Jun 11, 2019
My guest is Rich Karlgaard. Rich is an entrepreneur turned publisher, in fact, he's the publisher for Forbes Magazine. He's an author and columnist, a board director, and Angel investor. He's experienced some true success, but he will also be the first to tell you that he was no child prodigy, and in many ways, he celebrates that. That's what led him to write his newest book called “Late Bloomer, The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement.” Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: https://www.latebloomer.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Mitch Matthews: I think you're going to love this, I think you're going to love what Rich has to say. So, let's get to it. Hey. Rich, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Rich Karlgaard: A joy to be on your show, man. Mitch Matthews: I love it, man. I tell you ... well, before I hit record, I was kind of telling you, you surprised me this book. Rich Karlgaard: Well, thank you. In a good way? Mitch Matthews: In a good way, I should clarify it, a very good way. Rich Karlgaard: Well, yeah. A lot of people thought that a book on late bloomers coming from a Forbes publisher would simply be biography's on famous late bloomers like, Ray Crock or J.K. Rowling, people like that, but I wanted to write about why it is that we celebrate early bloomers today excessively. The damage that causes, and why late bloomers have so many gifts is validated by findings in neuroscience and by just looking around at some of the stories we ought of paid more attention to. Mitch Matthews: Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, I just kind of ... like some of the folks, I was kind of thinking, I expected some good stories, and you've got some great stories and there's no doubt. So it is full of inspiration as well. This really is not just written to people in their '40s, '50s, and '60s. That's kind of what I was thinking, but this really is for everyone. You've got stuff in there that my high-schooler could benefit from, parents should read and be thinking about as we're talking about raising our kids. Millennials and the young ones in the workplace can benefit from this because it helps them to understand how a better career works, and how our brain functions, all of that. So, there's a lot of meat ... there's a lot of gold in them there hills, is a better way to put it. So, I love it. Now, let's get into your story here first. Obviously, you had a lot of success over the years. Publisher of Forbes being one of those things top of the list, but you are also very open that you were no star student, not necessarily a star athlete, you wouldn't consider yourself a child prodigy, but you kind of celebrate that. Why is that? With a little bit of perspective, why is that something to be celebrated? Rich Karlgaard: Well, I'll just start, the brief background that you're referring to here, I was one of those kids in high school, I was a good but not great middle and long distance runner in high school. I got B's, I went to my local junior college, I improved to B pluses. I was actually, captain of my junior college cross-country team, but was kind of a low bar, and by a series of flukes, I got into Stanford as a transfer student. Stanford is a much easier institution to get into back then. I was from North Dakota, they were looking for people from obscurer states, and with a slide on their track and cross-country team, not a scholarship level, but at a level where the coach had probably had spoken to the admission's director. Anyway, I got in. Sure enough, way over my head, I took the easiest classes possible, classes with names like, "Sleep and Dreams," and "Human Sex," and "Film Aesthetics." Still, barely graduated. At age 25, when my college roommates were doing spectacular things in law, phycology, and one was working for the state shuttle program, I could hold no job greater than temporary typist, dishwasher, and security guard. One night when I was 25,