Author Topic: Motivation Monday #21  (Read 1841 times)

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Offline Stan

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Talent and Success - Part Two
Last time we noted three reasons why people are successful: 1) They get encouragement, 2) they are able to delay gratification, and 3) they put in the 10000 hours of hard work.

4) Cronyism. 5) Oligarchy.

 ;)

And there's a lot to be said for Acts of God and Dumb Luck...
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Tuck Fheman

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Talent and Success - Part Two
Last time we noted three reasons why people are successful: 1) They get encouragement, 2) they are able to delay gratification, and 3) they put in the 10000 hours of hard work.

4) Cronyism. 5) Oligarchy.

 ;)


Offline Ben Mason

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Awesome CLains.....it's all coming together.  The recipe may be different for each of us, but you've beautifully articulated a valuable template for the means to improve one's chances of reaching a destination and the tools for analysis of the manner in which one makes the journey....

Who can say which is of greater importance, the journey or the destination?  Perhaps they are one?

Offline CLains

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Talent and Success - Part Two

Last time we noted three reasons why people are successful: 1) They get encouragement, 2) they are able to delay gratification, and 3) they put in the 10000 hours of hard work.

Another factor that enters into working hard is grit. Grit is defined as the perseverance and passion for a long-term goal. Grit involves both a) the tendency to not to abandon tasks from mere changeability or just seeking something because of novelty, and b) the tendency to be tenacious and not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles.

As it turns out both grit and the ability to delay gratification are better predictors of success than intelligence (IQ). Although IQ is amazingly predictive for a number of things, we should be careful to over-extend its impact. We should also be wary of intelligence, as it can cause psychological trouble: for instance, those with higher IQs tend to worry and feel more anxiety throughout the day, they are more likely to have a “bias blind spot” and they have a greater tendency to fall for the “gambler’s fallacy.”

I believe the root cause of this tangled mess is that high IQ can be a shield against the world and lead to boredom if we don't take care to be open-minded. Intelligence without openness is a recipe for disaster, as the intellect can justify its self-coherent theories while digging its own grave of depression and lack of novel input.

Studies have shown that the ability of forecasters depend just as much on open-mindedness as a high IQ, and it’s not difficult to see why. The balance of being open to new information, while having the capacity to process that new information is one we all need to calibrate on our own. Without being open to the full experience intelligent people can quickly become bored, moving from one job to the next, falling into depression and never really expressing their full capacity.

Finally, let's move back to the idea of Flow. The paradox of flow is that many extreme sport athletes who master it are often impulsive thrill-seekers who are not particularly intelligent and come from broken homes with little encouragement. This hints at the possibility that there’s something beyond IQ, beyond the ability to delay gratification, beyond getting lots of encouragement, and beyond just putting in the hours.

In general when people open up to the possibility that there might be more to experience and life than they have confronted they may feel overwhelmed and retreat into various forms of passivity. What we are doing is giving ourself the illusion of control by limiting our input, and intelligence cannot see this because there is no input to challenge its theoretical establishment.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2015, 02:36:42 pm by CLains »