Here are some reasons why you should read this book summary
Success is often defined as an individual achievement. Have you ever considered that a person's upbringing, culture, and tradition play a very important role in his or her success? You will learn about the importance of opportunity and 10,000 hours of practice in this book. Outliers are successful and extraordinary people. You should definitely read this book if you want to become one.
What kind of reader should read this?
Musicians with aspirations
The artist
The writers
Students, athletes, anyone who wants to excel in his or her field
A little bit about the author
Malcolm Gladwell is a renowned journalist and best-selling author. Since 1996, he has been writing for The New Yorker. Gladwell had published six books in total. The majority of them were New York Times bestsellers.
An introduction
What does it mean to be an outlier? Outliers are people who have achieved more than the average. Their uniqueness makes them stand out. Success has reached its peak for them. Among the outliers are geniuses, rock stars, athletes, business tycoons, and billionaires. How do they do it?
People who are successful are always admired. Stories of rags to riches inspire us. It would be interesting to know more about them. What is their lifestyle like? How would you describe their personality? Are there any special talents they possess? These qualities may explain their success. However, we are missing a bigger picture.
There is something wrong with the way we define success in this book. It is only personal to us. Success is attributed to individuals who did everything on their own. Their success is a result of their own abilities.
Is pure talent enough, however? How about upbringing? How about the people who helped them? What about their culture and society? These questions can be answered by reading the stories of outliers. Success will be viewed from a new perspective.
Hockey in Canada
The sport of hockey is very popular in Canada. From kindergarten onwards, boys learn how to play. Every year, there is a hockey league at school. How are the best players selected for the national team? The best hockey players were born between January and March. What caused this to happen?
The secret is here. Boys who are older in their class are actually chosen by the coaches. Therefore, a boy born in December would not be chosen to play for the team. Physically, the older boy is more mature. There is a huge difference in their body structures as a result of the gap in months. Boys between the ages of 9 and 10 are selected for this program.
The coach will train the boys born earlier. The team will practice three times more than the average. During their teens, the boys are already experts at playing hockey. Then they will move up to the big leagues.
Other sports also use this selection process. The Olympics also value age differences. We ignore the talents of children born in the latter part of the year. Younger children are often discouraged from playing sports. If they were given the same opportunity, their talents would also be honed. Athletes like them would also be successful.
As a result of coincidence, the Canadian national hockey team became outliers. As a result, they are born earlier and are more physically mature. They have been given the opportunity to succeed. One opportunity led to another.
We are a society that gives more advantage to the successful. They would be able to open more doors and further elevate their status. In the meantime, those who fail are dismissed. Individual achievement is so important to us. Society overlooks the role we play in determining who gets the opportunity and who doesn't.
The ten thousandth hour
Practicing isn't something you do after you're good. It's what you do that makes you good." In the 1990s, psychologists conducted a study at the Academy of Music in Berlin. It is important for them to know how much talent and practice determine success. Violinists excel because of their innate talent? Is it a result of practice?
The psychologists observed that students become better at playing violin as they practice more. Children spend more time practicing as they grow older. Thousands of hours have already been spent practicing by the best violinists by the time they are twenty years old.
A similar study was conducted on pianists. Since childhood, amateurs have only spent 2,000 hours playing. Professionals, however, increased their practice hours every year. They have played for a total of 10,000 hours by the time they are 20 years old. According to the psychologists, there are no "naturals". It is impossible for a musician to become the best by practicing less.
It takes 10,000 hours to become a world class in anything. This magic number has been proven in other studies. It takes 10,000 hours to become a mastermind, whether you're a musician, an athlete, a writer, or a criminal mastermind. Expertise and mastery require 10,000 hours in our brains.
However, not everyone can afford to spend 10,000 hours. It cannot be achieved on your own. It is important to have supportive parents when you are a child. Adults need spare time. When you are poor and have to work, you won't have time to practice. It is an extraordinary opportunity to have 10,000 hours at your disposal.
Consider Bill Gates as an example. Programming has been a part of his life since he was in eighth grade. It was a special opportunity because it was in the 1960s. The only people who could afford a computer at that time were the rich.
Bill Gates' father is a lawyer, while his mother comes from a rich family. He was enrolled in an elite school in Seattle called Lakeside. In 1968, it was one of the few schools with a computer club. Bill Gates practiced programming non-stop from 8th grade through high school.
When Bill Gates dropped out of college to start Microsoft, he had already spent more than 10,000 hours working on it. Besides being a brilliant programmer, he is also an entrepreneur. Nevertheless, Bill Gates took advantage of that unusual opportunity. "I was very lucky," said Bill Gates.
It takes a special opportunity to be an outlier. That lucky break needs to come your way. An extraordinary talent requires an extraordinary opportunity to succeed.
The Beatles
During the unveiling of the statue of Benjamin Franklin, Robert Winthrop said, "Lift up your heads and view the image of a man who rose from nothing, who owed nothing to parentage or patronage..." Do outliers really rise from nothing?
We are obsessed with autobiographies of successful people. All of them had humble beginnings. However, they overcame every challenge and succeeded. It was a result of their own unique abilities. The truth is that great leaders like Franklin benefit from opportunities and advantages.
Outliers owe their success to their parents, patrons, and communities. This is due to the legacies and culture of their ancestors. It is not enough to study a person's qualities if we want to know how he succeeded. He should also tell us when and where he grew up.
Let's take the Beatles as an example. Hamburg, Germany was their special opportunity before they became popular. The year was 1960. In those days, the Beatles were only a high school band.
There were many strip clubs in Hamburg at that time. To attract more customers, rock bands were invited. There was a club in Liverpool, England called Bruno that always featured bands from Liverpool. For hours on end, Philip Norman wanted the bands to play nonstop.
John Lennon said about their experience in Hamburg, "We got better and gained more confidence. We had to try harder, put our heart and soul into it, and get over it."
Every night, the Beatles played in Hamburg clubs for eight hours straight. Their creativity, stamina, and discipline were developed. In Liverpool, they would only play the same songs for an hour. The Beatles played a different version of the song in Hamburg, however. For eight hours, they performed rock and jazz.
In only 18 months, the Beatles performed in Hamburg 270 times. The band had already played live 1,200 times when they became popular in 1964. They stood out from all the other rock and roll bands because of that. With a live audience, they practiced a lot.
Hamburg was a special opportunity for the Beatles. They benefited from the culture and community of Hamburg, Germany. They were no good onstage when they went there but very good when they returned...they sounded like no one else. "It made them."
Morgan, Carnegie, and Rockefeller
A list of the 75 wealthiest people in history has been compiled by historians. They began with the pharaohs and Cleopatra. From all over the world, they sought out the richest people. Only 20% of them came from only one generation in America.
The list included Andrew Carnegie. He was born in 1835. J.P. Morgan was born in 1837 while John Rockefeller was born in 1839. Out of the 75, there are eleven other Americans. All of them were born between 1830 and 1840. All of them are incredibly rich.Could it be a mere coincidence? Why might this be happening?
From the 1860s to the 1870s, the American economy underwent its biggest transformation. The era of Wall Street development was during this time. Steel was manufactured and railroads were built. The American economy shifted from a traditional to a modern one.
These outliers on the wealthiest list were all at the right age for this economic boom. People born in the 1840s are too young. People born in the 1820s are too old. Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller were all the right age. As a result of their country's economic growth, they became beneficiaries.
There is talent and vision in these wealthy men. However, they also had that special opportunity, just like the hockey players. As a result, they dominated the world of finance and steel. It was the right place and the right time for them to be born.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple founder Steve Jobs
Take a look at Silicon Valley's outliers. 1975 was the year when they were given a special opportunity. The Altair 8800 was released at that time. Older computer models were expensive and large. However, Altair 8800 only costs $397. It can be assembled at home and used. It can be owned by anyone.
1975 marked the beginning of the era of personal computers. If you are too old or too young at the time, you will not be able to take advantage of this special opportunity. If you were born after 1958, you are still in high school. If you were born before 1952, you probably already work for IBM.
IBM had already established itself in Silicon Valley by 1975. By producing mainframe computers, it earns billions of dollars. Those who are old enough to work are already there. It's already a nice living for them. However, they belong to the old paradigm. The opportunity was not available to them.
Around 1955 is the right age for the personal computer revolution. In 1975, this generation was just out of college. They were able to explore the possibilities of the modern computer. What are the names of the software billionaires born in 1955?
On October 28, 1955, Bill Gates was born. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was born on January 21, 1956. Together, they studied at Lakeside. Lakeside computer club members and best friends.
On February 24, 1955, Steve Jobs was born. Unlike Gates, Jobs did not come from a wealthy family. His parents adopted him. However, he was raised in Mountain View, California. Silicon Valley's epicenter.
The neighbourhood Jobs grew up in was filled with Hewlett-Packard engineers. HP scientists hosted forums for him. He bought electronic spare parts at flea markets in Mountain View.
He found Bill Hewlett's number in the phonebook when he was 12 years old. To get spare parts, he called HP's co-founder. The parts were not the only thing Jobs acquired. HP offered him a summer job.
Not all business tycoons in the U.S. were born in 1955 and the 1830s. However, there is a trend in their stories. As a result of our focus on individual achievement, we failed to notice the pattern.
It was a special opportunity for these successful people. They took advantage of it and made the most of it. They were born during a time when hard work was rewarded by society. Their achievements were not solely the result of their own efforts. Their success was greatly influenced by the world in which they grew up.
Math and Asians
What makes Asians so good at math? There are many possible answers to this question. Nevertheless, something deeply ingrained in their culture is difficult to guess. As a result of their cultural heritage, Asians are outliers in math. Their number-naming and counting systems are logical.
Chinese number words are very short. Seven is "qi" and four is "si". They are seven and four in English. Chinese numbers are easier to memorize because they are shorter. It is easier to pronounce them.
In English, we count eleven, twelve, and thirteen. Why do we say sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, but not fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen? It's just ten-one for eleven, ten-two for twelve, two-tens for twenty, and two-tens-one for twenty-one for Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans.
Number names in English are irregular. For Asians, however, numbers are simpler and easier to add. In order to solve 37 + 22, an English first grader must first convert thirty-seven and twenty-two to numbers. For Asians, however, adding three-tens-seven plus two-tens-two is faster. There is already an equation. Five-tens-nine is the answer.
It is easy to understand the Asian number system. Compared to Western children, Asian children are better at counting, memorizing, and calculating. Fractions are even easier to understand. Three-fifths is three-fifths in English. It is said in Chinese, "out of five parts, take three". A small child can figure out the fraction from the words. There is already a distinction between the numerator and the denominator.
The "decade" comes first in English for numbers such as twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three. As in fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, the unit number comes first for "teens". Western children are disenchanted from an early age. Math does not seem to make sense; it has a clumsy linguistic structure; and its basic rules seem arbitrary and complex."
As a result of the simple and logical number system, Asian children can enjoy learning math. It is easier and faster for them to solve problems. Numbers themselves provide the advantage.
It is easy to assume that Asians are simply talented at math. According to the differences between the number systems in the East and the West, being good at math may also be rooted in a group's culture.
The rice paddies
Rice has been cultivated by the Chinese for thousands of years. Other Asian countries also learned their technique for cultivating rice. Rice cultivation is a tedious process. The process isn't like plow wheat, where you just have to clear the field.
Rice paddies must be built by the farmers. There must be enough water supply for the rice paddy. Irrigation channels and dikes are made by the farmers. Rice seedlings will be planted on soft mud. The Chinese use human manure and other organic materials as fertilizer. The cultivation of rice is a family affair.
There would be help from the farmer's family, relatives, and friends. Rice seedlings would be carefully planted by them. As soon as the rice is ripe, they would all harvest it together.
There is only a small rice paddy. The size of the room is similar to that of a hotel room. There could be two or three rice paddies on one farm. A Chinese village can sustain itself on 450 acres of land. One family owns 450 acres in America.
There is a striking difference between Western and Eastern agriculture. There are a lot of farms in Midwestern America. The reason for this is that they use machines. Human effort is reduced. However, the machines enable farmers to produce more crops.
There is no equipment available to the Chinese and other Asians. In order to increase their yield, they invest more time and effort. Rice paddy is small, but farmers use it diligently. Rice quality is ensured by them. Farmers must work harder in order to produce more crops.
Furthermore, European farmers are idle during the winter. Due to their inability to plant, they spend most of their time sleeping. During the nineteenth century, a historian wrote that "peasant life in France was essentially brief episodes of work followed by long periods of idleness."
Meanwhile, Chinese farmers never stop working. During the dry season, they make and sell bamboo hats and baskets. Rice paddies are repaired. Tofu and dried bean curd are made there. When it's not farming season, the Chinese pursue other livelihoods.
Spring will bring the Chinese farmer back to his fields early in the morning. Planting rice is 20 times harder than planting corn or wheat. Every year, the Chinese farmer works 3,000 hours in the rice paddies.
Chinese proverbs reflect the hard work of farmers. “The lazy man freezes to death in winter.” “Don't depend on heaven for food, but on your own two hands carrying the load.” In contrast to the Russian proverb, Eastern agriculture is more diligent and practical.
Rice paddies symbolize Asian hard work. They were unconquered by poverty and nature. Their culture values hard work. Everywhere they go, they bring this quality with them.
Final thoughts
Talent alone is not enough to succeed. To practice a talent, one must have the right opportunity. In addition, we learned the importance of upbringing. There is no such thing as an outlier. They are always shaped by the place and time in which they grew up.
Success can be explained by the individual's qualities. In addition to inherited cultural characteristics, he also has his own unique behaviors. Making use of what we have is what we can learn from these stories of success. We must work hard if we are given that opportunity or advantage. We can also be outliers in that way.