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Outliers: The story of success book review

David King — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:07:10 +0000

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

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Blink book review Malcolm Gladwell

David King — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:07:40 +0000

I just finished reading blink which is a book another book by malcolm gladwell.

The book shares how we are all thinking even when we aren’t consciously thinking. The unconscious mind is always thinking and drawing conclusions long before we know it is.

This book shares different stories and insight as to why and how this works. When you understand how to brand and position yourself to the point where people come to a positive conclusion about your business and brand without much thought you have a huge advantage over everyone else.

One example is 7-UP. They noticed that when they might their packaging colors more green and yellow that people thought their soda tasted more lime/lemonish.

7-UP used this to their advantage in order to unconsciously affect the consumers mindset before they even began drinking the product.

They grew their company simply by changing the color of their packaging. That’s pretty remarkable isn’t it?

In the book Malcolm discusses “Thin-Slicing” which is making quick decisions with very small amounts of information.

Everyone “thin-slices” and make’s horrible decisions because of the speed of the decision and the little amount of information that they have.

In the book malcolm discusses mind-reading. Not in a psychic sense but in a sense where people read other people’s faces.

Based on your emotions and feelings your face will cultivate that. There is an amazing amount of information that you can research and study to learn how people are feeling and what emotions they are feeling with this.

It’s amazing to read information like this because as a marketer and entrepreneur we want to influence people and connect with them as often as we can.

By reading this book you will have a better understanding of “thin-slicing” and mind-reading. You will learn how people think without actually consciously thinking.

You will learn how to position your companies products and services and increase the value being seen in them.

I liked the book but I do wish that malcolm wrote a little more positively in his books. He kind of has a negative edge in his books. He is a great educator and author but I just wish he would use more positive examples to get his points across.

I hope that you pick up the book though because you will learn a lot from it and it will help your business greatly!

Take care! Please leave your comments and share this post!

David king

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The tipping point book review Malcolm Gladwell

David King — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:26:53 +0000

I just listened to “the tipping point” audio book by Malcolm Gladwell because I had heard about it several times and wanted to read it for myself.

The book basically covers “How things spread” and how WOM works.

Word of mouth can either work for you as a business owner or marketer.

In the beginning of this book Malcolm covers a shoe company you may or may not heard of wish is hush puppies.

I laughed because in High school I worked at the headquarters main retail store in my hometown so I learned a little bit about how the company came to be.

Hush puppies was failing and it caught on with some kids wearing their shoes in manhattan and from there it just kept growing and spreading virally.

The company probably would have gone out of business if it had not caught on in manhattan. The company really got lucky that it caught on.

In this book Malcolm explains how hush puppies and other companies like Airwalk grew by word of mouth.

I didn’t really like that malcolm used a lot of negative examples for some reason. The problems we have in our society don’t shrink when we focus on them and that along with his health understanding was a little distasteful to me but the overall knowledge of the book is still worth reading.

So what is “The tipping point”?

Tipping point is the point where everything suddenly changes.
A great analogy would be climbing a mountain and once you get to the top that would be the tipping point.

Everything changes when you are at the top.

You have the mountain to go down now and not up. It’s much easier and you have your weight as momentum on your side to make the trip easier.

The tipping point is the point teaches how little things can make a big difference.

So what do you need to get the tipping point to positively impact your business? your brand? products and services?

You need these 3 types of people in order to do that…

Connectors - These are the people that connect everything and everyone. They are puzzle piece hunters and they will always bring the right people, products and ideas together. These people allow your tipping point to happen easier because they connect with the right people to spread your message easier and more virally.

Mavens – Mavens have the right information to make the tipping point in your business a success. They understand what and where critical mass is and they understand how to use leverage to scale your organization to the next level.

Salespeople – These people sell the vision. The vision should always be prevalent and known to those that work at the company. But in order for that vision to reach the market, mavens and connectors it needs to be sold. Salespeople handle that job.

The Connectors, Mavens and salespeople are the different types of people that you need in order for your organization to reach critical mass and reach tipping point. In order for your company to expand and grow and go viral you need these types of people.

I loved the knowledge and information in the book and if you are a business owner or marketer it is a must read.

Just don’t believe that coke isn’t harmful to your body like he said! He’s not really a nutritionist obviously!

Take care!

David King

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