Book Summary: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

 

OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS

                                    BY – MALCOLM GLADWELL

--Book Summary--

This is a book about outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary.

Many outliers are introduced right from business tycoons, rock stars, software programmers, best pilots and many more. These successful people are beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities, cultural legacies that allowed them to learn and work hard and makes sense of world in ways others cannot.

Biologists often talk about ecology of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not because it grew from the hardest acorn, it is because no other tree blocked its sunlight, soil around was deep and rich, no rabbits chewed through its bark as a sapling and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured.

Successful people also have similar advantages.

Matthew Effect:

·      An opportunity plays critical role in success.

·      It is those who are successful, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It is the best students who get the best teaching and biggest attention, it is the rich who gets biggest tax advantages.

·      Successful people have “Accumulative Advantage”-People who start out little bit better than peers and this little difference leads to an opportunity and results in big difference at the end. But who understand this advantage and utilizes to his or her way has highest chance of success. There is no doubt that success is accumulative advantage of passion, talent, and hard work.

·      The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with, have a profound effect on who we are.

·      If you have ability, the vast network of scouts and talent spotters will find you. If you are willing to work to develop the ability, system will reward you. Success is based on individual merit and not some arbitrary facts.

·      Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than opportunities.

 

The 10,000- Hour Rule:

·      Achievement is talent plus preparation.

·      People at the very top do not work just harder or even much harder than everyone else, they work much, much harder than others.

·      Story of Bill Gates: He was spending days and nights in the computer lab week after week for many many years. With this 10,000-hour rule came up to gain expert level.

 

·      Opportunity also matters in our life like hockey team players who born in a particular year and month and highest chance to get selected in country team.

·      Study of basketball players, writers, ice skaters, chess player and many more revels that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice to reach to the level of world class expert. Magic number of “Ten Thousand Hours” of practice takes to the greatness.

·      If you work hard enough and assert yourself and use your mind and imagination you can shape the world to your desire.

·      Learning attitude, perfectly suited for succeeding in the modern world is a key.

 

The Three Lessons of Joe Flom:

·      Lesson One-Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Flom and many toiled away in a relatively obscure field without any great hopes for worldly success. But the revolution happened, and they were ready with their world class skills, hence they could grab opportunities. It is that they have a skill that they had been working on for years that was suddenly very valuable.

·      Lesson Two-Period during which you are born makes a big difference. First world war, then depression and then second world war this was tough period and people did not have much chance.

·      Lesson Three-Autonomy, complexity and a connection between efforts and rewards plays a key factor for satisfying work. It is not how much money we make satisfies but meaningful work brings lots of satisfaction. If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world you desire.

The Culture of honor:

·      It matters where you are from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great grandparents grew up and even where your great-great grandparents grew up and even your great-great-great grandparents grew up. Cultural legacy proved to be very powerful.

·      Parent plays a key role in building a “Cultural Legacy” in the family. Hence hard-working parents culture continue as kids grow in their lives. Japanese, Korean, Chinese students are very successful in USA due to their inherent 360 days working habits cultivated from childhood. People from USA / Europe do not have a habit of working hard and so their schools also similar pattern of having very fewer working days in a year as compared to appropriate region schools.

·      Why some students are good in Mathematics? - They use all 360 days in a year. Rich students do something meaningful during school vacations by joining classes, doing home study that way they continue building skills while poor students do not have chance to do studies / activities during school holidays. Hence, after school holiday skill level of poor students drops and it takes more time to come back to the normal level whereas rich students’ skills continue building and hence, they become successful in life.

·      Cultural legacy continues to transfer from one generation to other, hence it is important to know and understand our culture legacy very clearly.

Outliers’ success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: when and where you are born, what your parents did for living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing were all makes a significant difference in how well you do in the world.

Hard Work: 360 days of a year:

·      No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a fail to make his/her family rich-Rise before dawn-360 days a year.

·      A very good story of Japan, Korea, China people how they work hard in the farm all around the year and thus builds habit of hard work and making them successful whereever they go.

·      There will be struggle in life and family during any big transformation but determined person and family can handle it through hard work, despite any odds on the way.

•  Turnaround story of Korean airlines from worst airline to best in class in short time provides evidence – Determined efforts of working harder than peers.
• ·      Bill Gates and Bill Joy worked harder in college and became successful.
• ·      Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard. Our mind must be cultivated.

Outlier says that success follows predictable course, it is not the brightest who succeed. But those who has been given an opportunity and who have had strength and presence of mind to seize them.

• Also keep focus and determination going despite all odds, keep improving work honesty towards goals. We need to build such habits in our kids through examples demonstrated by parents. Failure in lives is possible, but those who think collaboratively, engage all members, and really understand causes of failures has high chance for “Bounce Back.”

This book emphasises on “Opportunity” is required to become successful. But we need to recognise and grab opportunities too.

Ability to tolerate ambiguity is also a skill à uncertainty tolerance.

Building connection between efforts and rewards is a critical skill one should cultivate.

                                                     ­­

                        -- PRASHANT WANI, 15^th August 2023