In my recent interview with Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes Magazine, we discussed his new book entitled ” Late Bloomers-The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement“. Rich argues that our obsession with early achievement runs counter to our psychological and neurological development. This is not only damaging to individuals, but to society as a whole.

Late Bloomers is both an inspiring manifesto for late-blooming achievers and an incisive critique of a culture that has caved to the pressure to produce prodigies. In this podcast with Rich, we discuss the many famous people that did not achieve their success until later in life, some of those examples include Frank McCourt who published his first book Angela’s Ashes at 63 and who won the Pulitzer Prize at 66, or Daniel J Brown , who published his breakthrough book, The Boy’s in The Boat, at 62 and these are just a few of the cited late bloomers whose stories are told in the book.

Our obsession with people achieving fast is taking its toll on young people.  There is so much pressure from our society to achieve and excel early that we are seeing the emotional and psychological fall out. Our younger adult population is experiencing more conditions such as anxiety, depression and suicide. We have come to demand that our children ignore their curiosity and focus instead on metrics such as SAT scores, grades, elite college admission and a prestigious first job, and this only works works for a very small segment of our society.

If you want to learn more about this growing problem in our society, then I encourage you to listen to this podcast with Rich Karlgaard the author of “Late Bloomers-The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement“.  You can visit his book website by clicking here to learn more about the book and Rich.

Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoy this informative and engaging interview about a world obsessed with early achievement and what we can do about it.