truth – Latitude Post

Real Talent Is Rare And Not So Cheap

Posted on June 21, 2021June 23, 2021 by Nicholas Peart

A few years ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Talent Is Cheaper Than Table Salt’. In this post I outline how talent is actually not so rare and rather it is hard work that matters when it comes to finding success.

I’ve often thought about this post, especially as it is one of my most viewed posts. Yet since I first wrote it, I’ve increasingly began to question it, even though, at least at a logical and basic level, it may be correct. But what if, just what if, I may have got it completely wrong regarding talent? Maybe genuine talent is actually rather scarce. To be clear, when I say this, I mean a kind of talent that is just so special and very hard to replicate.

The quote in my original article by the writer Stephen King goes like this; “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

King is correct, especially if one also takes into account the second sentence of his quote. It is all true. Yet talent and hard work are two different things. Anyone can develop a hard work ethic, but not everyone has real god given supernatural talent. I think we need to really reassess how we define talent. I also dispute this notion that if you work hard you will automatically be rewarded. We fall victim to something called ‘Survivorship Bias’ – only looking at success stories and overlooking all the failures.

There are countless stories of those who worked extremely hard and didn’t ‘make it’. Yet those stories seem to be lost on us. But that doesn’t mean that one should not work hard. Absolutely not. Hard work, unexpected challenges and multiple failures are an important part of one’s character building. Saying that hard work is a waste of time sets a bad example.

As a whole, we often neglect to take into account just how random the world can be. Please see my other post Fooled By Randomness. Life is not as linear as we think it is. There are some things that are simply beyond our control.

But getting back to the subject of talent. When I look at the people I admire throughout history one thing they all have in common was that they were special. They were not like everybody else. They had talent in spades and often there was hardly any chasm between their life and their art. Now THAT is rare.

By Nicholas Peart

June 21st 2021

Image: storypic.com

Labels Are Meaningless

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Nicholas Peart

labeling-people photo

Alt right, hard left, SJW, influencer, gender neutral, trans gender, queer, vegan, hipster, bi-polar, activist, eco-fundamentalist, post-modernist, hippy, rocker, mod, socialist, capitalist, liberal, radical, anarchist, feminist

Please.

Give me a break.

I don’t know what any of these labels mean.

They mean nothing to me.

Would you like to know what does interest me?

I am interested in who you are as a person.

I am interested in what you have to say.

I am not interested in your identity.

I am interested in the true and authentic substance of you.

I am interested in your heart.

I am interested in your mind.

And I am interested in your soul.

By Nicholas Peart

Photo source: harikalymnios.com

The Plato’s Cave Of Identity

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Nicholas Peart

identity image

It is so easy for one to become trapped and stand too close to the picture. In this instance one becomes myopic to their greater surroundings. When I think of identity I think of a tangled red tape maze of labelling and a neglect or disconnection to a more meaningful unifying permanency.

An important question one must ask is, ‘Who Am I?’.

Do I define myself by my race, social class, nationality, politics, culture or subculture, my external looks, fashion style etc ?

Or do I transcend any of these superficial identities and connect more with my heart, mind and soul?

In a more universal context, identity has no currency or power. The matter and energy in the universe is bereft of any labels or boxed confinement. It is that and nothing else.

For example, when I refer to myself as an artist, I am already putting myself in a box by creating an identity. I would severely limit and sell myself short if I were to solely think of myself as an artist. With my paintings, I strive to transcend identity. The inspiration for my paintings derives from what I like to refer to as ‘the eternal source’. By this I mean an eternal spirit or consciousness, which is permanent and will outlive me. I find it a challenging task to explain this in words, hence why I create the paintings I create. Through my paintings, I project and get closer to this eternal source much more than I would through words.

I believe focusing on identity creates a great deal of unnecessary anxiety, stress and friction. We become like spread-out and jagged fragments of broken glass; sterile and running on empty. We become our own worst enemies.

When we drop identity, the concept of something such as likes and dislikes melts away. We become more in tune, connected and empathic to our greater surroundings. We become more, dare I say, enlightened.

By Nicholas Peart

Image source: Pixabay

Just Gimme Some Secrets

Posted on April 2, 2018November 1, 2018 by Nicholas Peart

light-trees-wood

In his book Zero To One, the visionary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel asks the following question whenever he interviews someone for a job; ‘What important truth do very few people agree with you on?’

I find this question interesting. On the surface it may seem simple, but it’s a difficult question to answer. Here are some statements I hear a lot;

‘Protect yourself from the sun using sun cream’

‘Brexit will cause long lasting damage to the UK economy’

‘The art world is rigged and corrupt’

‘Bitcoin is a bubble’

‘Donald Trump voters are racist and uneducated’

‘Artificial Intelligence will destroy the whole human race’

‘Sugar is bad for you’

‘Eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetable a day’

‘Astrology is pseudoscience’

Whether or not these statements may be true or false, a lot of people already agree with them. With such common consensus views, it is important to challenge them. Regarding the fourth statement in response to Thiel’s question, one could argue, ‘Most people believe Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be a bubble and it is most certainly demonstrating all the classic attributes of one. Yet the truth is that it is a revolutionary and game-changing technology, which has the power to disrupt the entire global banking sector.’ Now I am not suggesting you got out and buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin could still become obsolete, but nevertheless this view is a contrarian one.

John Lennon once sung, ‘Just gimme some truth’. But sometimes truth alone is not enough. Especially if it is the same truth that almost everybody agrees on. John should have really sung, ‘Just gimme some secrets’. Give me some enlightening golden wisdom that isn’t common knowledge.

Consensus views can change. For a long time most people believed that tobacco was a medicine (and it was advertised as such) beneficial to one’s health. Now its seen as harmful to one’s health. Before the 2017 snap election in the UK, the consensus view on the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was that he was ‘unelectable’. But when the results of the election were announced, the party did nowhere near as badly as most people had originally forecasted and in fact prevented the Conservative Party from winning with a majority of votes. The consensus view on Corbyn subsequently shifted from someone who was ‘unelectable’ to someone who had a decent chance of becoming the next prime minister should he still be leading the Labour Party when the next elections take place.

Challenging consensus views enables one to stay ahead of the curve. When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1bn many people thought Google overpaid. Likewise, when Facebook acquired Instagram for the same amount of money in 2012, many wondered what Zuckerberg and co had been smoking. With hindsight it is easy to say that they were incredibly shrewd and deft investments. Yet at the time, even though the leaders of both companies had the unique foresight to see the game changing potential in both those companies, most didn’t share their visions and ridiculed them for the amount of money they spent on acquiring them.

Many investors believe that Amazon stock is overvalued. If we were to value the company by its PE (Price to Earnings) ratio alone you could not unreasonably come to the conclusion that it is extremely overvalued. However, if one were to look at Amazon as a unique and powerful monopoly business in the e-commerce space, constantly disrupting traditional industries like no other company one could develop a different point of view and maybe deduce that its trading at a high premium for a reason.

The legendary US investor Warren Buffet’s often quoted mantra is to buy stocks when investors are fearful and panicky and sell when they are greedy and irrationally euphoric. Easier said than done of course. But if you can separate facts, reason and logic from emotion it could set you in good stead. One day in 1929 a wealthy US investor called Joe Kennedy was given some stock tips by a shoeshine boy. Kennedy immediately sold all his holdings and just a short time later the beginnings of the Great Depression unfolded. The stock tips from the shoeshine boy were God’s way of saying the financial markets were dangerously overheating.

Contrarian behaviour may not always work of course, especially in the case of making investment decisions. However, challenging deeply ingrained consensus beliefs is an important way of breaking out of unconscious stagnation, questioning your own conditioned beliefs and habits, developing vision and foresight, and thinking in a more balanced and broad-minded way.

By Nicholas Peart

Image: jplenio