I would say programming requires either natural talent or passion. Even so with natural talent and without passion the chances of burnout in programming are high.

I believe that talent can be learnt through hard work and an individual is only likely to give forward the amount of hard work needed if they are passionate about it. Also, by hard work I mean coding on your own time, either for work or personal projects.

If I didn't have a passion for software development, I would have stayed in the investment industry where the work is significantly less challenging and the pay is also higher.