Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement by Rich Karlgaard

If life is a race, the most appropriate analogy for it would be a marathon. Life is a long track, and our success on this track depends on a combination of perseverance, patience, and self-confidence over a sustained period of time. Unfortunately, most people instead regard it as a 100-meter sprint, and almost everyone wants their children to get a head start over their peers. In this enthusiastic pursuit of early achievement, if your child didn’t get straight A’s; a full score on their SATs; entry into a top 10 ranked university; a lucrative position in Wall Street; their first pot of gold at 22; their first billion dollars at 30, or be donned on the cover of Forbes magazine, then your child has failed at life, and would be brushed aside according to this “Early Bloomer” mindset. As for those Late Bloomers who are progressing slowly but steadily on the marathon track? Few people and publications pay attention to them. They go unnoticed by society at large.