Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers
In Malcolm Gladwell's third book, Outliers he looks at why there are people who are outside the normal population, those who excel, he investigates why these people are so great.
Gladwell again gives examples of successful people, and groups, to explain what he is telling us, and shows us that it is not always genius that makes these people a success, but the history of the family going back generations, the culture of the person, even that date of birth could make the difference between being a high achiever or failure, an outlier or an ordinary person.
Gladwell also explains that to be an outlier we should be in the right place at the right time, and to take advantage of the opportunity.
Having the above factors in-place does not mean success, to become an outlier, a person needs to become involved with the area of expertise of greatness, to DO the action, the work, for 10,000 hours. Gladwell cites examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates etc, of how the Beatles played in Hamburg nightclubs for long hours, amassing the required 10,000 hours, how Bill Gates spent hours and hours programming the early computers, again amassing the 10,000 hours before setting-up Microsoft.
Gladwell looks at the birth dates of those who created the leading computer software companies, and surprise, they mostly fall within a narrow year range, and he looks at American lawyers who specialise in takeovers and litigation are mostly Jewish of a certain age.
Gladwell asks, why are top basketball players birthdays mostly in the early months, January, February, March, and why pupils who achieve better exam results have their birthdays closer to the start of the academic year, than those pupils whose birthdays are nearer the end of the academic year. Simple really, the older pupil is nearly a year older and has a more developed brain, take for example a baby of one year old and compare it to a two year old child, there is a big difference in ability, understanding and behaviour.
An amazing book, which gives an insight to what could make people great, an outlier.
Gladwell again gives examples of successful people, and groups, to explain what he is telling us, and shows us that it is not always genius that makes these people a success, but the history of the family going back generations, the culture of the person, even that date of birth could make the difference between being a high achiever or failure, an outlier or an ordinary person.
Gladwell also explains that to be an outlier we should be in the right place at the right time, and to take advantage of the opportunity.
Having the above factors in-place does not mean success, to become an outlier, a person needs to become involved with the area of expertise of greatness, to DO the action, the work, for 10,000 hours. Gladwell cites examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates etc, of how the Beatles played in Hamburg nightclubs for long hours, amassing the required 10,000 hours, how Bill Gates spent hours and hours programming the early computers, again amassing the 10,000 hours before setting-up Microsoft.
Gladwell looks at the birth dates of those who created the leading computer software companies, and surprise, they mostly fall within a narrow year range, and he looks at American lawyers who specialise in takeovers and litigation are mostly Jewish of a certain age.
Gladwell asks, why are top basketball players birthdays mostly in the early months, January, February, March, and why pupils who achieve better exam results have their birthdays closer to the start of the academic year, than those pupils whose birthdays are nearer the end of the academic year. Simple really, the older pupil is nearly a year older and has a more developed brain, take for example a baby of one year old and compare it to a two year old child, there is a big difference in ability, understanding and behaviour.
An amazing book, which gives an insight to what could make people great, an outlier.
Posted by Phillip Holt at 3/29/2010 10:49 AM 
Categories: NLP, Culture, Books
Tags: book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell Beatles Bill gates Microsoft 10000 hours
Categories: NLP, Culture, Books
Tags: book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell Beatles Bill gates Microsoft 10000 hours
Interesting..
I was born in December 82 and went to school with the kid of the same year- 82. Based on Gladwell's work, I must have done worse in exams, but I didnt.
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Firstly, thank you for your comments, and I suspect that you actually come from Turkey.
When does the Turkish academic year start?
In the UK, and I believe the USA, it starts in September, so those born prior to say September, start their schooling a year before those born after say September.
Now, in your case, you were born in December 1982, and say a girl was born in August 1983, you are nearly one year older, but you are streamed into the same school year, and at the age of 4 or 5, that is a big difference in physical and mental abilities.
What are the break points in birthdates in Turkey?
Did your parents perhaps move your birth date for a reason?
There are so many other reasons Gladwell cites in his book as to why one person progresses more than another.
The family background, what do the parents do?
The status of the family, upper, middle or lower class?
The amount of work that the student works. This is the 10,000 hour rule.
How much do the parents encourage the child to participate in other out of school activities? During the long school holidays, in the UK they have 6 weeks off in the summer, does the child study more, go to camps, engage in learning activities, or do they just play?
Then there is the cultural background of the family as a whole.
I only took one part of the book as an example, you really need to read the whole book.
Again I hope this has awakened your interest and opened a debate which will help us all to learn.
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Oh yes, for those that have followed me in my NLP training classes, this is a generalization.
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