Book Review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

What separates successful people from the rest of us? Are they just better? Are they smarter? Are they stronger than us? Maybe instead of asking what their good qualities are, maybe we should be asking, what do they do differently then us?

Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers discusses what it takes to be great. He looks at a number of factors including the importance of your birth in history, the amount of time you put into practice, and your persistence. He uses examples throughout the book of people who are smart geniuses and some of those who were not so smart in order to prove his point that anybody can get to the top.

What Outliers demonstrates is that average people can become great. In fact, those are the only people who actually do become great. Take for example a small out of the way band of punks. You might have heard of them: The Beatles. A group of twenty something’s from Liverpool in the 1960s. They were not brought up in greatness, nor were they privileged. Instead, they hung out with the group of men, who were as passionate about music as they were. All they wanted to do was play. And that was the opportunity they received.

From 1957 until 1964 when the Beatles started the British invasion of America they jammed together for roughly 10,000 hours worth of practice. First they practiced in their hometown of Liverpool, and then in Berlin where they played eight hours every day for over two years.

The practice that they received allowed them to be great. Outliers, delves further into the opportunity of any age. Practice and passion are not enough to create greatness.

Instead, there is also a combination of timing and preparation. In the book there is a discussion of the Industrial Revolution. Gladwell finds it not altogether strange that Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie along with a number of other capitalists of that era were all born between 1830 in 1837. People’s place in history he believes are determined when they are born as much as what they can do. Those before the capitalists listed above could not understand the changes that would occur after the Civil War. Those born to far afterwards had to compete against the established businesses set up by earlier capitalists.

The same thing has happened with the computer revolution. If Bill Gates or Steve Jobs had been born in an earlier time we might never have heard the words Microsoft or Apple Computers. Instead they were both born in 1955 months apart from each other.

My questions therefore are what is the opportunity of our time? Who will have the persistence and passion to practice becoming the best? What will they accomplish that could not be done in a previous generation?

Book Review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell