At 5 feet 9 inches and 150 pounds, Len does not imagine himself playing in the N.B.A. or even the N.C.A.A. tournament; he matches his local role model, Nate Robinson of the Knicks, in height and hustle but, alas, cannot replicate his remarkable 43 ½-inch vertical leap. Which means Len does not dunk. But he still harbors hopes of playing pro overseas and is something of a savant

The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions. Most governments release a ton of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count, not around the things that matter most. They have an affinity for material concerns and a primordial fear of moral and social ones.

Tragedies later had a greater impact on his life, he says, including the loss of his father to suicide and his teenage sister to illness. “A rejection letter doesn’t even come close to losing loved ones in your family. That is the hard stuff to survive,” Mr. Turner says. “I want to be sure to make this point: I did everything I did without a college degree,” he says. While it is better to have one, “you can be successful without it.