Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers

I recently read Outliers (2008) by Malcolm Gladwell. I recognize I am a bit late to the party with regard to this book. Glad I finally got around to reading it!

This book is most famous for calling attention to The 10,000 Hour Rule. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, "The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours." I became a Realtor in 1999. I am not quite sure when I crossed the 10,000 hour mark (2003 perhaps?). Excellence is not arrived at overnight, that's for sure. Work - that's how you get it.

Many people believe that success is all about an individual's talent. Gladwell, however, believes that "extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity."  In Gladwell's view, "Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them."

In the final chapter of the book, Gladwell writes, "Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all."

Below, author Malcom Gladwell talks about his book, Outliers, soon after its release.