While walking back to my hotel from a conference in St. Louis, I saw someone wearing a shirt that said "Lazy but Talented." I think it was a Nike shirt. I've always been impressed with Nike's advertising, but this slogan didn't ring true. In the US, we seem to be overly obsessed with talent as if it is the most important part of success. It isn't that talent is unimportant, but when it really comes down to what will make you successful, being hardworking is much more important. If you have tremendous natural skill, but aren't willing to work hard, it is easy to be eclipsed by someone with moderate talent but an extreme drive to succeed. Let me give you an example. Think of someone … [Read more...] about Lazy but Talented
Archives for November 2016
Multi-tasking Experiment
Many people pride themselves on their ability to multi-task. The problem is that humans are very bad at multi-tasking. I was at a software conference where a presenter was trying to illustrate this through a simple exercise that went like this: Get 5 to 10 people to stand in a circle and ask them to go through the following sequences: First the alphabet, then count by 3s to 36, then count by 6s to 72. Each person says one item for the sequence and the person on their right says the next. This is pretty easy to do. It only takes a few minutes to go through all the different sequences when they are being done one at a time. Next you do the same exercise, but this time simulating multi … [Read more...] about Multi-tasking Experiment