Outliers: The Story of Success
Ratings549
Average rating4
Super good, I've been recommending it to everyone I meet. The title AND the subtitle are misleading - the book is about showing how people who are raging successes are the products of circumstances, not just being awesomer than you.
I've always heard good things about Malcolm Gladwell but had never read any of his books. This was a great one to start with - intriguing and thought-provoking and the sort of book that has the potential to make the world a better place. I did feel threat some of the stories, while fascinating, lacked a tight relationship to the thesis.
why I chose this?
I've saw this book passing by in various recommendations and was intrigued: who isn't interested to learn what the best people have in common?
When I saw it laying around in a yard sale I had to pick it up.
what's it about?
Gladwell analyzes the systems and habits that “great” people have in common. As is probably in mind with a lot of people you hope for ‘easy' habits to pick up and copy. Contrary, Gladwell shows there's bigger mechanisms at play: the luck of when and where you were born, your cultural background, opportunities that have been given.
my opinion
At first I had a bit trouble getting through the book; each chapter generally focuses on a character, and then goes into the details of why that character had the successes it has had in it's life. Some of these backgrounds can be a bit dry.
However, towards the end Gladwell focuses in on cultural background and the difference between cultures which have a foodsystem around grains and cultures revolved around rice (pady's). It's super fascinating!
other recommendations
The last chapters on culture reminded me of the a-ha moments in Yoval Noah Harari's Sapiens and Michael Pollan's Omnivore's dilemma.
Gladwell writes well - but treat everything you read here with a pinch of salt, as always. As Perks of Being a Wallflower said - be a filter, not a sponge
Malcolm Gladwell maybe has a place introducing ideas in broad strokes, but it's a lower tier of informative than books written by psychologists who have broad understanding of the research and have done some original study of their own. If you want an extremely accessible introduction to the idea of expertise and the value of practice, this is OK, but he doesn't pretty clearly understand the science and the book is riddled with inaccuracy as a result.
If you want a well sourced, more comprehensive understanding of what the research does and doesn't say, and how to apply the principles supported by the research, read Peak by K Anders Ericsson and Robert Poole. It's denser, but it discusses some of the flaws of Gladwell's presentation and is overall held to a more rigorous standard.
really interesting perspective. Đọc mà mắt chữ O miệng chữ A à thì ra là z :))))
Note: I didn't read the book in its entirety, I simply skimmed through its most salient parts.
The author presents several stories of outliers (people/organizations who stand out from the crowd) and then moves on to analyze them through several lenses (social, geopolitical, personal backgrounds) to prove that
- it's not only geniuses who become outliers: opportunity (being at the right place at the right time) and extensive practice (the famous 10000 hours to reach mastery) play a big role in it
- “practical intelligence” (e.g. knowing what to say at the right time to get the maximum outcome) is a learnable skill, not an inborn trait, and can play an important role in the person's success
- cultural legacies (the set of social and behavioral norms you grow up in) can work to your advantage or detriment
- different ways of parenting lead to different types of growth in children:
- “concerted cultivation” (being actively involved in the children's activities, promoting their interests, and teaching them to make their voice heard) gives them plenty of opportunities to develop their skills
- “accomplishment and natural growth” (leaving children to find their own interests and their way into society) leads to more independence and behavioral growth
- none of the two is inherently wrong
What is one supposed to do with this book? It was the literary equivalent of cotton candy - full to the brim with sweetness but with a very faint aftertaste, and you begin to wonder if it was even worth it. But then again, it was interesting in the moment, right?
Outliers is also spectacularly optimistic (‘successful' people become that way because of luck and destiny, and not only because they are geniuses! The traditional notion of modern genius is antiquated. It probably needs to be quashed altogether) or pessimistic (if it's going to take so much luck and embracing your cultural heritage and being born in January for success, then I might as well not bother), depending on how you look at it. Plus, the fact that the author's claims that not having summer vacation is good for learning outcomes for poor students just annoyed me because apparently - good teachers and learning paradigms are not good enough? And some ‘sacrifice' is expected?
Here, you always get the feeling the author is working backwards - starting from wanting to quash the notion of outliers, and cherrypicking his way into feel-good neoliberal ‘meritocratic' discussions, without offering or even hinting at a structural change. I also didn't feel the topic was deep enough to warrant a book written on it. Magazine article in the Economist? Sure. But a 300-page book? Not the best idea.
Gladwell simultaneously argues that Bill Gates is successful due mostly to luck and that it's a good thing a Latina girl from the Bronx pulls 15 hour school days to battle economic inequality.
Some interesting arguments here but overall all I can really get from this thing is that life is fucked, luck is the number one ingredient for success, and the number two ingredient is an inhuman amount of work.
Interesting read, Gladwell makes it clear to us something we may not want to admit, pure hard work or even pure talent does not guarantee our success. We must work hard and we must upskill ourselves, but importantly we must also identify where good opportunities lie. Gladwells message might appear to some as a statement that only those blessed with good opportunities can be outliers in success, but I see it differently. It may be wishful thinking but I hope there is some outlier position in each of our lives we can identify and exploit to truly achieve greatness :)
Iluminatoare. Aduce “marile succese” în poziții mai ușor de analizat. Oferă ceva mai mult context despre acele realizări ale unor oameni reușiți. Arată cum în niciunul din cazuri munca individuală nu a fost suficientă ca sa facă diferența. Fiecare poveste descoperă un cumul de câte 3, 4 sau și mai mulți factori care contribuie la aceste personaje glorioase, și care nu țin doar de individ, ci și de contextul său temporal, cultural, social, etc. Cartea asta e despre cum succesul e mult mai contextual decât pare.
Afli cum nu e întâmplător faptul că Bill Gates e cel care a devenit un geniu al computerelor. Sau că nu e întâmplător faptul că jucătorii profesioniști de hockey canadian sunt majoritatea născuți în lunile de iarnă.
I went into this one with a bit of scepticism, considering that the “10,000 hour rule” talked about in the book has been to a certain extent debunked.
I question some of the claims he makes, sometimes it didn't feel like there was enough evidence for what he was saying. But it did make for an interesting read!
Just as with all Gladwell books this one left me thought-provoked and curious. I genuinely learned tons and shifted my perspective with this one, though. As a parent, it gave me things to chew on and contemplate; as a member of society, too. 10/10 recommend.
I read this just after Blink and I found this book much stronger. Blink was a cute and entertaining exercise, but the message and cases in this book are truly inspiring and well written. Recommended.
I loved it! While we are made up of our date of birth, the way the world is around us, our culture, socioeconomic status, and familial influence, I still believe that we can affect change in ourselves by grit, perseverance, and a desire to succeed.
For years I've heard mentions of this book. I can see why! One of the most often quoted parts of this book is the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become highly proficient in anything - from a musical instrument to programming, to writing. Gladwell explains this not from a hypothetical standpoint, but by talking with experts and looking back on how they got there.
These experts share one other trait - they were fortunate to have the opportunity to devote 10,000 hours to their craft. I loved the stories in this one about how different experts (outliers) in their fields achieved greatness. For each, there is a bit of luck in having the chance, but also the immense effort needed. There is something to be said for being in the right place at the right time and having the right opportunity – then working your ass off capitalize on the chance.
For years I've heard mentions of this book. I can see why! One of the most often quoted parts of this book is the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become highly proficient in anything - from a musical instrument to programming, to writing. Gladwell explains this not from a hypothetical standpoint, but by talking with experts and looking back on how they got there.
These experts share one other trait - they were fortunate to have the opportunity to devote 10,000 hours to their craft. I loved the stories in this one about how different experts (outliers) in their fields achieved greatness. For each, there is a bit of luck in having the chance, but also the immense effort needed. There is something to be said for being in the right place at the right time and having the right opportunity – then working your ass off capitalize on the chance.
This book was a great read, and made for a great book club discussion. There was so much in it that I wanted to underline and remember, and I wasn't alone in that.
This is a very interesting book. Now almost ten years old the overall argument of the book seems somewhat questionable. It did make me look at how we view success in a different way to how I previously had and in this respect Malcolm Gladwell's aim when writing this piece has been fulfilled by his readership. However I found the overall argument very simplistic and the style of the book read more like an undergraduate dissertation piece than a convincing psychological document. Don't get me wrong it was very easy to read. Very easy to understand and a fascinating way to turn previous assumptions about success on their heads. If you want to feel engaged in psychology without being overwhelmed by complex academic texts then this book is for you. However while I have become interested in both Malcolm Gladwell and his works as a result of this read. I fail to be convinced of his argument and so for me this novel sits at 3.5/ 3.8 read for me.