Outliers (2nd version)

I finally finished the book “Outliers” after my friend recommended many times. I sort of felt guilty if I kept ignoring his tireless kindness and good suggestion. Well, to be honest, it is very interesting and informative. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It’s really an amazing book and fun to read.

The book is about something everybody desires --- success. Unlike many other books about success which are full of preaching and unrealistic advice, this book reveals and analyzes the reasons leading some “outliers” to succeed. Similar to the statistical concept, here the outlier definitely means a small group of people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs rather than the general public. However, the purpose of the book, I think, is to convince people that these outliers are ordinary individuals rather than geniuses; they are just like you and me. However, when we dissect the components of their success, we may find something very familiar, common and yet interesting. This is what the book is trying to tell us.

The most critical factor of leading an individual to success, which has been emphasized in this book, is opportunity. As described in the book, “Success follows a predictable course. It’s not the brightest who succeed, but those who have strengthen and presence of mind to seize the opportunities. Outliers are products of history, society, culture and opportunity”. Let’s take Bill Gates as an example. If he had neither been born in 1950s, nor started working in 1970-80s when computer industry began looming and booming; if the society had not demanded for computer whiz; if he hadn’t happened to live in a upper middle class family in the state of Washington, if he hadn’t had the opportunity to play with computers in high school, his career would be different and it might have been someone else other than Bill Gates to established Microsoft. The fact is Bill Gates had all of these opportunities. His family’s socioeconomic background, educational advantages as well as the advancement of the society helped to build up Bill Gates’ accomplishment and glory. Without appropriate opportunities, even geniuses can be wasted. For instance, Chris Langan, who had an IQ of 195, much higher than that of Einstein, ended up living in a horse farm in northern Missouri and admitting his defeat, though he tried his best to change his situation.

Nevertheless, opportunities only favor those who are well prepared. Therefore, don’t forget other influential factors for being successful. They are passion, talent and hard work. Passion is the basic drive for being successful. If Bill Gates had been fascinated with biology, we might have heard another story. But what impresses me the most is still hard working. The book brings up a 10,000 hours rule. The examples in the book including Bill Gates, Bill Joye, Steve Jobs and Beetles all have worked/practiced year in and year out for at least 10,000 hours before they gained mastery in their fields at young age. In another word, 10,000-hour is the minimal amount of time one has to patiently contribute to the work an individual is passionate about until they became experts. So we usually find excuses that people like Bill Gates are super smart geniuses who could succeed in any field without putting any efforts. It is so wrong. As a matter of fact, they worked much much harder than ordinary people. They couldn’t have been outliers without unthinkable hard work. “Achievement is talent plus preparation”. Preparation is endeavor they experience before they succeed and are recognized by public and the entire society. Thus, education, hard work and opportunity rather than intelligence alone would be more likely to guarantee success.

Although the book doesn’t take a deep look on other potential factors in an individual’s success such as interpersonal and/or communication skills, the author does mention “practical intelligence”, meaning “knowing what to say to whom, when to say and how to say it for maximum effect”. I take them as proper approaches to shape one’s personality, develop one’s interpersonal skills and win opportunities. I really like the following example described in the book though it may not 100% coherent to the topic in this paragraph. Alex’s mother took him to see his doctor. On their way, the mother told Alex that he could ask any questions he was concern. So when they arrived, Alex asked questions about bumps on his arms. He engaged in an in-depth talking (for a 10 years old) with his doctor and he took the charge at that moment. And he gained the doctor’s full attention and respect, and both of them focused on the issues he chose. I believe his independence, interpersonal/communication skills have been trained effectively in this course.  

In a nutshell, success is not a sprint. It’s an outcome of passion, talent, effort and opportunity. It is also highly related to an individual’s practice intelligence, which helps people sense and seize the upcoming opportunities. We may not be able to control opportunities, but we can work harder and smarter before opportunities award our attempts and knock on our doors. Even we are not lucky enough to be born on a critical date in a critical era like Bill Gates for example, we still can enjoy success of reaching our goals on all possible levels.