The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.
After that, Kasparov stepped back from chess which is, and I want this to be clear, not good for chess in general at all. As a whole, the current situation in the chess world leaves a lot to be desired.
It's a lot easier to do good work when you have good words to say and work with good people.