Why talent is overrated - Oct. 21, 2008 (Fortune Magazine) -- It is mid-1978, and we are inside the giant Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, looking into a cubicle shared by a pair of 22-year-old men, fresh out of college. Their assignment is to sell Duncan Hines brownie mix, but they spend a lot of their time just rewriting memos. They are clearly smart - one has just graduated from Harvard, the other from Dartmouth - but that doesn't distinguish them from a slew of other new hires at P&G. What does distinguish them from many of the young go-getters the company takes on each year is that neither man is particularly filled with ambition. These two young men are of interest to us now for only one reason: They are Jeffrey Immelt and Steven Ballmer, who before age 50 would become CEOs of two of the world's most valuable corporations, General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500). The obvious question is how. If we're all wrong about high achievement, that's a big problem.
Alex Bellos The Illusion of Understanding Success 0Share Synopsis Our tendency to rely on narratives to explain the world distorts our understanding of what it takes to be successful. In December of 1993, J.K. Rowling was living in poverty, depressed, and at times, contemplating suicide. She resided in a small apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland with her only daughter. By 1995 she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, a story about a young wizard she began writing years before. Rowling’s story, which includes financial and emotional shortcomings followed by success and popularity, is the rags to riches narrative in a nutshell. The reality of Rowling’s story, however, is just that: it’s a story. Yet, we humans, facing limits of knowledge, to paraphrase one author, resolve the myriad of unknown events that defined Rowling’s life before Harry Potter by squeezing them into crisp commoditized ideas and packaging them to fit a warming narrative. The same problem occurs in science.
James Prosek Beautiful Minds: The Psychology of the Savant In the field of brain research there is no subject more intriguing than the savant - an individual with mental, behavioral, or even physical disability who possesses acute powers of observation, mathematical aptitude, or artistic talent. This three-part series provides an enthralling look into the psychology and neuroscience of the savant’s mysterious world. 3-part series, 53 minutes each. Memory Masters: How Savants Store Information. The Einstein Effect: Savants and Creativity. A Little Matter of Gender: Developmental Differences among Savants. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - 2 hours, 38 minutes)
Scott McCloud | Journal Reducing academic pressure may help children succeed Children may perform better in school and feel more confident about themselves if they are told that failure is a normal part of learning, rather than being pressured to succeed at all costs, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "We focused on a widespread cultural belief that equates academic success with a high level of competence and failure with intellectual inferiority," said Frederique Autin, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Poitiers in Poitiers, France. "By being obsessed with success, students are afraid to fail, so they are reluctant to take difficult steps to master new material. Acknowledging that difficulty is a crucial part of learning could stop a vicious circle in which difficulty creates feelings of incompetence that in turn disrupts learning." In the first experiment with 111 French sixth graders, students were given very difficult anagram problems that none of them could solve.
Belt of Venus The Belt of Venus rises behind the Discovery Channel Telescope On June 17th, I joined Tom and Jennifer Polakis, Michael Collins and Stephen Levine at the Discovery Channel Telescope for a special visual observing project that Tom coordinated with Lowell Observatory, the DCT team and Astronomy Magazine. My role in this incredible adventure was to create quick sketches of the objects we observed. The Discovery Channel Telescope is located at the top of an old cinder cone about 40 miles southeast of Flagstaff, near Happy Jack. When I drove up to the gate just before sunset that evening, everyone else had arrived and they were busy shooting photos, exploring the grounds, and circulating in awe inside the facility. The 4.27 meter primary mirror and active optics infrastructure The 1.4 meter secondary mirror As I brought my sketching supplies up to the dome, the rest of the group was taking in twilight views of the Moon and Saturn. As twilight darkened, Saturn was the dramatic warm-up act.
Want to avoid being a draft bust? Heed the words of Rashaan Salaam | Shutdown Corner It was all downhill for ex-Heisman winner Rashaam Salaam. (Getty Images) From Ryan Leaf to JaMarcus Russell and far beyond, the history of draft bustitude is a long and sad one. There isn't an NFL team, no matter how well-run, without its own selection that set the franchise back. The New England Patriots have Chad Jackson, the Baltimore Ravens tied their name to Kyle Boller, and the Pittsburgh Steelers probably don't have a huge historical archive regarding their decision to take nose tackle Gabe Rivera in 1983 when some kid quarterback from Pitt was looking pretty good just down the road ... Among its own draft mistakes, the Chicago Bears would certainly list running back Rashaan Salaam at or near the top. [NFL draft winners/losers: Washington Redskins qualify as both] Asked recently to reflect on his epic NFL failure by Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune, Salaam (most recently an MMA promoter) said that it was very much about wanting it and working for it. "Work on your game.
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