His stage and film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Gene Kelly hailed him as the pioneer of dance on film. And yet when Fred Astaire arrived in Hollywood, the director giving him his first screen test, summed up his potential as follows…
“Can’t sing, can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.”
In 1895, Albert Einstein’s father received a similarly discouraging appraisal from his sons teacher…
“It doesn’t matter what Albert does, he will never amount to anything.”
Hermann Einstein needn’t have worried. Within ten years, young Albert had blossomed into an intellectual giant and was already beginning to unlock the secrets of the universe. In time he became the foremost Theoretical Physicist of the twentieth century, and the name that comes to most lips when the word genius is mentioned.
I was reminded of these somewhat wayward assessments today while reading about Sir John Gurdon who this week won the Nobel prize for medicine for his groundbreaking work using DNA. Like Astaire and Einstein, he had been subject to an appraisal of his abilities which proved to be somewhat wide of the mark.
As a 16 years old schoolboy, Gurdon had received a report from his Biology tutor containing the following withering assessment…
“It has been a disastrous half. His work has been far from satisfactory. His prepared stuff has been badly learnt and several of his test pieces have been torn over; one of such pieces of prepared work scored two marks out of a possible fifty. His other work has been equally bad. I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist. On his present showing this is quite ridiculous, and it would be a sheer waste of time both on his part and of those who have to teach him”
So how did Gurdon become such an accomplished Biologist? Indeed how did Astaire and Einstein achieve such great success in their respective careers after receiving such damming criticism from on high? Well I don’t have any insider information, but believe the answer may lay in a sentence I omitted from Gurdons 1949 report, and here it is…
“Several times he has been in trouble because he will not
listen, but will insist on doing his work his own way.”
Here’s what separates out the great achievers from the also-rans…the thing that carves a clear divide between the cogs in machines and the creators of machines – doing things your own way.
Do things the way everyone else does them, or the way they’ve always been done in the past. and you will never be responsible for breaking new ground, no matter what field you operate in. The furthest you can ever go is as far as others have gone before you. All you can ever be, is a cog in a machine which someone else has created. But insist on ‘doing work your own way’ and there’s no end to what you might discover and accomplish.
Teachers are programmed to create cogs of course. Indeed, everyone in authority from the government down, tend to put systems in place to churn out compliant and homogeneous cogs. The world needs cogs, and it needs lots of them. And so it tends to criticise and punish those who refuse to conform to the norm – at least in the short term. What Astaire, Einstein and Gurney had in common was their refusal to conform to expectations, and their insistence on doing things differently – in their own way. In short, they were more interested in what could be than what already was. The results speak for themselves.
A word of warning though – this only works if independence of thought and action is married with effort, application and ability. It isn’t enough just to be different. But there are millions of individuals in the world who tirelessly work away as facilitating cogs in a pre-existing machine, when they have the potential to be architects of new, improved machines of their own creation. It’s only the fact that they have been indoctrinated into conforming to a particular mode of operation, that prevents them from doing it.
If you haven’t had the breakthrough moments you’d hoped for in your life, it could be worth considering whether doing things your own way, rather than following a well worn path, might be worth a try. You can be sure of encountering severe resistance, and it certainly won’t be easy – but then things worth doing rarely are.
Good and very pointed post John.
I’ve been ‘ranting’ at my 21 and 22 year old daughters about this for a long time, viz: pursue YOUR vision, YOUR way!
I’ll show them this now, just to prove I’m not the only bloke always ‘going off on one’ about this!
Cheers
KS
Hi John, how true those words. In life when I have conformed I have achieved nothing at all. When I do it my way I do get results. One area is speaking my mind. In this country we tend not to do that for fear of offending or appearing impolite.
Now if I disagree I will say so. If I don’t like what you are doing I will say so. If I am concerned I will say so loud and clear! Guess what? People now seek out my opinions and respect my comments. So rather than upsetting anyone I have become known for telling it like it is. Something that is often lacking in many commercial undertakings.
Rant on!
Francis
Have passed this on to my 15yr old grandson. Brilliant kid, always in trouble in school, seems to float through exams without ever trying or working and in a constant war with ‘establishment’ and Mum. Will do great things, methinks.
So there’s hope for my daughter, then..
Academically outstanding, but an absolute nightmare to teach or discipline.
She has designs on being the next Hawking. Almost 13 years old. Watch out, world!
All youngsters do now is go through the education course, and then on to University to be taught further. Also to aquire a massive amount of debt. How many of those at University have had actual work related experience in say Busines Management for instance. Most are just teaching parrot fashion what they have learnt or studied when they when to University. Not one iota of actual practical experience to speak of. At a seminar given by Andrew Reynolds he related a story of “When is it the right time to start your own business?” According to what one reads in the papers there never has been a right time, because papers only sell when filled with tales of doom and woe. Good news doesn’t reall sell papers. The Olympics were however the exception to that rule. People thought that the Para Olympics would not prove to all that successful How wrong they were. One can start in your own busines anyday as long as you have found a good product for which there is a strong demand for.
Yes, true enough. But for many people, the idea of modelling other people’s success in order to achieve what they did is also perfectly valid. Instead of “repeating the same actions and becoming insane because the result is always the same”, I don’t think there’s much wrong with “following a well-worn path” of successful people if it leads to your own success.
Well as Newton famously observed “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Sadly though, most people don’t stand on the shoulders of giants or even at the shoulder of giants. They stand in the shadow of giants. And much of conventional wisdom guides them in that direction
Love your rants and if you are looking for more subjects to rant about how about revealing how the Establishment and Vested Interests control over our individual and collective Health and Wealth are preventing massive benefits to mankind?
“The Web of Debt” proposes an interesting solution to the current world economic problems and exposes the real threats to achieving the solution.
“The Emotion Code” and “The Healing Code” provide solutions to treating the Cause of most health issues rather than the big money vested interest in profit derived from just treating the Symptoms of poor health.
Maybe the power of the internet can help expose the Truth.
Allan’s opinion corrects the glaring defect in your own.
Doing it ‘my way’ only works for extraordinary people: 95% of people are much safer following an established pattern for success, and your own blogs (and the wealth systems you sell) say as much. “Here’s exactly how I – or King Midas – make our millions: copy that precisely, and you (should !) get the same results.”
Bernard
Bernard, Yes but I’m not talking about playing it safe in this article, I’m talking about doing something extraordinary – hence the title and the examples. I fully appreciate this isn’t right for everyone though hence my caveat about there being a bit more to it than just doing it ‘your way’. You’re right that for people happy to do very well (rather than be ground breaking) copying someone who has already achieved similar success to which they aspire, is probably enough.
As much as I liked school for the ‘social aspect’, even then it seemed pointless to me to go overboard with the likes of “I’ve got an A+ in English”. Er, so? You’ve got some letters typed on a piece of paper?? And don’t lets start on ‘subjects’. In the real World, what ‘use’ is it to know Henry had eight wives? Or that the chemical symbol for water is H20?? (Learn it at a later date if it appeals to you, or your job requires it)
I also think we teach teach the wrong age range. How much can you remember from your Secondary school days? A few snippets perhaps. Five years of ‘upper’ education to remember a few snippets?? How much have you learnt / matured since leaving school? I think we learn more in the 16 – 21 age range when the person KNOWS what interests them, and what they want to learn more about. The formative years should be developing an interest in XYZ, not the be-all-to-end-all subject aiming for qualifications.
When they know where their interest lie (ie after school years) people go out and LEARN a subject on their own vocation … rather than enforced learning of trivia. Not to be confused with “training” / apprenticeships which are simply organisational ways to create yet more ‘cogs’ for the wheels of industry.
I think as far as practical, everyone should “be their own man” and do their own thing. Of course, this does fly in the face of the other belief in that “if you want to make a success in business, follow someone who has done it before”. I’d say, use them as a stepping stone, and see if there is a quicker / easier way to cross the river using your own plan. You’ll probably fall in a few times – but then you’ll know which route not to take. As Edison said, “I did not have failures, I simply discovered what doesn’t work” Not the same thing at all
Oh, my life path has followed this logic; I haven’t got many CSE grades, I’ve never gained any qualifications / job titles / been promoted. But I “do my own thing” creating things, website, programing etc from home and I’m content. I’ve no pressures of commuting / office politics etc. I’m SURE my time will come one day when I get a product that sells well … even if I’m a ‘senior’ before I reach the goal!!
John; The defect is still there.
The defining factor is not whether an average person is happy with achieving an excellent standard of success, or whether he craves ‘ground breaking’ achievement and decides to do it ‘his way’. If he does, he is much more likely to fail completely than if he were to take a well proven path to success.
Only the geniae in your article and people of extraordinary ability can create or discover better ways to do things, and make them work.
Bernard
Maybe one critical factor in identifying the thing we call ‘genius’ is a determination to take a new and pioneering path – to do things ones own way. If that is true – and I believe it may be – then a person only becomes ‘average’ by virtue of their reluctance to take this approach to life. In other words, the ‘average person’ isn’t predisposed towards individuality and so wouldn’t normally choose that path anyway. The question though is this – if the ‘average person’ is persuaded along that path, might their achievements be every bit as impressive as those who choose the path naturally?
I absolutely agree with your last sentiment John. Surely every one of us is ‘average’ until a specific circumstance opens a door. I am personally convinced, however, that there are a few who even when faced with that door, prefer to walk past rather than knock or try the handle. The question then is surely, does that make them lesser mortals, or have they a strength and wisdom in knowing what they want from life and being quite satisfied with that.