I just recently finished reading Malcolm gladwell’s most recent book entitled “Outliers: The story of success.
I love Malcolm gladwell’s work, he is truly an amazing author that enlightens my mind every time I read something he put’s out.
In this book he talks about success and the unspoken factors that help people become successful that no one else talks about.
It’s very interesting because you never hear “this side of the story” when you read autobiographies or when you hear success stories.
Malcolm lays it out and explains so much more in detail than just surface level stuff.
In this book Malcolm talks about how most successful people aren’t necissarily smarter or have more talent but that they have opportunity.
Many people have talent but what really matters is opportunity. You can take most people and give them opportunity and they will most likely succeed if they have a good work ethic.
You can take someone that has talent but that doesn’t have opportunity to use that talent and they will be in the same spot all day, month and year long.
Opportunity is a huge thing, it’s something that you need your talent to fulfill.
The crazy thing is that there are so many opportunities out there, there are no lack of opportunities. Opportunities are infinite, If someone doesn’t offer you an opportunity you have the right and ability to create your own.
Sure it’s nice to have opportunity handed to you on a silver platter but when it comes down to it there is more opportunity out there than there are people willing to accept it and take the risk head on.
Opportunity is huge and a lot of success stories had opportunity given to them but that doesn’t mean that you cannot create your own.
Talent plus opportunity and hard work is success.
One verse from the bible that malcolm uses really put’s this into perspective:
” For unto everyone that hath he shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he has.”
— Matthew 25:29
One thing that I learned from this part of the book is just to be more giving and to share more opportunities with more people in my life.
If I have opportunities that I see but am too busy to implement I should share that with someone so that then can be successful with it.
Another great learning lesson from the book is the “10,000 Hour Rule” which claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.
What I got from that is keep putting time into your work and when you reach 10,000 hours it will be a sort of tipping point that will bring even larger amounts of success.
Another cool thing that I learned from the book was “PDI” which stands for Power Distance Index.
In the book Malcolm talks about how the power distance index is more of a cause of plane crashes than anything else. In certain cultures they have a duty to honor their authority and not question anything they do.
In fact, in most cases if the rookie pilot were to fly instead of the experienced one the plane would be less likely to crash. The reason being is because the co-pilot with more experience isn’t afraid to speak up whereas the younger rookie pilot is in that situation.
The rookie pilot has more pressure on him and he performs better and listens better than a senior pilot would.
I learned a lot from this book and even if you don’t learn a ton from this book you will learn how to become a better thinker like Malcolm Gladwell. The way he thinks is great because he has a new or different perception of things and that allows you to see the same things in your life in new ways.
I really loved the book and highly recommend that you pick it up!
David King
P.S. Pick up the book below and leave your thoughts!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 0 comments… add one now }