Posted by geemiz | Posted in Geemiz Thoughts | Posted on 20-10-2013
Tags: Book review, Malcolm Gladwell
Author : Malcolm Gladwell
What are the paths of most successful people, why they are in the pedestal of where they are right now? For sure, you have the same question as I do and most people answers are that they came from a very difficult instances living in hardships and because they work, so hard that is why they become successful. Other would tell that because that person is rich or that person is genius that’s why he is successful. The question now is, do you either need to be hardworking, rich and genius to be successful?
Outlier according to Malcolm Gladwell describes things or phenomena that lie outside normal circumstances.
Plot
This is a non-fiction book and most sample stories are based on real people. The book outlier shows the various factor of high-level success. Part one of the book discusses opportunity and the second part about Legacy. In this book you will discover the following.
1. Most Canadian ice hockey players are born in the early first calendar year.
2. What is the advantage of Bill Gates over other programmer wannabe during his time.
3. How playing music more than 10,000 hours makes the Beatles legendary.
4. How the most successful law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom by Joseph Flom is built.
5. How Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer both intelligent people end up differently.
6. There are people who are born with accumulative advantage.
7. The 10,000 hour rule
8. How culture and perceive intelligence affects decision-making.
9. Perfect timing a factor to success – birth year and historical events like post world war.
10. Learn about Grit
What I learn
1. Hard work and passion – the 10,000 hour rule is emphasized in the book. It is if you do a specific activity for 10,000 hours then you will be a master of that specific activity as example by the Beatles and Bill Gates. For me the 10,000 hour rule will only accomplished if you do hard work most especially if you do not want what you are doing. Second is passion, if you are passionate on a specific activity, you will do it repeatedly. There are only 2 things you will choose to reach the 10,000 hour rule, you will either do hard work or do something that you are passionate of and in my end I will chose the latter.
2. Do not depend on luck – This is my most favorite part of the book. The story about the Chinese farmers in South China. These farmers wake up as early as dawn to tend to their rice paddies. The whole year round they see to it that they can grow good quality grains. They do not depend on whatever nature will give them instead, they will work so that they can have what they want.
Chinese proverbs
“In winter, the lazy man freezes to death,”
“If a man works hard, the land will not be lazy,”
“No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.”
3. Accumulative advantage – This is an advantage you have among others. Examples are 1. A child born in a rich family has an advantage of a child born in a poor family. 2. Child A and B are both born rich, child A having supportive parents making him chose what course to take in college, child B his parents chose a course he does not want to take. Child A has accumulative advantage than child B.
Do not self pity, some people are just successful because they have accumulative advantage. The best thing you can do is identify your own accumulative advantage and use it to gain success.
4. Grit – grit or delayed gratification. Make sacrifices today for a better future. Patience is really a virtue. Suffer now and get rewarded later.
photo above is from: http://www.curatormagazine.com/
Follow @geemiz in twitter | Like Geemiz in facebook | Circle geemiz in Google Plus | Subscribe Geemiz Youtube
