10-May-2019
I also read a very good WSJ article titled ‘It is never too late to start a brilliant career’ written by Rich Karlgaard. The author says that as a society we are obsessed with early bloomers. We are always on the lookout for the precocious teen. However that is not in step with how our brain evolves. Our prefrontal cortex, the part of the rain that handles complex tasks like planning is growing till the mid to late twenties. In addition, other physical change like Myelination and Synaptic Pruning occur in our body during this period due to which our thought processes develop clarity and focus.
There are two types of intelligence, Fluid Intelligence that handles ‘High IQ tasks like analysis and Crystallized Intelligence that helps us see the connection between things, otherwise helps us perform ‘High EQ’ tasks. As we grow older our fluid intelligence (that makes us good coders, for example) is replaced with Crystallized Intelligence that makes us good managers and planners. The practical implication is that as we grow older, we should strive to do tasks that fit with our crystallized intelligence.
The book is filled with examples of late bloomers. Raymond Chandler who wrote his first book at the age of 49, Tony Morrison who wrote it at 39 and won Pulitzer at 55, J K Rowling who created Harry Potter at 35, and even Warren Buffet (the article doesn’t mention him) who created 80% of his wealth after he was 50 years old
(Even me, for example. I published my first book at the age of 55, just two days ago. I also wrote my first book, yet to be published, just last year. I have always been a late bloomer)
Innovation and creativity starts when most people are well into their forties. The average age of a US Patent holder is 47. Scientists ascribe this to a phenomenon called ‘Salience Network’ that connects the novel ideas of the right hemisphere to the stored images and ideas on our left hemisphere. A child, for example, may have many novel ideas, without the availability of ideas and images to make and innovative and creative connection. As we grow older, the novel ideas in our right hemisphere can compare with the stored ideas in left hemisphere to make innovative connections!
This is why creativity increases with age!
In summary, as we grow older, we should not despair but be on the lookout for opportunities to identify careers that can satisfy our Crystallized Intelligence and keep on nurturing our right hemisphere to come up with innovative ideas.
In other words dare to dream...
This article fascinated me because I can vouch for this. I am a classic late bloomer. I did my MBA at 33 years and moved to a career of ERP Consulting at the age of 38!. I have written my first book at the age of 54 and published my first book at the age of 55!
I am on the way to receive my first literary award any time now.
The idea of Myelination and Synaptic Pruning also answered a long standing mystery for me. How was I , a person who was scared of interviews, suddenly become so confident as to tell the GM of an IT Company that if they did not recruit me, ‘It was their loss, not mine’? Now I can see that during the early 20s, the neural explosion was happening within me that made me nervous and jittery and later the other two phenomena gave me clarity of purpose and the confidence in my skills that comes with it.
I also know that while my Crystallized Intelligence has improved with my age, my fluid intelligence has not gone down at all. I can still code as good and even better than many of them.
I also realize that sometime I am allowing the memories of my past to interfere with my present decisions. This articles makes me realize that I am evolving everyday and my past should not be allowed to make my decisions in present for me. My past is only a guide post not an obstacle or a director in my decision making.
Finally society discourages people from dreaming. Dreams are the only way to talk to the right hemisphere. But society puts so much control over our minds that we stop dreaming and start becoming ‘practical’. Our creativity and innovation suffers slow decay as a result.
11-May-2019
I also read an article in Emotion Machine titled ‘Bless the messenger. Focus on sharing more positive news with people’. The article says that people cannot separate the message from the messenger. The more negative messages you post, the more people will perceive you negatively. The author suggests a ‘Positivity : Negativity’ ratio of 3:1. For every one negative message you post, you must post three positive news.
Am I immune from this? Do I always focus on message?
13-May-2019
I read an article in the Emotion Machine on ‘7 Cognitive Biases that are killing your goals and productivity’, written by Steven Handel. These biases are not good since they form a pattern of thought that will lead to a pattern of actions. The seven biases are:
- Planning Fallacy: We underestimate the time it will take to complete a task. Due to this we tend to postpone our actions to the last minute. I see this happen to me all the time. For example, I have to publish my ERPTop5 post every week on Wednesday. I should ideally start planning for each post on the previous weekend. But I don’t do that I wait till the last minute and do a shoddy job.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: Investing energy and resources on a lost cause. It is better to cut your losses
- Illusory Superiority: We tend to overestimate our intelligence and skill
- Survivorship Bias: The tendency to focus on examples that succeeded in a certain situation, not on the ones that failed in similar situation
- Hindsight Bias: Tendency to look back on past events and think that we knew all along how it would turn out. It stops us from thinking critically about the past events and learn from them.
- Social Comparison
- Zero Sum Bias: Also known as ‘win lose’ mindset.
16-May-2019
I also read two articles today. The first one was titled ‘Before You Set New Goals, Think About What You are Going to Stop Doing’. ( see I wrote the title based on the Capitalization rules explained in the UDEMY course on Proof reading), written by Elizabeth Grace Saunders for HBR.org.
Deciding on the tasks to be removed takes time. She has given a few strategies to do the above. First one is to ‘Question all your work commitment’ to see what can be dropped, what can be delegated and what can be postponed. You can chart your work commitments in a file that contains columns for activity name, type (constant or varied), hours / month, Professional Importance, Personal Importance and length of term.
The second strategy is to reassess your work style. Get some ‘me’ time to focus on your tasks.
Another suggestion is to restrict time spent on Social Media.
Third Strategy is to ‘Add new goals strategically. Once you have time on hand, you can add new tasks or simple tasks that frees time from your frenetic pace.
To say ‘Yes’ to the new, you must say ‘No’ to the old.
The second article was titled ‘The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research’, written by Brian Swider, Dana Harari, Amy P Breidenthal and Laurens Bujold Steed for HBR.org. As per the article, the psychology of perfectionism is complex. While perfectionists try to produce flawless work and they have higher levels of motivation and conscientiousness, they also tend to set excessively higher standards leading to burnout, anxiety and depression.
Surprising finding of this studies is that perfectionism is not good for the organization.
Perfectionism is divided into two groups or dimensions. ‘Excellence seeking perfectionism’ is a tendency to demand high levels of performance standards from ourselves as well as those who work with us. The other one is ‘Failure avoiding perfectionism’ which deals with aversion to failing to reach high standards. This group always worry that their work is never good enough. A perfectionist might be a mix of both these dimensions.
The beneficial effects of perfectionism were stronger for those higher in the former dimension. The detrimental effects were stronger for those higher in the latter (Failure Avoiding).
Specifically the studies did not find any relation between performance and perfectionism. It may be because perfectionists tend to delay their output.
In summary, the beneficial effects of perfections like increased engagement and motivation is offset by y detrimental effects like depression and anxiety which has consequences beyond the work place. Organizations should teach these perfectionist employees ‘to chill out’. This is all the more important since studies show that perfectionism has increased over the last twenty-seven years.
29-May-2019
Today I read a good article by Morgan Housel for Collaborative Fund on the ‘Five Lessons from History’. As usual, it is a fascinating article from Housel. He says that more specific a lesson from history is, the less relevant it becomes. The more important lesson from history are more fundamental in nature. The five lessons are:
People suffering from sudden, unexpected hardships are likely to adopt views they previously thought unthinkable. Removal of gold standard after great depression and the advent of Hitler in Germany are all examples. To think that we will not fall for these is to fool ourselves. The reason we adopt views that are unthinkable is because more changes happen along with the catalyst event. For example, if markets fall, businesses lose confidence, economy will collapse and so our reactions will change.
Reversion to mean happens because successful people cannot stop and let go. For example, when my portfolio was high in 2018, I couldn’t let go and sell. So I lost a lot of money. Long-term success requires two things. Getting something and keeping it. The behavioural traits that are required for both are exactly opposite. For example getting returns in stock market requires risk taking while keeping the gains requires risk aversion. Most people are strong in one or other. As the saying goes, ‘being right is the opposite of staying right’.
Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate. There are two reasons for this. One is incentives and the other is story telling. The incentive structure motivates people to continue selling duds. Regarding story-telling, if enough people believe something to be true, unsustainable ideas can get support. Modi’s competence is an example. He tells of the difference between expectation and forecasts. The later should be used sparingly.
Progress happens slowly, setbacks happen quickly. The same point was made in 1999 by Swaminathan Iyer. This is the reason why long-term thinking is difficult.
Wounds heal, scars last. While the situation that caused a calamity may recover and reverse (wounds may heal), but the aftermath of these experiences may linger. After a depression, the economy may recover, but people will remain skeptical and risk averse. People’s moods, emotions and expectations will take long time to fade (Scars remain)
Great article.
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