Outliers

I read Outliers this morning (thanks Kelly!) and I found it alternating between being repetitive and startlingly dead-on. For instance, it's easy to start seeing some of the things he brings up over and over as being sour grapes - ie people lucky enough to be born at the right times of the year, born to wealthy families et al are the ones that become "geniuses," not merely because of innate intelligence. But then I thought of my high school. All the "smartest" kids in my class were kids whose parents were somewhat well-off. Not necessarily stupid rich, but well off. I can't think of a single poor kid who climbed the ranks, made head of the class and went to, say, University of Virginia. But of the Top 5 kids in my class, who did all go to UVa, (which is an absurdly high number in a class of 96 kids; my class was labeled as the smartest in the history of the school. whatever that's worth) their fathers were dentist, lawyer, accountant, owned successful insurance company, owned successful insurance company. So from personal experience, I can see Gladwell's thesis on this point.

And then there's my brother's class ahead of me. Which, and I don't think Brothatime!!! will refute this, was probably the dumbest class in history. Of Earth. Of the two smartest kids in the class, him and BP, neither one came from families that were well-off. I know from personal experience BrothaTime! was raised like a wolf in the middle of a field. Yet they also happened to be the two oldest kids in the class - BrothaTime!! Having been born in Dec 1970, BP in the first 2 weeks of 1971. So again, I can see one of Gladwell's theses up close and personal.

One thing he doesn't ask is WHY we like to simply label people like Bill Gates or The Beatles as just freaks of nature, and that's their reason for success. Does it make it easier for the rest of us - as in it kind of dims their success, while letting us lazily get rid of any notions of busting our own asses (Gladwell claims the "magic" number of hours of practice these people put into their craft before becoming "geniuses" is 10,000) to achieve what these "geniuses" did? Maybe. As a culture, we seem to like to have our heroes acting effortlessly - Galahad floated around not breaking a sweat while Lancelot wore hair-shirts, and it was Galahad who saw the Holy Grail. Everybody loves Jesus, but we throw a fit when someone tries to depict him as a normal man conflicted and tormented by his gifts - yes he was nailed to a cross, but we like to think of him as coolly walking on water etc. Saying "oh, he's just a freak" lets us off the hook re: doing anything ourselves other than the minimal effort.

I'm giving Outliers 5 Xmas Trees outta five - thoroughly interesting, a quick read that if you can apply it to your own life like I have, is even exponentially better. It's both wildly thought-provoking AND entertaining - buy it!

And thanks again to Kelly from The Hachette Book Group for all the free copies :)