Eistein's Superpowers

This was an interesting post on Oxford's Overcoming Bias Blog. The gist of it is that sometimes we give intellectual (or analagously other types of) heroes superpowers.

We assume that we are incapable of being like them, and any claim that you may be is perceived as one of arrogance.

You can say, I want to be a CEO or a Professor. You can't say, I want to be better than Federer, Woods, or Einstein.

The thought always passes through my mind that some of the world's biggest decision makers are just oridinary people. When the world was on the verge of WWIII during the Cuban missle crisis, the decision lay with JFK and 3 friends. 4 people determining the fate of the world. It seems magical, it seems like they must be endowed with magical powers. But they were just 4 guys... 4 ordinary people.

It seems weird to think of some of our heroes as ordinary people. Nelson Mandela... is someones Dad, someones Grandfather. He makes mistakes, he gets angry... he is sometimes unkind, says hurtful things. I don't know him, but I am pretty confident in these assertions.

Realising that these heroes are ordinary people does have some sort of power. It makes you realise that part of the strength and power of humans is that we build on the knowledge and learnings of others. We move forward. Everything is calaborative and we have the benefit of thousands of years of development.

Some things appear magical, but if you put the effort in (and it does take effort), you can `see through' them. Then you are able to do things that seem magical to others and push it slightly further forward. You may then be someones heroe.

But you will still be just another ordinary person. And isn't that great.

Malcolm Gladwell strikes again

After really enjoying `Blink' and `The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell, I am reminded of how I felt waiting for the Lord of the Rings movies each December a few years back....

Here is the Amazon description of his book being released on Nov 18, 2008:

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet is now the richest man in the world

Riding the surging price of Berkshire Hathaway stock, America's most beloved investor has seen his fortune swell to an estimated $62 billion, up $10 billion from a year ago. That massive pile of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who was the richest man in the world for 13 straight years.

Buffet is an amazing man in many ways. I am currently doing a presentation about him at work based on 3 principles to make money live forever... but the next paragraph sums up some of the reasons I think he is so awesome...

Despite Buffett's meteoric rise, his days as the World's Richest Man are almost certainly numbered. He had long promised to give away his fortune posthumously. But in the summer of 2006 he irrevocably earmarked the majority of his Berkshire shares to charity, most going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the time, the gift was valued at $31 billion. However, assuming that Berkshire shares continue to rise, the final amount of the donation will far exceed that sum. Buffett gives 5% of his shares to charity every July.

In October, Buffett issued a challenge to members of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, saying he would donate $1 million to charity if the collective group (or a significant number of them) would admit they pay less taxes, as a percentage of income, than their secretaries.

Days after issuing the challenge, Buffett appeared before Congress to encourage it to keep the estate tax. Armed with a few Forbes 400 issues, he told the hearing that "dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise."

Influential People

Influential People, worth reading about...

I have heard of but not read a lot about many of these people, I would like to find out more...

here is the start of a list...

1) Mao
2) Che
3) Napoleon
4) Ghandi
5) Mugabe
6) Stalin
7) Einstein
8) Russel
9) Nietsche
10) Freud
11) Jung
12) Mother Theresa
13) Confucious
14) Mohammed

Any other suggestions?