Rich Karlgaard > Quotes

“So what exactly does it mean to be a late bloomer? Simply put, a late bloomer is a person who fulfills their potential later than expected; they often have talents that aren't visible to others initially... And they fulfill their potential frequently in novel and unexpected ways, surprising even those closest to them. They are not attempting to satisfy, with gritted teeth, the expectations of their parents or society, a false path that leads to burnout and brittleness, or even to depression and illness... Late bloomers are those who find their supreme destiny on their own schedule, in their own way.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“It's just as important to know when to drop something and shift direction as it is to know when to stick with something. When we quit the things that aren't working for us, we free up our willpower and perseverance for the things that really do matter.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“Confidence gets you off to a fast start. Confidence gets you that first job and maybe the next two promotions. But confidence stops you from learning. Confidence becomes a caricature after a while. I can't tell you how many confident blowhards I've seen in my coaching career who never get better after the age of forty." -- Bill Walsh”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“People who self-handicap purposely shoot themselves in the foot in order to protect themselves from having to confront their possible shortcomings. Many self-handicapping behaviors are those small, subtle bad habits like being late, gossiping, micromanaging, behaving passive-aggressively, or being a perfectionist. We may not recognize these self-defeating--and self-handicapping--traits for what they are. Or we may even wrongly perceive them as strengths. But in truth, they often get in the way of us blooming.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“We get smarter and more creative as we age, research shows. Our brain's anatomy, neural networks, and cognitive abilities can actually improve with age and increased life experiences. Contrary to the mythology of Silicon Valley, older employees may be even more productive, innovative, and collaborative than younger ones... Most people, in fact, have multiple cognitive peaks throughout their lives.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“Early bloomers enjoy many advantages in affluent societies. But one huge disadvantage they face is that by dint of their youth and accomplishments, they give themselves credit for their success, more than the rest of us do. That's understandable: adolescents and young adults tend to be self-centered... The problem arises when early bloomers have a setback: either they put all the blame on themselves and fall into self-condemnation and paralysis, or they blame everyone else. Late bloomers tend to be more circumspect: they are able to see their own role in the adversity they face, without succumbing to self-condemnation or blame shifting.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“The worst thing a company can do is kill off the creative energy of its young and talented people. The second worst thing is to blindly walk into avoidable traps that a wise senior employee can help them foresee.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“To succeed at anything worthwhile in life requires persistence, no matter how gifted, fortunate, or passionate you are. When I interviewed late bloomers for this book, nearly every one said that once you find your passion and your "pot," you need to hang in there--you need to persist.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“[Young] adults who take gap years tended to be less motivated than their peers before the gap year. But after their gap year, most of them find new motivation. They had higher performance outcomes, career choice formation, improved employability, and a variety of life skills. The gap year can be seen as an educational process in which skills and critical reflection contribute to an individual's development.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“In every aspect of our lives, there are many, equally valid ways to reach a positive outcome. There are always many ways to achieve a goal, gain expertise, or find success.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“The popular advice is we just need more confidence, more assurance, more chutzpah. But the issue with confidence is how we try to achieve it. Too often we try to win high self-regard in cheap ways. We undermine others, or we compare our achievements to those of the weakest around us. We conform to cultural norms, believing that what society values is what we value and that how society defines success is how we must define success. These cheap self-confidence tricks are unsustainable and can lead to narcissism during good times and depression during hard times.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“Tenacity, or willpower, is a limited resource.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“When we force ourselves to do things we’re not naturally inclined to do, or that don’t fit our passion or purpose in life, we pay for it with reduced motivation and drive.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“Of course it’s pointless to argue whether hard or soft, yin or yang, Mars or Venus, is superior. Both are always needed.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“To these left-brained business titans, the soft edge looks like a realm of artists, idealists, hippies, poets, shrinks, and do-gooders.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“Companies that develop trust have a recruiting advantage. They have a retention advantage and a productivity advantage.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“How many of us were tagged with “no ranking” in high school, or dismissed early in our careers, or are dismissed even now? What gifts and passions might we possess that haven’t yet been discovered but that could give us wings to fly?”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“trust underpins innovation by facilitating learning and experimentation.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“Innovative cultures are safe environments for honest inquiries.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“Effective leaders, in their own way, achieve three tasks at team launch: •      Clarify and give meaning to the team’s task •      Bound the team as one performing unit •      Establish norms of conduct”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“You can’t outsource the narrative of your company.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“Fifteen is the number of people with whom we can have deep trust in the face of almost any turn of events. Dunbar calls these “sympathy groups.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“Not being curious is not only intellectually lazy”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

“Cognitive fitness” is a state of optimized ability to reason, remember, learn, plan, and adapt that is enhanced by certain attitudes, lifestyle choices, and exercises.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“Research on radical-innovation teams shows that adding some conformity to a team may actually drive creativity.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“Research confirms that teams with transactive memory perform better than their counterparts who lack it because the group’s members efficiently identify and use relevant knowledge and generate higher-quality solutions.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“Never forget that all successful enterprises, no matter how big and wealthy, are an aggregation of teams—large and small, loyal and renegade, stabilizing and anarchistic, from the lowliest engineers to executive row—all of them working, sometimes in harmony and sometimes at cross-purposes, toward the success of the company.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“if you team up top-talented people—even if you give them the wrong jobs—they will figure out a way to do a good job.”
― Rich Karlgaard, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations – A Groundbreaking Management Guide to Design, Leadership, and Business Success

“Absent a viable strategy, you’re in the process of going out of business.”
― Rich Karlgaard, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success

“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”
― Rich Karlgaard, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement