Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard

The heroes of our age are young. Mark Zuckerberg, the man who made millions on Facebook while still in his 20s, is a notable example. Though Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Tiger Woods are no longer youngsters, they achieved fame and wealth early in life and that is at least one reason why they remain famous. Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard is concerned that our focus on early achievement is depriving our society of the untapped potential of many—probably most of us—who develop at a slower rate. He discusses his concerns, and what we can do about it, in Late Bloomers.

 An industry has developed around seeking early achievement. You have to do well in school and get great SAT scores to get into elite colleges. You have to go to elite colleges to get jobs with the best companies. You have to work for the best companies to get ahead in life. If you have the right stuff, you can skip some of these steps and create your own successful business in your 20s.

 Except it’s not really so. Becoming equipped to succeed on this narrow path, which depends on early achievement, does not necessarily prepare one to have sustained success or achievement in any other area of life.

 In addition, most of us don’t have the mental equipment to make wise choices and stick to them while where young. The brain doesn’t fully mature until we’re in our mid-20s. Though the brain starts to slow down after that, certain types of intelligence—based on knowledge—continue to increase into our 40s and can be sustained well into old age. This late-developing intelligence can more than make up for the slower processing speeds of older brains.

 Kalgaard shares the stories of some late bloomers. Martha Stewart started her catering business at age 35, and published her first book at age 41. Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, when she was 39. More up my ally, Raymond Chandler was 51 when The Big Sleep, his first book, was published. Karlgaard pulls examples from the arts, business, sports and other fields.

 Karlgaard describes himself as a late bloomer. He didn’t do well and struggled in dead-end jobs until he was 25, when his brain finally matured enough for things to start clicking. This was when he was able to get a job that most of us would consider  ordinary, and he still had a ways to go before his career took off.

 Late bloomers have several skill, some hard-won, that help them succeed in their own time. They retain curiosity; they do not specialize to early and they do no avoid failure they way early achievers often do. The have compassion for other and themselves; they’ve had to overcome failure. They are resilient; they have developed perspective and support networks. The have learned to stay calm. The have insight gained from varied experience. The have wisdom, the elusive quality that arises from a maturing brain and a wealth of experience. The have learned when to doubt themselves and when to trust themselves. They know when to stick and when to quit. They are patient.

 As a society, we need to recognize that early achievement is not the norm. People develop at different rates and may peak in different ways at different ages. If we want to enjoy the full potential of people, we have to value the contributions of late bloomers.  We also have to open pathways for them through life-long learning and late-career pathways that force people out just because there is no more ways for them to move up the corporate ladder.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Quiet by Susan Cain

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

 Karlgaard, Rich. Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement. New York: Currency, 2019.

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

Higher intelligence is linked to higher achievement. The demands of our world and culture are calling for higher achievement to address increasingly complex problems. As individuals and societies, we should strive to increase intelligence, which is possible, to arm ourselves to overcome these challenges. This is the opinion advanced by education professor Martin E. Martinez in his book Future Bright.

Martinez builds his case by starting with the link between intelligence and achievement. He cites studies that indicate that in school, work, and personal life, achievement is positively correlated to intelligence.

He moves on to describe what intelligence is, drawing on historic and current theories and research. A significant portion of the book is devoted to defining and understanding intelligence. The prevailing model is hierarchical. A single general intelligence is linked to achievement in all areas. There are also different types of intelligence that are linked to success in clusters of specific skills. Intelligence is affected by both genetics and the environment, and by both individual and cultural factors. If you are looking for a primer on intelligence that covers a lot of ground relatively briefly, you can find it in these chapters.

The hope that Martinez offers is that intelligence is, in part, learned, and it can be increased. Two major types of intelligence, most strongly related to general intelligence, are fluid and crystalline intelligence. Fluid intelligence is related to successfully dealing with novel situations. The heart of fluid intelligence is problem solving.  Crystalline intelligence is structured knowledge, such as is attained from formal education. It is not merely an accumulation of facts; it is an organized mental repository of useful information. The primary skill for crystalline intelligence is critical thinking, the ability distinguish credible, worthy, and useful ideas.

Problems solving and critical thinking are skills that can be learned and improved. Similarly, we can learn new information. By these means fluid and crystalline intelligence, and with them general intelligence, can be increased.

Intelligence is not the only determinant of success, for many intelligent people are not successful. Another important factor is what Martinez call “effective character.” These are personality traits that Martinez suggests can be learned or improved in most people. The critical trait is conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is associated with setting and pursuing goals, working with diligence, and seeking excellence.

Martinez offers several strategies for increasing intelligence. One that is in keeping with the motivation behind this blog is to increase crystalline intelligence (structured knowledge) by reading books. A work as long a book must be structured well to be coherent from beginning to end. In addition, effective written communication presents ideas in a manner that lends itself to analysis by critical thinking. Nonfiction books are especially useful for cultivating crystalline intelligence.

Though the strategies are aimed at the individual, he discusses how some of them are adaptable to parenting and schools. Because Martinez in the early chapters suggests societal benefits to higher intelligence, it makes sense that his book would also include suggestions for policy and cultural adaptions.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

How to Build an Android by David F. Dufty

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

No Excuses by Brian Tracy

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Martinez, Martin E. Future Bright: A Transforming Vision of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Prior to reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, I had seen it referenced by others in relation to the so-called “10,000-hour rule.” This is the concept that mastery of a complex skill takes about 10,000 hours of practice. This idea is not original to Gladwell, but his book popularized the concept.

That is not at all the point of Outliers. Instead, Gladwell takes on myths of success, especially the myths of genius and the self-made man. Certainly people of extraordinary achievement are intelligent and hard-working, but Gladwell shows that they also the beneficiaries of opportunities provided by their culture, sometimes very unique opportunities.

To start, Gladwell tackles our enchantment with intelligence (or talent). He describes research that shows that intelligence matters very little after it reaches some threshold. Once someone has enough intelligence to succeed at something, whether he succeeds for the degree of his achievement is not determined by intelligence. Other things are more important.

One of those other things is the amount of work someone puts into improving a skill (going back to the 10,000-hour rule). Even for a very motivated person, it is hard to put 10,000 hours into learning and improving any complex skill, especially while relatively young. Drawing from many cases (including Bill Gates and Mozart), high-achievers were enabled by opportunities provided by the culture (family, economic situation, law, technological development, etc.). In addition, they gained their mastery at a time when those abilities were highly valued (another cultural contribution that is often time-limited).

After establishing this foundation, Gladwell looks at other aspects of culture and success. Culture can contribute to success and hinder it. Cultures are persistent, yet some have found ways, at least in certain contexts, of overcoming limits to opportunities and opening the doors to success.

Culture matters. We like stories of the lone genius or plucky rag-to-riches go-getter. Without discounting their talent or effort, Gladwell shows that these stories typically veil the many opportunities and lucky breaks that were available to these successful people that very often were not available to others.

The implication is that we rely on luck to produced highly successful people, and luck doesn’t strike often. We could create cultures that provide more opportunities for more people. There are plenty of smart-enough people. Many of them are willing to work hard at something meaningful (itself something that is a cultural heritage). We might have many more successful people, and even more of those extraordinary performers, if we got serious about providing opportunities for everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell also wrote

Blink

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

Mojo by Marshall Goldsmith

Mojo, as used by Marshall Goldsmith as the concept and title of his book, is not a magical ability, though when you have you may feel supernaturally potent. Mojo is a combination of identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance. That is

-Who am I?

-What are my worthy accomplishments?

-Who do others think I am?

-Am I enjoying life now?

If you have satisfying answers to these questions, you probably have good mojo. If you lack satisfying answers, or you have no answers, you probably lack mojo and it shows in your performance, your relationships and the way you feel about yourself.

As you can see from these concepts, Goldsmith’s idea of mojo is a result of our thoughts, actions, and relationships. It is not a thing in itself, but it arises from living in a way that we find to be happy and meaningful.

Mojo is not constant. It can be lost and found. It can be too easily lost through bad habits, selfishness, bad relationships, and refusal to adapt.

Goldsmith devotes a chapter to how one can lose mojo, but much of the book is about keeping or regaining it. For each element (identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance), Goldsmith describes three or four strategies to build mojo. Some of these resonated with me more than others, as I suspect would be true of most readers. With 15 strategies, readers are likely to find at least two or three they can use. Sometimes one good idea put into practice is enough to make a great improvement.

You can have great mojo in one part of life, and less in another. Goldsmith distinguishes between professional and personal mojo. Ideally, you spend as much of your time as you can on things that are high in both types of mojo.

Sometimes you may have high professional mojo and low personal, or vice-versa. Goldsmith presents the option of changing “it” (your job or situation) or changing “you.” He doesn’t argue for one over the other. He includes examples of people who improved there mojo from both camps, those who changed their work and those who changed themselves. If you understand yourself well (identity), you should be able to make a good decision about what to change. Reading the chapter on this subject, with its examples, may give you an idea of how to approach it. It’s not an either/or choice. If you have low in either professional or personal mojo, you can make changes that lead to high mojo in both areas.

Goldsmith, Marshall, with Mark Reiter. Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It. New York: MJF Books, 2009.

Smartcuts by Shane Snow

In Smartcuts, Shane Snow explores the methods used by successful people and businesses to achieve remarkable results in short periods of time. The short answer is they use lateral thinking. Rapid success is achieved by putting aside conventional thinking and finding new way to frame and approach problems.

Fortunately, lateral thinking is not limited to the realm of natural geniuses. Snow believes lateral thinking strategies can be learned. Most of the book is devoted to describing particular strategies or patterns of lateral thinking.

He places these strategies into three broad categories. Success hackers shorten the path. Innovators use leverage to get more out of their efforts. When they achieve success, they continue to move forward to higher achievement or to make progress in another endeavor.

Shortening the path to success often means getting off the conventional path. People who climb the ladder to success quickly often prove themselves in one field move laterally into another. They also seek feedback from experts, markets, and many trials, making improvements as they go.

Leverage is largely about building on what has already been achieved. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or repeat what others have done; you can start where they left off. Not only can you leverage the knowledge and skills of others to start at a higher level, you can leverage the connections of others to make the connections you need. They also recognize opportunities and catch waves that propel them forward. People who use leverage successfully put in the work learning to use the tools that are available, deliberately looking for trends, and paying forward the generosity they have received.

Continuing success is largely a matter of momentum, continuing to make progress in one way or another. Focus helps to, concentrating on what is essential and stripping away distractions. In particular, it means dreaming big. Making and order-of-magnitude leap is sometimes as easy as making and incremental improvement, and it has an energizing effect on those involved, drawing in other excited dreamers to help make it real.

For each strategy, Snow provides illustrations of people who’ve applied them. Some of them a people he interviewed personally. Some are famous, though I think I was more interested in those who were unknown to me.

Even with lateral thinking skills, there is no way of getting around work. Lateral thinking may lead to new solutions that save a lot of time and effort, but implementing solutions to some of the biggest challenges is still demanding. In many of Snow’s illustrations, the “instant success” followed a lot of creative and diligent work. Smartcuts are not necessarily shortcuts.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

Snow, Shane. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success. New York: Harper Business, 2014.

News of My Alma Mater

I’m a graduate of the University of Missouri’s Department of Biological Engineering. Back then, it was agricultural engineering. Here are some things that have happened there recently.

• Associate Professor Sheila Grant was recognized for her achievement at a faculty woman at an event sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies and the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women.
• Department Chair Jinglu Tan has been working on biomass uses for energy that are sustainable and have a low environmental effect.

Black History Month Links 2015

Black History Month and Christianity

Black History Month on AAAS’ ScienceNetLinks

Black History Month: Sharing news of Achievement, Innovation & Inspiration in STEM and other fields

Inspirational Scientists for Black History Month

Black History Month Links 2013

Black History Month Links 2012

Black History Month Links 2011

Interesting Stuff: Black History Month 2010

Lift by Daniel Kunitz

Trends in fitness in the 2000s have given to new sports, such as the CrossFit games, and new athletic entertainments in the form of American Ninja Warrior. Daniel Kunitz traces the rise of this new fitness culture, which he calls New Frontier Fitness or NFF, in his Lift.

 Kunitz goes back to the ancient Greeks, who revered physical beauty and fitness and considered it the obligation of citizens (only men were citizens) to keep themselves in good shape in order to serve and defend their nation. The Greek word for this training was askesis.

 The English word asceticism has it root in askesis. While we now associate it with self-denial, the Greeks associated it with purposeful self-discipline. Participants in NFF have embraced this old-fashioned asceticism, training purposefully with benefits that spill into all areas of life.

 As an aside, Christian asceticism is often associated with self-denial, sometime extreme, for the purpose of penance. When I read Paul’s writing on denial of self, I see it described in the context of disciplining oneself with the purpose of living a higher life. He even uses athletes as an example. He is not denigrating athletes for training for a worthless prize. He is reminding Christians that they have and even more important calling that deserves at least an equal commitment and effort.

 Of course, few cultures since then have reveled in physical achievement. Exercise at times has been considered dangerous to health. Weightlifting too much resembles labor, a task for lower-class people that wealthy and middle-class people were reluctant to embrace. Even when exercise became more acceptable, starting in the 1960s and taking off in the 1980s, the focus was often on appearance.

 NFF is not concerned with appearance. It is concerned with performance. If one trains to perform well, appearance will take care of itself.

 Because of this focus on function, NFF eschews many of the machines found in gyms. Exercises resemble tasks one might actually perform, though with greater intensity intended to push skill and physical capacity. NFF participants train like an athlete, constantly reaching to do better, not to look better but to live better. As Kunitz says several times, they are “training for life.”

 From a historical point of view, Lift covers a lot of the same ground as Making the American Body by Jonathan Black. However, Kunitz is specifically intending to give context to NFF and its influence on how people think about being fit today.

 Though Kunitz is a professional writer, he is also a fan of NFF. He practices CrossFit, which he discusses in the book, and Olympic lifting. He also talks to people who train in other functional regimes like parkour and sweatier forms of yoga.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

Mr. America by Mark Adams

The Power Makers by Maury Klein

The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

 Kunitz, Daniel. Lift: Fitness Culture, from Naked Greeks and Acrobats to Jazzercise and Ninja Warriors. New York: Harper Wave, 2016.

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

As a Man Thinketh, a short book written by James Allen, has become a staple of self-help literature. Many stripes of self-help teachers have referred to it since, from the mystical to the practical-minded.

As the title suggests, Allen teaches that a person’s life and achievements are results of his thoughts. Thoughts are the seeds. These seeds grow into actions. The fruit of actions are wealth or want, health or illness, joy or despair. It simply depends on the kinds of seeds you plant.

If you’re not intentionally planting seeds, preferably thoughts will produce salutary and beautiful results, your mind will be seeded with whatever falls there. Your life will be weedy, having mixed and low-value results.

Each chapters of the book is an essay on some aspect of Allen’s theme. They deal with character, life conditions, health, purposefulness, achievement, vision and peace. I each case, Allen suggests the life you have is the life you choose through your habits of thought.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry

The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright

Think 4:8 by Tommy Newberry & Lyn Smith

Allen, James. As a Man Thinketh. White Plains, NY: Peter Pauper Press.

The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier

Collier, Robert. The Secret of the Ages. 2nd ed. 1948. New York: Tarcher, 2007.

The secret of the ages, according to Collier, is that Mind is all and all is Mind. It is through our thoughts, for good or bad, impressed upon the stuff of the universe that brings what we have into our lives.

Collier teaches there is a Universal Mind. The universe itself and everything in it, including us, are part of and expressions of this Universal Mind. This mind conceives only good and perfection, so all we need for successful living is available to us.



We relate to the Universal mind through our minds. We have the conscious mind of our thoughts. We have the superconscious mind, part of the Universal Mind. We have the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is the workhorse of the system. It operates our body and accomplishes our desires effortlessly through its own intuitive genius and by drawing on the infinite knowledge and wisdom of the superconscious mind.

Though the subconscious mind is the master of achievement, it is the slave of the conscious mind. Whatever result we hold in the conscious mind the subconscious achieves through its ability to solve problems, control our bodies and impress our desires on the universe.

Therefore, the secret of the ages is the control of our conscious thoughts and faith in the subconscious and superconscious minds to accomplish our good and perfect desires.

Collier quotes and alludes to the Bible frequently, but very narrowly. I think it is fair to say that his philosophy and view of God are not Biblical. He equates God with the Universal Mind. It is an impersonal force, a mirror that reflects back to us in the material world the images we hold in our minds. I think one can reason from the Bible and experience the plentiful providence of a benevolent God. However, the God of the Bible has a personality and His own purposes and plans.

Though the book is over 80 years old (its first edition was published in 1925 under the original title of The Book of Life), it lessons are indistinguishable from the teachings of many modern self-help gurus. You’ll find the same viewpoint in the 2006 film and book The Secret (produced by Rhonda Byrne and popularized by Oprah Winfrey).

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acres of Diamonds by Russel H. Conwell
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer
Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klaus

Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

Stress is shrinking your brain. If you’re living in the parts of the West, especially America, culture and policy that glorify work achievement and idealize the nuclear family result in a lot of time stress. There is hope. Brigid Schulte explores the problem and the hope for something better in Overwhelmed.

Time stress especially falls hard on women. Schulte researches this issue in some detail. I’ll admit that I skimmed some of this part—I’m a man and I have no children. Even so, I think it is a worthy topic. Men and women both need more sanity and space in their lives, and it is clear to me that women suffer more from “contaminated” time.

The idea of contaminated time caught my attention. This is time, usually intended for leisure, when we are thinking of other things that need to be done, usually some kind of work. Leisure is not just about having time to not work, it is about how you feel. If you’re distracted or stressed out by worrying about work, you’re not really experiencing leisure.

Schulte takes a broad approach to her subject. In part she explores American child care policy, even interviewing Pat Buchanan on his role in shaping it. She visits The Netherlands to see how they approach work, family and play. She talks to experts in psychology and leisure along the way.

I’ll admit I came to the book looking for answers for my own sense of being overwhelmed. The tough answer is that culture and policy change slowly, so the stressors are not going away anytime soon (though Schulte’s book suggests cultural and policy changes that might help). In the meantime, you can make choices about how you live, work and think about things. Here are some tips I gleaned from the book that might help with those choices.

-Realize that life is short.

-Decide what you want. Make it a top priority.

-You cannot make time. You can only choose how to use the time you have.

-Believe that you can make your life better.

-Be grateful.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Schulte, Brigid. Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One has the Time. New York: Picador, 2014.

Planck by Brandon R. Brown

German physicist Max Planck was one of the most famous and well-respected scientists of his day. His work formed the foundation of quantum mechanics and is still relevant to physics today. He lived through both world wars, and these resulted in tragedy for his family.

Planck is a brief biography of the man by another physicist, Brandon R. Brown. Brown focuses his book on the last years of World War II, but from there reaches far back to his subject’s birth in 1858 and forward a little to his death in 1947. It is interesting that Brown did not choose to take a chronological approach given that entropy and the irreversibility of time were subjects of great interest to Planck. Perhaps he wants to readers to be somewhat unsettled, no doubt the way Planck must have been unsettled by events of his lifetime and the conclusions younger scientists drew from his own theories.

Brown presents Planck and as a flexible thinker who contributed to physics and accepted new theories at an age when most of his contemporaries were ready to shut the books on what could be learned. Apparently what most of us like to think of as middle-aged (at worst) is ancient for a physicist. His own work on thermal radiation established fundamental concepts of quantum theory, though he didn’t use the term “quanta.” When a young Albert Einstein proposed his special theory of relativity, Planck quick promote and build on it. He was slower to come around to general relativity (as wild as it is to us, it was insane to many in that time), and both men suffered philosophical heartburn from the quantum mechanics served up by the generation that came up under them.

Planck was very loyal to his country. His brother Hermann died in the Franco-Prussian War, and the family became intensely patriotic. At the start of World War I, he was hopeful that the war might strengthen and unify Germany. His oldest son, Karl, died at Verdun, and Germany fell on hard times.

Things were more complex when the Nazis took power. At times, his reputation as the nation’s most prominent scientist gave him leeway to resist anti-Semitic policies. At other times he acquiesced, hoping that the excesses of Nazi policies would be smoothed out or even reversed by the necessities of governing and the needs of the nation. He was so hopeful he even encouraged Jewish colleagues to stay. The Nazis saw no need for moderation, so Planck’s influence quickly waned. His son, Erwin, became involved in a resistance movement that hoped to topple the Nazis. He was implicated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Though the Planck family appealed to every ear in and around the Nazi regime that might have sympathy, Erwin was convicted and eventually hanged. (Planck survived his first wife and four of his five children).

Brown doesn’t judge Planck too harshly, though some might. He had no love for the Nazis, but perhaps too much love for Germany, its scientific achievement, and its international standing, may have made him reluctant to boldly oppose them. This led to a break in his relationship with Einstein, though the younger eminence spoke very kindly of Planck even many years later. Because of he refused to embrace the Nazis, and he was well-liked by many foreign scientists, the Allies gave him a place in rebuilding the German scientific establishment after the war. The British, French, and Americans reorganized scientific institutes into the Max Planck Society, which is still active in supporting all manner of scientific endeavor.

I think the book is approachable for most adult readers who may have an interest in Planck or his times. Brown does not get so deep so deep into the science that he loses readers; he tries to explain it in a way that will make sense to a general audience. The structure of the book may make it difficult for a young reader to follow.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison 

Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Brandon R. Brown. Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.