Talent is a thing. However, it's a bit different from what people think it is: inherent talents are about <i>acquiring skills</i>, not <i>having skills</i>. Talent won't make you magically good at something. What it will do is make it easier for you to practice a skill and let you improve faster. And even then, it only does that if you help it along, and sometimes it's not very obvious how it helps. I have a bit of talent for science and mathematics, but it's not incredibly direct; rather, I tend to start spewing ideas when looking at sciencey things. That doesn't make me magically good at producing good science, but it did help me stay interested early on and it keeps me from plateauing. Talent also isn't <i>necessary</i>. You can get really, really good at something without having any inherent advantage, and lots of people do exactly that.