It's called the curse of the talented, and every intelligent person suffers from it. For me the realization came pretty late, although I already stopped getting

It's called the curse of the talented, and every intelligent person suffers from it. For me the realization came pretty late, although I already stopped getting top math grades in my 8th year of school, despite an earlier 2nd place in a school wide math contest. The 2007 HN link about Inverse Power of Praise was the eye-opener for me. a.k.a. "How not to talk to your kids" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6999481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6999481 The takedown is "praise for effort, not for intelligence". Because intelligence is perceived as something you can't change. --------- Our university programming teacher liked to say a good programer should be lazy, because then he will think how to do the job with least effort. How to apply the least amount of force and still get the job done.