Late bloomers is a phenomenal book written by Rich Karlgaard. Rich Karlgaard is known for creating the magazine Upside. Upside was a magazine about Silicon Valley for Silicon Valley. He created it later on in his life and that’s what drove him to write late bloomers. Rich later went on to be publisher of Forbes magazine. He partnered with George Gilder when publishing for Forbes. George Gilder is another one of my favorite authors. Check out my book review of Life After Google on Youtube.
Late Bloomers Book Summary
He believes that society doesn’t value late bloomers, so he wanted to write a book to encourage people to keep trying even if they are past their twenties. This book is meant for any person past their twenties that still has dreams that they would like to accomplish.
This book not only provides anecdotes of people that succeeded later in life (check out list below) but it also provides a path for people to pursue if they are interested in succeeding later in life. There is a lot of psychological advice in here that I believe is useful to anyone.
Book Summary
The book starts out with providing background on how society came to value early achievement. I never really thought of it as a societal problem until I read this book, but it really is. Why can’t we keep achieving past our twenties if most of our lives will be spent past our twenties?
Rich really goes into how all the latest startup companies like Google and Facebook have created our new environment. They value people that have graduated from prestigious schools with high IQ’s and high SAT scores. This means that you have to have great stats by the time you graduate from college in your early twenties. The author points out that for most of us our brains don’t mature until after we are 25, so for many of us we can’t land jobs at big tech firms in our youth.
He also goes on to discuss how early achievement can be a downside. The focus on early achievement burns out many young people. They might do well early on but burn out later in life from being on a constant treadmill.
Rich then goes on to discuss how our brains work at various points in our life. While he explains this, he highlights that not all our of our mental strengths are in our early years. There are many things that our brains are better at as we age.
After discussing how our brains work throughout our lifetime, Rich highlights 6 strengths of late bloomers. These strengths are: curiosity, compassion, resilience, equanimity, insight and wisdom. These strengths are what make late bloomers stronger than younger people.
He then talks about how culture influences us, which is why many of us believe that achieving at a young age is important. There are 3 pieces of culture that influence us – our family, then community, then society.
Make sure all of these align with who you want to be.
What should you do if you are on the wrong path? You should quit. Most people don’t quit bad situations.
The problem is that American culture also tells us that it is bad to quit so many of us stick with bad situations for too long. Don’t do this. Switch things up. Quitting can be hard because of shame and guilt, you have to realize that we all only have finite willpower despite what certain self help gurus tell you.
Then the author goes on to discuss self doubt and self talk. You must talk to yourself in a positive tone and the best way to do this is in the third person. Self doubt is useful to motivate yourself, but it should not be used to shame yourself. Negative self-talk is about protecting yourself. It’s understandable to talk to yourself in a negative manner, but don’t make a habit of it.
The final chapters are about after you have quit bad environments, you need to repot yourself into a better environment. It’s harder for people to do this now because it is more expensive to move around the country. He presents facts to show this. Americans focus on consumerism therefore they have more material items and more stuff to move.
Another reason people don’t repot themselves could be that they don’t believe they are capable of change. However, Rich says that situation psychologists show that we can change our identities over our lifetime. You just need to build the habits that you want to change your life. How do you do this? Easy. Take the first step. It might be the wrong step, but you won’t know until you take it. We have to modify our identities as we go through our lives. Use narrative psychology to help you do this.
Cool Tips & Things I Learned From The Book
Our mental skills peak at different times in our life
Information processing peaks at 18 or 19
Face recognition peaks in early thirties
Crystalized intelligence peaks in your sixties
Erik Erikson found that ages 40-60 are peak ages for entrepreneurs
We spend 11 hours a day consuming media on average. The more you watch the more it influences your life. Are you watching the right information.
Social norms are what society expects of us. They are society’s unwritten rules. We are all influenced by them no matter whether you think you are or not.
6 strengths of late bloomers
- Curiosity
- Compassion – tolerating difficult feelings, empathy, this has been sacrificed for better test scores
- Resilience – Face adversity and reframe it, recast your life story
- Equanimity – mental calmness and composure
- Insight – ability to draw on our experiences
- Wisdom – six components (pragmatic knowledge, ability to regulate emotion, prosocial behavior, knowing ones strengths and weaknesses, altruism, empathy)
Culture influences us and it has 3 components
- Family
- Community – your peer group
- Society
Examine all three and make sure that they are positive influences on you and your goals.
Self efficacy can help battle self doubt. Positive self talk can help raise self efficacy and performance.
Frame your anxiety as excitement
Negative self talk is about protecting yourself.
Going outside social norms is tough and against instinct and culture
Trait psychology vs situation psychology – important for late bloomers because situation psychology shows that you can change who you are throughout your life. Trait psychology leans more towards the thought that we are who we are from day 1.
Don’t get trapped in a life you don’t enjoy by bad friends or a bad job.
Willpower is a scarce resource, despite what people like Jocko Wilink and others say.
It’s important to find the right community or organization to support you. If you are looking for a job, make sure to find out about the culture instead of the tasks you will be working on.
Examples of people that accomplished more later in life
- Bill Walsh – coach of the 49ers
- Diane Greene – Founder of VMware
- Lucinda Williams (author)
- Vera Wang – 41 when reached success
- Martha Stewart – 35
- Marina Abramovic – Artist – 30s
- Morgan Freeman – Actor – 52
- Jane Lynch – Actress – 45
- Bryan Cranston – 44
- Tammie Jo Shults – Airline Pilto – 56
- Geraldine Weiss – finance writer – 40
