Many books have attempted to convey success as attributable to a certain trait or characteristic that an individual possess. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell seeks to dig deeper into what makes someone successful. It is another work that seeks to challenge conventional wisdom in order to understand the world around us. We often think that professional athletes, technological moguls, and financial gurus are products of one innate trait that allows them to achieve great things. Society often views the successful as those with "talent" or "god granted ability". While this may be part of it Gladwell seeks to convince readers that Outliers lay outside the average for multiple reasons.
When you start is important to where you finish. One of the themes that runs throughout Outliers is the incorporation of the "10,000 hours to mastery" idea. Gladwell incorporates it early by looking at what makes successful Canadian youth hockey players. The best players, in a study conducted by Gladwell, were those who were born closest to the cut off date to play in a respective league. Essentially, the boys who were the oldest in their given league were the most developed physically when they began to play hockey. Those born on January 1, played with those born on December 31. The older boys start with the advantage of physical maturity which is combined with more practice, and selection on better teams that practice and play more. The effect snowballs and seems to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A boy selected for his potential, really his slightly greater physical development, over time becomes a better hockey player than the boy who was born later in the year.
What this shows is that aside from talent, circumstance plays a big role in the development of the successful. Bill Gates was born in the time frame that allowed him to be ahead of the technological curve. His location allowed him to sneak to the University of Washington and program on one of the few computers in the United States for hours on end. Without the unique opportunities his hard work would not have mattered. Acknowledging circumstance, in particular the time period people were born in, is a major part of Outliers.
The book draws on examples like Gates, The Beatles, and Robert Oppenheimer to show success. At the same time the book shows how one trait often associated with success, for instance IQ, is not always a guarantee. Gladwell attempts to convey that while having a high IQ is most definitely beneficial. All that really matters is being smart enough. All the brains in the world won't get you very far if you don't have the ability to relate and work with others. In this way Outliers makes the case that success is not based upon one variable alone, but instead the sum of all parts. Not a revolutionary idea, but the book is interesting nonetheless.
What makes it interesting is the tendency for the general public to oversimplify success to one particular thing. Money, IQ, or innate ability are easy variables to point at. Outliers makes the case that, like many things, there is often more than meets the eye.
My own thoughts are that success is complicated. It is a ball of many inputs. To isolate one is to overlook the fact that a great deal of the time the WHOLE is greater than the sum of its part. It is not an exact science, but instead an art. There is no guarantee of success, but failure can be guaranteed if you don't take the necessary steps to work towards success.
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