still if they have stopped working.