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Post by Cornflake on Jul 18, 2011 21:29:20 GMT -5
I read several. The one I keep thinking about, and thinking about, is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I strongly recommend it.
Gladwell examines why some people succeed and some fail, and looks at why. His answers are persuasive and they were, to some extent, surprising to me. The little increments on which the book is built are themselves fascinating. Why most Canadian hockey stars were born in the first three months of the year. Why the safety record of Korean and Colombian pilots isn't so good. Why American southerners are ready to fight over an insult northerners would blow off. Why much of Bill Gates' success is due to his being born in an affluent American family in the mid-50s.
Anyone interested in education would profit from this book. He looks at why IQ isn't everything by a long shot, and why neither IQ nor prestigious degrees have much of a correlation to winning Nobel prizes.
If you like nonfiction, try it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 18, 2011 21:41:36 GMT -5
it's on my bookshelf. I'll move it forward in the cue, thanks!
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jul 19, 2011 9:53:36 GMT -5
I just put it on my wishlist at Audible.com. Maybe it'll change my thinking.
I think the most important criteria for success is a more or less single-minded devotion and determination to succeed. The second, and maybe only other thing needed is luck. The second thing won't do you any good in the long run unless you have the first thing. (Or unless you consider winning the lottery "success.") But if you have the first and are prepared to take full advantage of good luck when it comes your way, you'll be successful.
I'm currently listening to "Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America" by Les Standiford, and it's pretty good so far. Carnegie was a self-made man, determined to rise above his humble beginnings. He thought that hard work could get him where he wanted to go. That thought wasn't necessarily wrong, but he soon found a mentor who encouraged him and lent him the money for his first investment. (In railroads, I think.) Carnegie was amazed at his returns. He learned his lesson and continued to invest in emerging industries like railroads, telegraphs, and iron. He continued working and drawing a salary, moving up through the ranks, though his investments were paying thousands of times his annual salary.
Carnegie had luck, both good and bad. When he first started into steel, the industry he's best known for, the economy tanked and resulted in a depression. Most businessmen would have failed. Not Carnegie. He was strong enough to overcome and even take advantage of such bad luck. His good luck, the luck he couldn't have done without, IMO, was his early mentor (wish I could remember his name) who set him on the right path and lent him the money so he could get started.
In his late twenties or early thirties Carnegie realized that the business world was taking a toll on him and turning him into a different kind of person, a person he didn't want to be. He vowed to retire at the age of 35. But 35 came and went. A few years later he looked at himself through Darwin's eyes; he saw his transformation as survival of the fittest and decided that he was evolving and improving. He also came to realize that his efforts to amass more wealth indirectly helped others, mainly through the creation of jobs.
He didn't spend too much time worrying that his cut-throat business practices which put many competitors under were costing jobs. Nor did he worry about the welfare of his employees. Labor was a cost, and as such, was to be driven as low as he could manage.
Last night while driving home I was thinking that although Carnegie was impressive, and even more so when you consider that he was the original prototype that people still follow today, I wouldn't want to be him. I couldn't be him.
But as much as I get turned off by some of the things he's done, I can see how others could listen to the same material and feel inspired by it.
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Post by John B on Jul 19, 2011 11:07:05 GMT -5
As an aside, one great thing Carnegie did was establish the "Carnegie Library" program. He funded close to 1,700 libraries across the US, many of them in small towns. When the program stopped in 1919, over half the libraries in the United States were funded by Carnegie's foundation.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jul 19, 2011 11:10:30 GMT -5
He gave away a lot of money. Some would say he had a lot to atone for.
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Post by theevan on Jul 19, 2011 12:36:35 GMT -5
What is success?
If I'm allowed to self-define then I enjoy a fair bit of the stuff.
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Post by Jawbone on Jul 19, 2011 12:52:30 GMT -5
Thanks for that Flake. I was on the prowl for a good book.
About the IQ thing. Personally, I believe that IQ has a lot to do with success. When you reverse the thought that there's a lot of high IQ folks out there that are failures, you cannot say that there are a lot of low IQ folks that are very successful.
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Post by theevan on Jul 19, 2011 12:56:14 GMT -5
Yes you can.
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Post by Jawbone on Jul 19, 2011 12:59:43 GMT -5
I'm waiting Evan, can you throw out a few names of Noble Prize winners with an IQ of say 65?
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 19, 2011 13:50:31 GMT -5
Jawbone, my summary of Gladwell's discussion wasn't complete. His view (based mostly on studies by others) is that intelligence matters a lot up to a point of "enough," and then higher IQs cease to make any discernible difference. A lot of evidence seems to support that view.
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Post by Phil N. Theblank on Jul 19, 2011 14:18:14 GMT -5
I liked the Malcolm Gladwell book.too. It’s neat how he can take seemingly unrelated studies and bring them together to make a thesis. Another book I would recommend is “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin. Josh Waitzkin won his first National Chess championship at the age of nine and went on to win 7 more. The book, “Searching for Bobby Fisher” written by his father, was made into a movie when Josh was 17. He published his first book at age 18. Then became involved with the martial arts and holds 21 National and several World Championships in Taiwan Push Hands. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Waitzkin |
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Post by omaha on Jul 19, 2011 14:31:28 GMT -5
I remember reading a very provocative article years ago that tried to answer the question "Why are humans so smart?"
The premise was something along the lines of there not being anything remotely reasonable about why we developed the mental capacity that we did. Its just not necessary for survival in the environments where we evolved. Being able to build machines that can take us to the moon is great and all, but a brain capable of that is a total waste of resources from an evolutionary perspective. And it comes at tremendous cost: Humans are born very early and very helpless, largely because of the geometry of our overly-large heads relative to the female anatomy.
The author's conclusion was that our brains are our "peacock tails". Pure evolutionary plumage designed to attract mates.
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Post by billhammond on Jul 19, 2011 14:45:21 GMT -5
The author's conclusion was that our brains are our "peacock tails". Pure evolutionary plumage designed to attract mates. Brains, and what they are capable of creating, ARE very sexy. |
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Post by RickW on Jul 19, 2011 15:40:01 GMT -5
...Why most Canadian hockey stars were born in the first three months of the year... My youngest was born in December. She's bright. We put her into school a year early, as we were allowed to do. She has done well. She knows to work hard. Because it's not easy. I often wonder if it would not have been better to hold her back, because she would have been a year ahead with the same intellectual challenges. Her older sister was born in March. Extremely bright, all As and A+s this time around, didn't get put into anything early. Maybe our younger daughter would have been bored to be at that level. Maybe she would have been embarassed by being one of the 'older' kids in the grade, instead of one of the youngest. But of such stuff is success often made of. |
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 19, 2011 16:08:50 GMT -5
Rick, the book suggests that whenever there is a calendar cutoff for kids to be eligible for something, the older kids in the group tend to do best. At that age, six months can make a significant difference in development. The older kids have a little more maturity and a little more experience. Because of that, they tend to get singled out for extra attention by adults, so that their initial advantages tend to multiply. As you may be inferring, that's the likely explanation for the greatly disproportionate share of January-March birthdays among your country's hockey stars.
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Post by brucemacneill on Jul 19, 2011 16:21:29 GMT -5
"that's the likely explanation for the greatly disproportionate share of January-March birthdays among your country's hockey stars. "
What kid is going to ask for skates for his birthday if his birthday is in August?
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Post by Jawbone on Jul 19, 2011 16:25:15 GMT -5
"What kid is going to ask for skates for his birthday if his birthday is in August? "
Bruce, I'm guessing a Canadian Kid.
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Post by RickW on Jul 19, 2011 17:07:28 GMT -5
They're actually born with them. That's why our women are so darned tough.....
I have noticed how much of a difference it has made in my girls' lives. I would say he is right on the money.
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Post by Ann T on Jul 19, 2011 21:49:02 GMT -5
I downloaded this and started reading it today--very interesting!
Thoroughbred race horses are bred to be born in the spring so they will be larger and faster when they race in their age groups. All TB's technically have a birthday of Jan. 1 of the year they are born, for the purpose of grouping them on the track.
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 19, 2011 22:02:07 GMT -5
I suspect you'll like it, Ann. I hope so.
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