Keys to success

I have been busy with work, moving and a future wedding, so no postings recently. This post is an idea rolling in my head about people who succeed in a grand manner in life. It is often said hard work and luck create success. I made an earlier posting, Luck or Skill?, about how luck is a requirement towards opportunity. This being said, assume from hereon in this post an individual had the correct doors opened to him/her. Looking around at people I know who do well in life, sometimes it is not apparent they have any great talent or skill. Here is my theory on why this may be the case as I explain the two roads to success.

In any case, a successful person is going to require a baseline competency in a field. Whether that be art, science, athleticism or business. Second, the person is going to have to work (yes, that four letter word appears). Here are the two proper mixes.

Type 1:
Someone who has a tremendous amount of talent and puts it to proper use. They work as needed, but their inherent talent makes required tasks resulting in a simpler overall trip. This is what we typically think of as a successful person. They are really talented and bright. Their superstar abilities are focused in a proper manner resulting in success.

Type 2:
Someone who is competent, but is not highly talented. They are the B students. Each is capable, but does not excel with their talent alone. This is compensated through hard work. We are talking workaholic types here. Along the journey many mistakes are made, but they are minimal in damage because they work their way out of the holes they have dug. I think many business tycoons are of this breed for the sheer fact that business is tough and mistakes are made. It may also explain why some billionaires are ADD or dyslexic.

Beware of the unicorns

This blog mainly covers technology issues and various science. Being trained as a scientist, the world is an immensely complex place with interconnections between various forces in ways within and even beyond human understanding. Our understanding of science and the world is ever evolving. I often see an over simplified line of thinking that appears in religion, philosophy and politics that runs against the concept of complexity and that events are a culmination of many small factors. Even more disturbing, it sometimes appears in various lines of academic thought.



The construct of this over simplification depends on having one entity to blame a multitude of events upon. This powerful entity, whether is be a political or religious group, is often the rival to the organization a member who expresses this line of thought belongs. The mock example below demonstrates how this line of thinking works. I am going to use will use the most dangerous of all creatures, the flatulent unicorn or unicorns for short. The following part of this post will give a problem facing society and how this line of thought works in response.



Cause 1:

Everywhere you look there are too many rainbow colored items and it drives me crazy!

Solution 1:

The unicorns encourage such colorful mythological images from antiquity.



Problem 2:

Many people have their heads in the clouds thinking about fictitious ideas and stories.

Cause 2:

Unicorns are a source of escapism into an ideal world.



Problem 3:

Americans spent too much money accumulating massive amounts of debt they can never pay off.

Cause 3:

Unicorns encourage this through construction of an idealistic world which is accessible to everyone. Spend the money you don't have so you can live in this fantasy world! It is okay.



Problem 4:

People don't spend enough time being productive.

Cause 4:

The unicorns demonstrate the world is a great place without need for hard work. Go ahead and slack off.



Cause 5:

People don't believe in the one true religion any more.

Cause 5:

The mythological world of the unicorn is corrupting people's minds through false religious imagery.



Problem 6:

People are not active in the correct political party any more.

Cause 6:

Unicorn stories demonstrate that things always work out for the best and no action is required. Wish for good things and they will occur!

The solution for problems 1-6, kill the unicorns and eliminate all references!

The list goes on and on and on. Don't get fooled for this line of thinking. It demonstrates a lack of critical thinking about issues. Extremist groups dwell on this kind of thinking blaming one group for all of the world's ills.

Volt full of trouble

In a prior post, The Inconvenient Electric Car, I discuss the limitations battery powered electric cars face as the only replacement for gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. In a nutshell, electric cars lack range obtained from the battery charge and are not capable of moving heavy loads. This post is going to cover General Motor's Chevrolet Volt, a vehicle going into production this year.

First of all, I can remember the media touting the Volt as a revolutionary all electric car. It is not an electric car in the purist sense. The Nissan Leaf being released in December of 2010 is a true all electric car. The Volt really is a hybrid with plug-in capability similar to the Toyota Prius. Toyota began delivering a plug-in Prius version December 2009 according to Wikipedia. Once again, American car makers are behind the Japanese. This is nothing new.

Second, the main focus of this post is cost. Last week, Yahoo! reported that the Volt was going to be sold at a MSRP of $41,000. This is a typical price for a luxury American car. Compare this to the Leaf's $32,800 and the Prius' $22,400 sticker prices and one wonders, "Why would I buy a Volt?" I believe most people are going to answer this with a resounding "no".

The basic business lesson here is simple. If a product is to be successful, make the price competative and do not misrepresent the facts. It seems as if Chevy is intentionally making a product flop.