Of course, ballpark 99% of the people do 99% of the work that is done. So, likely any of 99% of the people can do at least some significant part of 99+% of the work that is done. So, very likely you can do some significant work.

Since actually humans are quite flexible animals, likely there is a lot of 99% of the work you can do.

Lesson 2: Get a head start.

Commonly in life, if only out of some contemptible arrogance, people will try to evaluate how smart you are. To this end they may look at your performance in some challenging situation, maybe a college course, a puzzle problem, etc.

So, defend yourself — one way is to get a head start, by analogy in a foot race, start running early and be right at the finish line when the starting gun goes off!

E.g., for a challenging course in school, before the course, talk to students who have taken the course, get the materials, and make a lot of progress in the course, maybe cover all of it, in advance.

Lesson 3: Don’t let them intimidate you.

Sure, it’s common to have people, in social situations, in school, at work, try to intimidate you with obstacles, say, with undefined terms, jargon, obscure descriptions, etc.

Commonly it is fairly easy to get past such obstacles. E.g., for undefined terms, just look them up in a dictionary, at Google, etc.

Rarely are such obstacles really serious, say, need you to have a lot of background you are missing.

Mostly people who are trying to intimidate you are not very competent, and, thus, their obstacles are not very difficult to circumvent.

Lesson 4: Don’t let the difficulty of the perfect stand in the way of the very good.

Sure, for some cases of work, being perfect would be nice but is very difficult, maybe too difficult for you at the moment.

But that does not mean that being very good at the work is too difficult.

Lesson 5: How to meet some severe challenges without anxiety.

Before this airplane

http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/sr71_blackbird_leaking_fuel_cell19.jpg

was built, how did the designer Kelly Johnson at Lockheed know it was going to fly as promised — 80,000+ feet, Mach 3.0+, 2000 miles without refueling, e.g., over much of the Soviet Union from and to US bases just outside the Soviet Union?

Similarly for the customer, IIRC the US CIA?

Sure, he did a lot of good and quite solid engineering.

There can still be various problems, but he was able to trust in the engineering — basically the plane had to work as planned.

For some severe challenges in some fields, it really is possible to have solid plans, e.g., engineering, that can be executed routinely as planned and, thus, without the anxiety one would expect.

Maybe getting such good plans is a lot of work, risky, and a source of anxiety, but given the plans the rest can be routine, i.e., maybe still a lot of work but still routine enough to remove nearly all anxiety.

Then, sure, one of the secrets to successful projects is good problem selection. Or, pick a problem where can have solid plans where, given such a plan, the rest is routine.

In life, to do well, it’s not necessary to solve every possible problem. Instead nearly always it’s enough to solve just a few or maybe even just one significant problem. So, just need good problem selection only a few or just one time.

A common remark is that ideas and plans are easy, plentiful, and worthless and good execution is challenging, rare, and everything. Well, given a bad idea/plan, execution does stand to be an unanesthetized upper molar root canal procedure gone wrong. But with good problem selection, ideas, and plans, good execution can be routine.

Lesson 6: “The business of America is business.”

Definitely, often, the other guy wants to get rich getting the revenue, having you do as much of the work as possible, and giving you as little of the revenue as possible.

The solution is for you, ASAP, to work yourself into a good position as the full, at least significant, owner of a business, one that is good to great, where you make the business successful and are able to keep enough of the revenue to be a good husband, father, etc.

Of course, in the US, the business world is constantly changing so that sometimes after some years a good business is good no longer. Then, sure, pick another business direction. So, always be watching for what other businesses might start. And, ASAP, have some money saved for such a change.

Being an employee can be good, crucial, beneficial, and often necessary early in a career and in some cases later, but, still, the importance of being a business owner will never go away before you are wealthy.

I married well beyond my station…I’m the lucky one. 😉

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In his case, he also had the benefit of the deep end of the gene pool and parents who cared.

Lucky boy. Luckier doctor.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

We are proud of him, but that’s not the point. Parents are biased.
When he was thirteen he wanted to play rep. hockey but he was a good house league player and was out of shape.
He said he wanted to join a gym to get into shape. We signed him up on the condition that if he didn’t work hard at it, it would be taken away.
He worked hard and did a lot of push ups.
Later we found out from the trainers in the gym that when my son first arrived, he was so out of shape non of them wanted to train him.
In four years he went from playing single A to AAA hockey.
This taught him (and reminded me) that you can accomplish your goals if you work hard and test yourself.

LOL. I did send him a link to this blog post so maybe he will read it.

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Civil engineering is a great discipline as the “built environment” continually grows and recycles itself. There are always jobs with a degree in CE from design to construction to construction management to real estate development.

It is also a great vehicle from which to confront, understand, and deploy technology. Every tech app has to have a clean, air conditioned environment.

Tell him the following:

“Engineers have hairy ears; they make love to their wives with butcher knives.”

Maybe not. I don’t know where I ever heard that.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

My son, who is in his first year of college studying civil engineering, used to laugh at his teachers when they said, “follow your passion.” He says, “Forget passion and do what you’re good at.”

He also has had a post it note hanging on his wall for many years that says, “There are no short cuts to any place worth going to.” — Beverly Sills.