I’ve been enjoying Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success. I’m not a fanatic reader of non-fiction business books – although I do read quite a few business magazines and business fiction – but I’ve been captivated by Malcom Gladwell’s unveiling of what actually contributes to noticeable success.
I’m not going to do a book review here, per se, rather I want to share with you off the top of my head in bullet point fashion what has impacted in reading this book thus far. (I’m about 3/4 of the way through)
- Outlying success is largely a product of practice – 10,000 hours or so
- What appears to be intrinsic talent leading to success rarely turns out to be anything more than practice combined with timing and circumstances.
- One’s environment growing up greatly contributes to one’s success regardless of innate intelligence or talent.
- Sheer determination counts and reaps rewards.
- Success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed.
I’m not doing justice to the book by any means, but these are some of the key points you may come away with as well.
What’s most encouraging to me is the demystification of success Mr. Gladwell provides. I’ve often looked at those who have achieved what I call success and said, “How’d they do it?” Were they lucky? In the right place at the right time? A beneficiary of some blessing from above not available to the poor losers to the right or to the left? And it’s not that I haven’t been successful in my own life. I’ve been, by many people’s definition, successful in many ways. (and a failure in others) But I’ve always struggled with the notion of becoming successful. And reproducing that success over and over again.
It turns out that success is actually not that mysterious at all. And that’s a challenging realization. I actually can engineer success more than I thought I could. Sure, some components of outlying success are outside of my control or have come and gone. (i.e. The environment that I grew up in.)
I encourage you to read this book. And then come back and share your thoughts with me. I’d like to hear what you’ve learned or your criticisms of Malcom Gladwells’ approach to explaining outlying success.
