Factors important to success in school/work domains: 1). Self-control—the capacity to regulate attention, emotion, & behavior in the presence of temptation; the ability to manage emotions being especially important; 2) Grit—the tenacious pursuit of a dominant super-ordinate goal despite setbacks; 3) Intelligence – a “very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly & learn from experience”; 4) Emotional Intelligence – another general ability that encompasses interpersonal competence, self-awareness & social awareness; 5) Conscientiousness – a super-ordinate personality trait that includes the facets of Competence,  Order, Dutifulness. Achievement-striving, Self-discipline & Deliberation (the facets co-vary to a degree). All are moderate to strong predictors of success, grit being the weakest predictor (but a common quality of exceptional individuals). Then there’s temporal discounting - the tendency to devalue delayed/far-off rewards. Temporal discounting undermines persistence in the pursuit of difficult long-term goals.  It's too bad that the period of life associated with temporal discounting - aka youth - is also the time of greatest potential for skill/expertise building, which, unfortunately, also requires self-control, grit, emotion management, and conscientiousness.

References:

Duckworth, A. and Gross, J.  Self-Control and Grit: Related but Separable Determinants of Success. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2014, Vol. 23(5) 319–325

Ducksworth et al Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007, Vol. 92, No. 6, 1087–1101

Gottfredson, Linda S. Mainstream science on intelligence: An editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography. Intelligence Volume 24, Issue 1, January–February 1997, Pages 13–23

Green, Leonard; Myerson, Joel (2004). "A Discounting Framework for Choice With Delayed and Probabilistic Rewards.". Psychological Bulletin 130 (5): 769–792.

Ivcevic, Z.  and Brackett, M. Predicting school success: Comparing Conscientiousness, Grit, and Emotion Regulation Ability Journal of Research in Personality 52 (2014) 29–36

Sternberg, Robert J., Grigorenko, Elena. and Bundy, Donald A. The Predictive Value of IQ Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, v47 n1 p1-41 Jan 2001