Ephemeris of the Mind (Book Review) Outliers: The Story of Success
Time to read: 4 min read
Book Cover
Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
Review
Malcolm Gladwell is perhaps one of the greatest storytellers alive today; his prose is lively and engaging and his pacing is perfectly timed. This is the first Gladwell book I've read; I've read some of his articles in various publications and watched some of his talks in the past, but after being recommended his books by many people, I've finally decided to pick one up.
In the book, Gladwell retells various stories of outlier success, where individuals or groups of individuals attained levels of success unobtainable for the vast majority of the population. Group examples range from inhabitants of a close-knit community in Pennsylvania, to elite Canadian hockey players, to Asian children. Individuals range from Bill Gates, the Beatles, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The key theme of the book is debunking popular misconceptions about success, namely the idea that one's success is dictated solely by the individual, with little outside influence. In an interview, Gladwell expresses that the main idea that he wishes for readers to take away is that "what we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves".
While the book is immensely entertaining to read and many ideas brought up are novel and counterintuitive, which I greatly appreciate, the book is largely anecdotal, and the anecdotes are cherry-picked to present a certain narrative. For instance, throughout the book Gladwell also bring up the idea of the 10,000-Hour Rule, the idea that one has to spend 10,000 hours working on a craft to achieve mastery. The idea is unproven and K. Anders Ericsson, whose work Gladwell cites as inspiration for the 10,000-Hour Rule, even claimed that his work was misrepresented.
Despite the book's shortcoming there were some ideas I liked:
One's cultural heritage and upbringing has a profound impact on one's chances for success; Gladwell details the culture of honor in Southern US, where one's cultural heritage dictates how one reacts in certain situations. Gladwell also makes a compelling case by comparing the experiences of rich and poor children in the US, and illustrating the advantages of more well-off children, such as extra confidence and more access to extracurricular opportunities. Reading about these different anecdotes made me realize the advantages of my own upbringing, such as speaking Mandarin (which helps me think more logically) and having the opportunity to pursue extracurricular activities growing up, such as attending summer camps, playing sports, and playing the violin. I'm definitely more grateful for the opportunities my mother has given me.
One's success is not solely dependent on one's hard skills, such as expertise or academic intelligence. Gladwell compares the life of Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Langan has an immense IQ of 195 and yet has not achieved a high level of success, while Oppenheimer is widely considered to be the father of the atomic bomb. Both men are highly intelligent (in fact, Langan is probably more intelligent than Oppenheimer) yet only one has achieved outlier success. Gladwell attributes this discrepancy to the difference in soft skills, namely Oppenheimer's ability to negotiate, such as when he negotiated with his university to not expell him after he was caught poisoning one of his tutors. The soft skills, which are often learned from one's upbringing, can drastically affect one's chances at success.
Despite the dubiousness of the 10,000-Hour Rule, it is without a doubt that hardwork is necessary to achieve success. Gladwell illustrates this point by explaining how Bill Gates practiced hours of programming in high school before founding Microsoft, and how the Beatles spent hours playing gigs in Germany before achieving critical success.
Conclusion
A very well-written book with interesting anecdotes and ideas. While not all the ideas are 100% accurate, it's still an immensely entertaining read.