Conformity and convention is over-rated

Sarah Green wrote in the HBR here

"Americans love to give lip service to creativity, celebrating imaginative artists and innovators and calling for "out of the box" ideas. Yet when we encounter creativity in real time -- before we know whether an unusual or outlandish idea will pay off -- we’re all too quick to reject it, argues Jessica Olien. She runs through a litany of evidence that becomes more and more depressing, but she comes to a surprisingly optimistic conclusion, thanks to research out of Cornell that shows being rejected leads creative people to conclude that conformity is overrated and thus liberates them from the need to fit in. True, this often doesn't lead to happiness -- but it does lead to more creativity. "To live creatively is a choice," Olien concludes. "You must make a commitment to your own mind and the possibility that you will not be accepted. You have to let go of satisfying people, often even yourself." I find those words oddly comforting. But maybe I'm just being creative."

My blog post on the Dilbert creator and my Dilbert moment here. Timothy Ferriss, prolific author, speaks in similar terms. As Tim Ferriss said in the Four Hour Work Week:

"The common sense rules of the real world are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions."

As I often say, Silicon Valley is less a place and more a mindset. That's why we need to think like Maria Popova and Matthew Syed here and Sir Ken Robinson here, and totally re-evaluate the educational experience and education's relationship with industry.

In a new world with a new and exciting economy, we need to think and act anew. If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got.

Matthew Syed - schools should do more to inculcate grit and resilience

On August 22 2013, GCSE results day, Matthew Syed wrote a piece in the London Times entitled, 'Dare to fail and train those mental muscles.' He said:

"Yesterday Nick Hurd, a government minister, argued that one of the most important qualities in life is grit. He is right. Grit, or resilience, is a powerful predictor of success in everything from maths to music. It is those who take risks, who keep going even when they mess up from time to time, who ultimately reach their potential. Mr Hurd argued that schools should do more to inculcate this virtue, along with other aspects of good character. He was right about that, too. 

But where does grit come from? When you speak to young people, it is striking just how often they blame their innate deficiencies when they are struggling with a subject such as, say, maths. “I don’t have a brain for numbers” is a phrase heard up and down the country. 

This may sound trifling, but it has deep effects. After all, if I lack the mental equipment to understand maths, what is the point of persevering? Surely it is as pointless as someone without hands trying to master origami. In effect, the belief destroys the grit that is essential to success. 

When it's cool to be dumb, Ctd with Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed spoke on Radio 4's series Four Thought, Original Thinkers and made a very insightful comment on how young people see hard work. He said:

"It was an eye opening experience for me at university. Just before going into a tutorial I would say to a fellow student:

"Have you done much work this week?"

And they would reply:

"No, none at all. Been in the bar the whole time."

And I would think after the tutorial, "how on earth did you write such an insightful essay on Plato, when you haven't read anything about him?

And of course the reason is that often young people see hard work as an indictment."

Read the original source here.

Matthew Syed - The Growth Mindset

The author of 'The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice,' Matthew Syed (@matthewsyed) recently spoke on Radio 4 about 'the growth mindset' and his philosophy on how to succeed in the world.

Boiling things down, his belief is that we as a society have vastly overstated the talent-effort continuum to the point where our view is that success all comes down to talent. This has huge implications for our behaviour. On the episode, 'Original Thinkers,' on the Radio 4 series, Four Thought, Matthew Syed went into more detail and began with a probing question. He asked:

"Where does excellence come from? How do we get better at stuff?"

He responded bullishly that challenges the very basis from which we look on the world: