"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Ever since this book was written years ago and became a #1 National Bestseller, I’ve wanted to read it, so I’m glad that I finally got the chance to do so. My older brother told me about this book as I was starting college at BYU and he suggested that I read it. At first I was a little bit skeptical because I wasn’t sure we had the same taste in books. (His favorite book is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”) But once he started to tell me a little bit about it I began to be interested. I bought the book from the BYU Bookstore and it has been sitting on my shelf since then.

The first thing that everyone always talks about when this book is mentioned is the 10,000 hour rule. I got the just of the idea before I read the book and specifically that chapter on the rule, but it was so very eye opening and exciting to see this rule come to life in the lives of real people. My favorite example, because I am a musician is that of the Beetles and how they began to play every week in Hamburg, Germany while they were still a struggling high school band.

            They played in Hamburg eight hours a day, seven days a week when they went to play. They had their first taste of success in 1962 but at this point they had already been playing there since 1960, and more than that, with their different trips to Hamburg, had performed together about twelve hundred times. Gladwell refers to this as the “Hamburg crucible,” but it is rather extraordinary, because many bands never even get to perform that much together even in their entire careers.

            Gladwell also shares the story about Bill Gates and how he did 10,000 hours of programming before he started Microsoft because he started programming as an eighth grader in the Seattle area.

            For me, this rule means that there is hope and that I can work hard to become the professional musician that I want to become. I have actually done some calculating, and it’s very rough, because I haven’t been counting hours since I began, but I am approaching having played cello for 10,000 hours and its exciting because I want to be an outlier, like the people talked about in this book.

            Another interesting thing that he discusses in the book is the role of opportunity and how that makes a big difference in an outlier’s life. The example with which he opens the book are the birthdays of the professional hockey players on a Canadian time.

           

            He explains that if you look at birthdays, you’ll find that many of the professional hockey players are born near the beginning of the month during January-March. Why is this, he asks. And then he goes on to explain that in the beginning, when they are choosing who should advance as youth, for every level they start the calendar on January 1^st and take everyone who was born in that year. Gladwell explains that because they start this especially at such a young age, they are essentially ignoring half of the candidates, because of course, when choosing teams, they’ll choose the bigger players, those born in January or close to it. This trend because it starts so young, continues to be seen all the way up to the professional level.

            Opportunity plays a big role in being an outlier. He really focuses on this theme a lot throughout the book. It is about working hard, but it’s also about being at the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, and even being born in the right year. One more incredible example that he gives to illustrate this is that many of technology’s brilliant minds were born within years of each other. Bill Gates was born in 1955, Paul Allen: 1953, Steve Ballmer: 1956, Steve Jobs: 1955, Eric Schmidt: 1955, and Bill Joy: 1954.

           

            This was incredible for me to see. Yes, these people are all outliers, and yes, they worked extremely hard to get to where they are now, but even more than that, they were born in that perfect technology time frame when it and were teenagers/young adults when it was starting to really take off. It’s incredible. It’s more than fate that their brilliant minds were born within years of each other.

            This is important in my life because it helps me be realistic. Yes, I can work hard, and yes, I will accomplish amazing things, but there is more on the line than talent and hard work. So I want to keep working but not be frustrated if I am never labeled an, “outlier.”

            I absolutely loved reading this book and it is definitely one that I will read again and continue to think about. There is so much that I could discuss but these are the main points that I wanted to illustrate.

            “Outliers,” by Malcolm Gladwell is an incredible book that I think everyone should read in order to understand business, success, hard work, failure, opportunity, etc. It inspires me to work and be better than I am now.