Duckworth's TED talk is just another instance of the "here is an important individual difference that is not IQ [therefore everyone should just forget about IQ already!]" genre, which as far as genres go, is pretty boring; no one has ever believed that conscientiousness/hardworkingness/grit/whatever is not an important individual difference, just that mental ability is an important individual difference too.
Here are a few points.
Here is a very on topic article:
Duckworth's TED talk is just another instance of the "here is an important individual difference that is not IQ [therefore everyone should just forget about IQ already!]" genre, which as far as genres go, is pretty boring; no one has ever believed that conscientiousness/hardworkingness/grit/whatever is not an important individual difference, just that mental ability is an important individual difference too.