I am travelling to Costa Rica; my flight was delayed so missed my connection with a 7 hour wait for my new flight I have time to browse my reading pile and write some blog posts.
This one is highly relevant to us – we are not too old to do most things. One article I read was
What can we learn from people who succeed later in life? and you can read the full article here.
The article says that whilst there are prodigies, many others have success later in life
John Fenn was forced to retire at 70 but carried on with his research and in 2002 in his mid-eighties, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Many other people succeed later in life
- Alan Rickman – first movie role at 46
- Ray Kroc, who joined the McDonalds franchise at 53
- Nelson Mandela became his country’s president at 76.
The article talks about the Q-factor. New projects always start with an idea, no matter what creative field you’re in. The article gets a bit technical and rather than try and summarise it here you can read more via the article.
Once my team and I figured out how to measure a scientists Q-factor, we learned it remained unchanged throughout her career. That’s right. The data was clear: We all start our careers with a given Q, high or low, and that Q-factor stays with us until retirement. Well, I had a hard time believing that I was as good a scientist when I wrote my first research paper at twenty-two, the one with absolutely zero impact, as I am now. And you probably feel you weren’t anywhere near as good a teacher, writer, doctor, or salesperson in your twenties as you are now. However, we spent six months rechecking our findings, and we came to the same conclusion.
If this interests you, you can read the full article here.