Today's hip social media culture does not reward late bloomers. Today’s society is hyper competitive, data-analytical, about real-time pressure
13: "The fact is, many of us are late bloomers (or potential ones) or some kind. At some point, we got stuck. I did, for many years. At twenty-five, despite a four-year degree from a good university, I failed to hold a job beyond dishwasher, night watchman, and temporary typist. I was ragingly immature. Not surprisingly, my deep inferiority feelings grew worse as I remained glued to life's launching pad....The median age of the full maturation of executive functioning is around twenty-five. I was closer to twenty-seven or twenty-eight before I became conscious that I could think rationally, plan ahead, and comport myself like an adult. This was a full decade after I took the SAT (to middling results) and a half-decade after I graduated from a good university (with mediocre grades)"
Scott Kelly spend most days at school looking out the classroom window because of how bored he was. I shouldn't feel bad that I couldn't pay attention either.
18: "Lehrer's astonishing rise in the intertwined worlds of publishing and journalism parallels the rise of what, with a nod to Quiet author Susan Cain, we might call the Wunderkind Ideal. Translated, wunderkind literally means "wonder child." Throughout the early 2000s, Lehrer's flashing rise from talented student to bestselling author to media phenomena embodied a new cultural hero, the early bloomer, whose emergence reached a tipping point just as we were finding our footing in the new millennium. The archetypical wunderkind, like Lehrer, blooms early, becomes rich and famous - and makes sure we all know it. He or she may be precociously talented or technologically gifted, possessed of an otherworldly attractiveness or the beneficiary of great family connections. Regardless, wunderkinds not only reach the pinnacle of their chosen field faster than anyone else, they likely become wealthy in the process"
Newest mass media platform, the Net, is dominated by young "Web celebs" and have turned their followers into media mini empires with major corporate sponsorship, merchandizing deals, paid public appearances
Tech is young, politics is young, sports, everything is turning young
21: "Around the middle of the twentieth century, meritocracy began to trump aristocracy. That trend accelerated throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Today it's widely accepted that meritocracy and aristocracy have become one and the same. The lords of the universe are not sitting on trust funds. Rather, they possess wealth of a more modern kind. Like Jonah Lehrer, most of the new lords achieved perfect or near-perfect scores on their SATs at age sixteen or seventeen, setting them up for admission to a top-ranked university. In response to the new meritocracy, we have become obsessed with test scores and college rankings"
The SAT or ACT taken at a higher rate now, very high cost of preparing to apply to college, commercial test prep classes, tutoring, millions of dollars spent on test fees, administration and prep [test prep industry generates $1 billion each year!!!]
tutoring packages aimed at rich parents costs many thousands of dollars
Is it really worth it to spent so much money on test prep???!!
Kid must find the right activity in which to excel, then drop the others into the waste bin in order to "stand out" because harder than ever before to get admitted to college, not just elite schools. This has created entire industries based on producing the best performing kids, infants and toddlers. STEM toys are even created now for them
Kids are pressured to do " deliberate practice" popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. No fun in the process! Parents are encouraged to hire a teacher or coach
29: "By forcing adolescents to practice like professionals, to strive for perfection, and to make life choices in their teens (or earlier), we're actually harming them. We're stunting their development, closing their pathways to discovery, and making them more fragile. Just when we should be encouraging kids to dream big, take risks, and learn from life's inevitable failures, we're teaching them to live in terror of making the slightest mistake. Forging kids into wunderkinds is making them brittle"
Kids now desire to play it safe, don't want to get into a place of being judged, of having to produce
More hours per day in school than before, more time being tutored, more time being rewarded by adults. "Free play" has declined while school and adult-directed activities have risen
Adults are in charge!!
31: "Twenge connects the generational increases in depression to a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic goals. Intrinsic goals have to do with your own development as a person, such as becoming capable in activities of your own choosing or developing a strong sense of self. Extrinsic goals, conversely, have to do with material gains and other status measurements, like high grades and test scores, high income, and good looks. Twenge offers evidence that adolescents and young adults today are more oriented toward extrinsic goals than they were in the past"
Millennials appear more risk-averse than any generation since Great Depression, migration rates are declining as well
Christine Hassler's book "20 Something Manifesto" calls this type of pressure "The Expectation Hangover" = follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love, mental health, nutrition..."
Karlgaard defines late bloomer as a person who fulfills their potential later than EXPECTED, talents invisible to people at first. These late bloomers don't grit their teeth to try to meet expectations of parents or society. They find motivation in a book, subject, or person.
Metaphor of a ski race on a slalom course. Skiers go one at a time, but based on how fast each one goes through the gates, you can tell where they are relative to the competition. You can tell if a skier is behind or ahead of the expected time. When you expand the concept of late blooming to all ages, there are slalom gates that society has set up
factors: delayed physical or neurological development, early childhood trauma, nonstandard learning styles, socioeconomic status, geographical restrictions, illness, pregnancy, child care
Some need more time, experience, and experimentation to realize talents and develop a path for ourselves
Now we rank individuals employees on metrics
58: "Even though the IQ test, the SAT, the ACT, and personality tests like the Myers-Briggs have faced criticism or been proven inaccurate, they've continued to survive - and even flourish. In the twenty-first century, the SAT and ACT standardized college tests loom larger than ever in the lives of American high school students and parents. And the success of Myers-Briggs has spawned a spate of other personality tests, such as the Big Five Personality Test, the Enneagram Type Indicator, and DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness"
Educators and social scientists searched for ways to take control of corporate greed, the boom-bust economy, and social ills. They came up with the Progressive movement.
Progressive back then meant applying science-based management to everything from the economy to corporate behavior, education, public health, sociology, and psychology. Produced good things but in business it imposed a rigid conformity that reduced human beings to moving parts
Frederick Winslow Taylor was the most influential business thinker at the time. His idea was that managers could boost labor productivity on the factory floor if they could identify and remove the time wasters. So managers then micro-managed their workers. There was no more dawdling or freelancing, no more artisanal craftsmanship and make-it-up-as-you-go.
Taylorism said that more productive workers could earn more money. His influence peaked in the first decades of the 20th century
Scientific management system created bookkeeping, timing, and accounting methods, assembly pacing metrics
"The Elimination of Waste in Education" by John Franklin Bobbitt. His work helped implement scientific management in schools. Schools should be efficient, eliminate waste, and curricula should mold students into effective workers
Outcomes depends on authority and top-down instruction
Edward Lee Thorndike advocated the conveyor-belt-like structures. He shaped education more than Bobbitt. He encouraged society to structure curriculum, pedagogy, and organizational along the same principles of scientific management [then system then became main model for education quickly]
"Education and the Cult of Efficiency" by Raymond Callahan
61: "High-stakes standardized tests, however, are just the most visible example of Frederick Taylor's ideas at work in education. In reality, our educational system operates largely according to the dictates of an industrial system: a consistent drive toward greater standardization and measurement, an overt pro-motion of a utilitarian STEM-focused curriculum, and even a physical synchronization through the use of bells to signal changes and breaks - all as if kids are little Ford Model T's rolling off a Frederick Taylor-designed assembly line"
Learning is a cumulative process, we all absorb, incorporate, and apply knowledge at different paces though, so our current system doesn't make sense. Some start applying knowledge as soon as they're exposed to the foundations, late bloomers apply knowledge only after final piece fits, early bloomers have profiles that fit well into the learning templates
Tests can't measure critical thinking or true engagement, teachers encouraged to avoid more analytical material [only content that can be measured in tests]. This devalues education
Taylor's theories [it's just a theory really!] devalued role of skilled craftspeople in factories
The result of obsessive measuring? Success is represented by high-IQ, high-SAT wunderkind test takers. Most successfully measured make the most money and make it the fastest. IQ and data dominate academic sorting, pressure on kids to be early bloomers. "Winners" are students with high GPAs and SAT scores. Feeling of being left behind [probably a lot of people haven't coped with this collectively, especially young men]
We are wanting to turn into machines, but we've set up a competition with machines that we are going to fail
When modern automation first appeared it wasn't a threat to the knowledge-based economy because it was competing with raw manual labor, but when robots and AI invaded the professional workplace, universities and media noticed
Millions of white-collar workers thought their highly-respected jobs were immune, but soon it can be performed by a cheap software program
White collar jobs that are "rules-based" according to MIT economist Frank Levy
STEM track encourages young people to go into jobs that AI, ironically, may destroy!
Not a meritocracy that rewards a variety of human talents, we created a narrowing IQ/SQT oligarchy, most people left behind, their natural abilities are in the dark and undiscovered by the algorithm-biased conveyor belt of success
74: "To mitigate this crisis, we must stop excessively glorifying precocious achievement and seeing human development as a "fast track" on ramp for early success. Not only is it unjust to the majority of us, it's profoundly inhumane. It ignores the natural-born gifts that we all possess. It cuts off paths of discovery for our more latent of later-blooming gifts and passions. It trivializes the value of character, experience, empathy, wisdom, reliability, tenacity, and a host of other admirable qualities that make us successful and fulfilled. And it undercuts the majority of us who are potential late bloomers"
In the past, success not about becoming rich or famous or achieving as quick as possible. Having the opportunity to live to our fullest potential is what it was about
Obsessing with sorting, ranking, and testing young adults
Algorithmic economy that rewards raw synaptic speed instead of experience and wisdom
Neuroscientists and psychologists believe that 18-25 is a phase that isn't adolescent or adult
Rich Karlgaard loved being a kid, excelled in grade school, had fun playing sports
Junior high changed his life, boys physically matured before him, girls became interested in them, they suddenly understood algebra and geometry when he struggled, and he couldn't read serious books
Rich struggled with economics, calculus, chemistry, was mediocre in sports
Many critical prefrontal cortex changes happen during late teens and early twenties
Executive function develops in some people after 25
18-25 year olds can't control emotions or impulses, plan complex processes, anticipate problems
Executive function includes developing a self [self-identity, individual beliefs, personal values], regulating emotions, setting goals
Jeffrey Arnett thinks there should be a phase called "emerging adulthood" for 18-30 yr olds
New, cognitively stimulating, highly demanding activities instead of repetitive and more predictable jobs and internships that don't help brain plasticity
Cognitive peaks throughout life, a discovery of Laura Germine and Joshua Hartshorne
Speed of processing peaks at 18, short-term memory continues around 25, the ability to evaluate complex patterns, including people's emotional states [social understanding], peaked at ages forties and fifties
Crystallized intelligence = the lifetime accumulation of facts and knowledge, peaks at age 60
Creativity actually increases with age
Strengths of Late Bloomers: Curiosity Compassion Insight Wisdom Resilience
108: "The London-based science journal the Cube writes that "curiosity is a cognitive process which leads to the behavior perceived as motivation. From the human perspective the relationship between curiosity and motivation creates a feedback; the more curious one becomes about something, the more motivated one will be, and the more motivated one is the more one learns and the more curious one will become." Curiosity is a dopamine hit, says the Cube."
Curiosity has long-term health benefits
128: "The early-blooming mania, with its ever-narrowing definition of success, has roots in the IQ testing and scientific management eras of the early twentieth century. But our modern obsession with early blooming was born during the 1980s, with the personal computer boom and the arrival of heroes still in their twenties, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who overthrew the old guard and got rich extremely fast"
128: "Steve Jobs gave the world magical products, but Gates left us with a road map that says, here's what you must do to become super-successful very early. Nail the SATs, ace the grades, and excel in an extracurricular project. The algorithmic, hypermeritocractic culture we live in today is Bill Gates' culture. If Steve Jobs aspired to put a dent in the universe, Bill Gates really did succeed at bending the way society perceives success and milestones for young people. If we want to succeed big, and have our children succeed big, Gates showed us how to do it. More than Jobs - more than any politician or pop figure - Gates helped shape today's zeitgeist, literally the spirit of our age"
"Normative social influence" is about our tendency towards conformity
Social norms convince us there is only one way to achieve and grow. This single way of looking at things is called "normative thinking"
We are taught that we should strengthen our will power "muscle" by doing exercises and practice certain habits
The cult of tenacity applauds discipline and tenacity, applying it to areas that we're not naturally inclined to or things we feel no passion or purpose for
Opportunity cost makes it harder to quit. For every hour we spend on one task or direction, we're giving up the opportunity to spend that hour on a better task [but we are so worried about the sunk cost]
Adults are so bad at breaking free from the sunk-cost fallacy that they are worse than dogs or children at it
We overapply the rule "don't be wasteful"
Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably Irrational," talks about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance = if we've acted in a certain way, over time, we justify our behavior. We will convince ourselves we love a job if we've been in it for many years!
163: " Quitting, done for the right reason, is not giving up. It's not submitting or throwing in the towel. It is saying that a job just doesn't suit us. It is trying something and not liking it. In this way, quitting is actually part of the process of discovery. We define who we are by quitting, whether it's a club, school, job, or hobby. Forced adherence or unquestioned devotion leads to atrophy - to slowly dying. But quitting is the process of growing, the process of living"
Quitting isn't forever
Steven Levitt, author of "Freakonomics" - "I've pretty much quit everything that I'm bad at"
Act immediately once you've decided to quit and have a clear alternative
We deal with self-doubt by self-handicapping or sabotaging our chances. If we fail, we can protect our internal beliefs about our talent and ability. Example: "I drank too much the night before the big test, so of course I didn't do as well as I could have"
Procrastination is a form of self-handicapping
Self-handicapping behaviors - being late, micromanaging, perfectionism [we can perceive them as strengths"
The "tomorrow fantasy" - we will give our full effort tomorrow. Example: "When I do a project I care about, I'll work hard at it so that is why I'm not doing as well on this project I don't care about. People will see what I can do"
This allows us to avoid testing our ability truly [for fragile egos]
"Other enhancement" - early bloomers are more gifted, better-looking, more together [they are inherently superior]
"Stereotype threat" - internalizing negative stereotypes about our own capabilities in a way that convinces us that we can never be good at certain activities. Late bloomers don't succeed in mandated educational systems, leading to negatives messages about our learning abilities. We believe them and use them as pretexts to avoid topics, challenges, careers. We don't work to disprove the stereotype and give up on ourselves before we have the chance to develop a skill [self-protecting strategy]
If needing a motivational pep talk, consider giving it to yourself in a second or third person
A company's culture and environment is more important to success than the actual job tasks so focus on aligning the company's values with yours and select environments that fulfill your needs
"Goal commitment" means committing ourselves to the process without knowing the future
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be"
Write your story. Doesn't matter if it isn't true, it's about the interpretation