Late Bloomers summary

Chapter 1: The Obsession with Early Achievement

Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard. Rich Karlgaard challenges the societal pressure for early achievement, showing how late bloomers can discover their unique gifts and find success at their own pace. We live in a world obsessed with early achievement, from getting straight A's at school and earning a spot at a famous university, to securing the job of your dreams by the time you're 25, and yet most of us don't start out life being exceptional, instead we discover our talents and gifts at a more gradual pace. This is exactly what happened to author Rich Karlgaard.

He got average grades at Stanford University and spent much of his 20s working odd jobs. There was only years later that he started a high tech magazine in Silicon Valley and eventually became the publisher of Forbes. In this summary you'll discover the science behind why some people bloom later in life, as well as the strengths you can tap into if you take your time to reach your goals.

Chapter 2: The Rise of Meritocracy

Let's begin with a story of an early bloomer that is a person who matures faster than average. Pop neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer was born and raised in Los Angeles and began his journey to success when he won a thousand dollar prize for a NASDAQ sponsored essay contest at the age of 15. He later attended Columbia University where he majored in neuroscience and co-authored a paper about the genetic origins of Down syndrome. But Lehrer wasn't just a science whiz, he could also write well.

In fact, by the age of 31 he'd already published three books and had even made the New York Times bestseller list. It was the kind of success many people his age desperately wanted for themselves. The key message here is the rise of the Wunderkind set a standard of early achievement for millennials. In between hosting radio shows and appearing on T V, Lehrer began a lucrative side career as a paid speaker.

Soon he was earning up to forty thousand dollars for an hour long talk. Eventually he was able to buy a million dollar house in the Hollywood Hills. However, his career later collapsed after a plagiarism and fabrication scandal. This illustrates that early success is no guarantee of lasting achievement.

Nevertheless, Lehrer's initial rise from bright student to media phenomenon marked the entry of a new cultural hero. The early bloomer, also known as the Wunderkind, which translates to wonder child. The archetypal Wunderkind develops early and reaches the pinnacle of their chosen field faster than anyone else. They're also likely to become rich and famous in the process.

This is often because they have some kind of special talent, like being mathematically or technologically gifted, or because they have family connections to help them along the way. If you think about it, Wunderkinds are everywhere in our society, from tech founders like Mark Zuckerberg to pop icons like Taylor Swift. The media is also obsessed with the wonder kind ideal. For example, every major magazine has a yearly issue based on a list of early achievers, such as Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 list of outstanding entrepreneurs.

The problem is our culture's obsession with the wonder kind ideal pushes a dangerous message. If you haven't disrupted an industry, opened a billion-dollar company, or banked seven figures by the time you're 30, then you failed. As we'll discover in this summary, this message is damaging to young people, all of whom develop in different ways and at different times.