This is Why You're Lucky
Jun 20, 2018Book #11: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
❤ Book #11 review from my 50 Books 2018 Challenge!
❤ You can read about my initial challenge progress, and check out all the books I’m reading this year here. I got off track, but I’m back at it now!
Outliers
The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
This book is a must read on my list.
I used to have a chip on my shoulder whenever someone called me “lucky” — always responding that I had worked very hard and strategically to get where I was.
My response to that comment has drastically changed since reading this book.
Now I immediately nod and agree, that indeed I have been lucky AF.
Yes, I have worked hard and I’m sure that’s gotten me ahead to some degree. But all of the outlying factors — the year I was born (1986, putting me in my freshman year of college the year Facebook was invented, giving me exposure to social media at a prime age to take advantage of it), the country I was born in (USA, with English as my first language), the supportive and college educated parents, exposure to travel since infancy, access to NYC at an early age, education at great schools, etc — I had no hand in. I drew a lucky card at birth and that’s the why to who I am and where I’m at.
However, I’m not a complete asshole and have always acknowledged and credited my parents and family, along with outside factors like having a US passport and speaking English for a majority of my successes. But Outliers really humbled me and opened my eyes to all of those minuscule moments of being at the right place at the right time that I had absolutely no hand in (like the year I was born in, or my proximity to big cities growing up).
“Successful people don’t do it alone. Where they come from matters. They’re products of particular places and environments.”
For example, I’ve always heard that “the best hockey players are born in January or February.” I never gave it a second thought and assumed it had something to do with being born in the Winter?!
I was intrigued to find out that this “winter talent” had to do solely with the hockey season cutoff dates to join teams… the players born before March cutoff dates could start playing a year before others in their grades, thereby giving them more time to learn and practice, therefore they were (typically) always the best in their age group and got more opportunities from early on, leading to future success.
From the Beatles to Bill Gates, Gladwell unfolds the incredibly lucky series of events that led to their ultimate successes.
“They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy.
It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky — but all critical to making them who they are.
The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.”
Malcolm also dives deep into people’s stories that you would have never heard of otherwise, people that have equal genius and raw talent to the Beatles and Gates, but were born in different situations and locations, and were not exposed or encouraged enough for their light to shine brightly into the world as other’s had been able to.
You’ll never think about people’s stories the same way again. Outliers changed how I perceived myself and all of the humans in this world around me.
“They had to look beyond the individual.
They had to understand the culture he or she was a part of, and who their friends and families were, and what town their families came from.
They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.”
Outliers will mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I highly recommend you read it. Gladwell is such an insightful, intuitive soul, and this book touches every point necessary to make an impact on every reader’s life.
