It's been a while since I wrote a post on here, and I felt that I would have to back-track a little bit. It seems that most of these reviews are about books, but I'm okay with that. So here we go, another book review.
About mid-summer I finished reading the non-fiction book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I used to read a lot of non-fiction, but haven't had a chance to do so in quite some time. I enjoy reading about real events because it gives me a sense of awe and I feel like I am looking in on a conversation you might overhear in the store. Outliers is a story about success, it says so right in the subtitle. However, I feel like most of the "success" stories that we see all the time are more "braggy" and have that feeling of someone preening their feathers like a proud peacock. Outliers is not like that at all! Instead of focusing the book around the accomplishments of these great people, Gladwell focuses around the reasons WHY these people are great and how that effects their accomplishments.
Gladwell starts off the book by describing an "outlier" as someone who stands above the rest because of their achievements and dedication. To give you an idea of the samples mentioned: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, etc. Yes, these are more focused around the technology world, but they are likely the ones that most people have heard of before. Gladwell goes on to explain that the reason why people are successful have many different factors, rather than just becoming an "overnight success".
One of the coolest things that Gladwell covers is the idea of the 10,000 hour rule. This is something that I had heard of in high school athletics. The rule states that in order to become great at something, you must have had focused practice at that task for a minimum of 10,000 hours. This doesn't sound like a lot, really just 417 days straight (all 24 hours), so just over a year. Obviously no one is going to practice a task with that much focus straight. He runs through all the opportunities that Gates and Jobs had in the early years of computers to not only be exposed to them, but also to practice programing. Another thing that factors in is when the people were born. Most of the major tech people that have made huge developments in the tech world were born between the years 1953-1955. Because this puts these developers in their early twenties during the first introduction of computers. This allowed for enough time to practice their 10,000 hour rule wile most people had never even seen a computer at that time.
It's interesting how all these little factors have such a large impact on the outcome of these people. When I was reading through the book, I kept on thinking of the phrase "some people have all the luck". And that statement kind of rings true because in order to become an elite talent, there needs to be some extenuating circumstances. This is apparent from the first chapter in the book. Being a die-hard hockey fan I was immediately grabbed because Gladwell runs through the peewee leagues in Canada's hockey talents. If you follow the sport, you know that Canada produces more elite players than any other in country in the world. Gladwell explains how the top-tiered players are chosen; not by skill (solely)....but by their birth date. Yup, you heard it right, the month that they were born. The breakdown goes like this: the leagues are broken up by ages, and the age of the player when the season starts in the fall. The kids who are born in the first part of the year (January-March) are going to be the oldest players in the league. Going through adolescence there is a BIG difference between a kid who just turned 12 and one who will be turning 13 in a few months. Developmentally, there is a large difference in skill, size, and coordination. Therefore the kids that are chosen for the all-star teams are typically older and born in the first part of the year. This means they get 10x more games during the season, higher-level coaching, national tournaments, and exposure. This allows the kids with earlier birthdays to have the best possible training available when going in to high school, then college, and then (hopefully) the draft. All of this broken down just by the month of their birthdays.
These are the really interesting type of stories that Gladwell covers in Outliers . These claims are backed-up with research and data, but makes you really think about how successful people are behind the scenes. Some of the other interesting ideas that Gladwell addresses is banking on stereotypes of the best lawyers being Jewish and why Asians are better at mathematics than the US (or other English speaking countries).
Now understand this before proceeding - these are just claims as to why these types of people may have an advantage in life and their skill set, not necessarily promoting the ideas of the stereotypes.
Without going into too much detail, because you should really read it and check it out., the reasons why these ideas exist is really about the person's family heritage. in terms of the Jewish lawyers it goes all the way back to their country of origin, the trades that their parents were skilled at. Typically this trade passes on skills to the kids in the family about hard work, perseverance, etc. These are skills are enforced within the home at an early age and then transfered to dealing with the law. Again, very brief but to the point.
The other stereotype is why Asians are so good with math and numbers. This is a combination of the pronunciation of numbers when spoken and how in Asian language there are fewer syllables, and the numbering system makes more sense (in terms of consistency). This allows those cultures to be able to memorize more numbers off the top of their head in sequence than English speaking cultures. Then the concept of hard work travels back through the family history of working the rice patties and the intense care and dedication to a skill. Read the book to get a more in-depth answer.
Overall, Outliers is a great read and really makes you start thinking about what truly makes people becoming successful. Gladwell breaks down the whole concept and finishes with an interesting twist claiming that "[t]he outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all." (Gladwell 285). I know it sounds counter-productive to everything that I just stated above. But that's the point, in order to fully understand this concept you really need to check it out. It's a great read and goes very quickly.
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Next post (coming soon): Inferno by Dan Brown
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