#129: T.G.I.TED - Challenging the Myths: Age and Success Artwork

Every Day A New Thought

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Every Day A New Thought

#129: T.G.I.TED - Challenging the Myths: Age and Success

September 01, 2023 • Thor Challgren

Get ready to challenge your preconceived notions about age and success! Today's episode shines a spotlight on the inspirational TEDxTalk by data scientist Albert Laszlo Barabasi, 'The Real Relationship Between Your Age and Your Success'. Steer away from the popular belief, propagated by Albert Einstein, that monumental scientific contributions are reserved for the young. Instead, join me as we explore Barabasi's eye-opening revelations that while performance may have limits, success certainly doesn't, and it definitely doesn't care about your age.

In this thought-provoking session, we'll examine real-life examples from a variety of fields that defy the misconception that success has an age limit. From the sports field to scientific labs, we'll uncover inspirational stories proving that age is just a number when it comes to achievement. We'll discuss Barabasi's compelling key takeaway: creativity doesn't have an expiration date, productivity does. So, if you're seeking some motivational fuel, don't miss this episode where we remind you that success can knock on your door at any age, as long as you keep trying. Tune in for a lively discussion, complete with humor, captivating visual imagery, and a healthy dose of inspiration.

As always, thanks for listening!

As I mentioned, you can watch MY TEDx talk here:

https://www.thorchallgren.com/tedx

Here's the other talk in this T.G.I.TED series:

#118: T.G.I.TED - The Hidden Power of Smiling
#123: T.G.I.TED: Visualization and Breathing Air From The Future
#128: T.G.I.TED - How to Reframe What "Failing" Means

You can find me here:

WEBSITE: https://www.thorchallgren.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thorchallgren

Thor Challgren: 0:29

Welcome to Every Day and New Thought. I'm Thor Chalgren and every weekday I share one new thought. It's TGI TED Thank goodness. It's TED a feature on the show where I look at one TED Talk that inspires me, and I'll put the links for the other shows in this series in the show notes below, and I'll also have the link for this particular TED Talk that I'm going to share today also in the show notes. And also great news my own TEDxTalk is now available and it's called why you Should Embrace Chaos on Vacation. That is also in the show description below. But today I'm talking about a TEDxTalk given in 2019 and it's called the Real Relationship Between your Age and your Success.

Thor Challgren: 1:22

This is a talk given by Albert Laszlo Barabasi. He is a data scientist who, in his talk, looked at the data correlation between age and success. He starts by quoting Albert Einstein, who said A person who has not made his great contribution in science before the age of 30 will never do so. Obviously, the speaker, who is himself a scientist, took some exception to that, and it's easy to see why. You know, in society we see lots of supposed evidence that people only succeed when they are young. All you have to do is look at things that are popular in our culture, like sports movies, hollywood, silicon Valley, wall Street. Everywhere you look, it's easy to see what appears to be evidence that you have to be young to succeed. And in science, even the speaker says that the data at first seems to confirm what Einstein said, but then Barabasi looks at it further and he discovers that what he says is while performance is bounded, success is unbounded. He actually looks at the performance gains of someone like Usain Bolt, who literally runs only one second or less faster than the person he beats, so that on a certain level is bounded, but the success that's possible for all of us is unbounded.

Thor Challgren: 3:05

And the data point that he looks at throughout his talk is this age at which scientists publish papers, which is a marker for how successful you are at a scientist. And he says at first yes, the data does seem to confirm that there is a drop off at a certain age. Then he looks at it further and he finds that there are many instances of people who succeed later in life. In fact, one scientist publishes a Nobel Prize winning paper. That is the very last thing that he does in his professional life when he's seven years old. So maybe the point is people believe that at a certain age they can't succeed, so they stop performing, they stop putting in the effort, and I think this is the big takeaway from this talk, which is that creativity doesn't age, only productivity does, meaning. In other words, you can be creative at any age, but if you choose to stop being productive, you won't be successful. So my big takeaway for this is his closing message Success can come at any age, as long as you don't give up.

Thor Challgren: 4:22

This is a fun, engaging talk. He has some great visual images in the talk, including an animated mouse that appears throughout the entire talk. It's a lot of fun If you're at a place where you want some inspiration for believing that you can succeed at any point in life. I highly recommend this talk. That's the show for today. If you like this episode, please hit like. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the podcast, please subscribe or follow the show on your favorite podcast app. Until next time. Thanks for listening.