In his latest book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, shatters many popular notions about success and proves again why he is one of the most interesting, intelligent, and talented writers of our time. Gladwell’s book helps readers understand what an outlier is-a value, observation, event, etc. that is numerically distant from the rest of the data -and why outliers matter.

In Outliers we get what business books should really be like; part psychology book, part business book, part history book, part sociology book, and part anthropology book. You don’t have to worry about going cross-eyed from reading too many business buzz words or meaningless platitudes. Outliers is chock full of amazing, interesting, and educational lessons about opportunity, success, and failure.

One such lesson is the triumph of hard work over natural talent. Gladwell demonstrates that bands like the Beatles, programmers like Bill Joy, chess prodigies like Bobby Fisher, and billionaire software gurus like Bill Gates didn’t achieve success because they were talented. They achieved success because they were talented and willing to apply 10,000 hours of practice to their respective crafts and trades. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

To illustrate the value of the 10,000-hour rule as he calls it, Gladwell introduces readers to some interesting history about the Beatles. What most people don’t know about the Beatles is that they perfected their craft playing seven days a week for eight hours at a time in front of live audiences in strip clubs in Hamburg, Germany. Over a two-year period from 1960-1962, the Beatles played 270 nights in strips clubs throughout Germany. By the time they had their first bout of “real” success in 1964, they had played 1,200 times together as a band. The Beatle’s success is more a result of their hard work than their natural talent.

But Gladwell doesn’t stop there. He challenges our notions of success in every chapter with questions like: Why are so many of Canada’s elite amateur hockey players born in January or February? Why of the seventy-five richest people in human history are fourteen Americans born within nine years of each other? Why is the smartest man in the world (at least according to his IQ) living on a horse farm in Northern Missouri writing a book on the theory of everything no one cares about? What does rice farming have to do with being great at math? Why are there so many family feuds in Kentucky? Why are so many of today’s top Wall Street law firms run by people of Jewish descent?

If you think these questions are intriguing, wait until you read the stories that accompany them.

This book will amaze you, frustrate you, inspire you, and leave you wanting more. But, most importantly, it will help you understand the roots of and pathways to success. Here’s a hint: it’s not just about natural talent. And isn’t that good news for us mere mortals?

– R. Stephen Prather, Guest Reviewer

One book, I currently see from time to time, is entitled Blink.  Blink examines the value of a quick decision.   One of the studies Blink discusses involves showing a group of people short clips of teachers giving a lecture (with no audio).  Another group is shown still photos of the same teachers from the clips.  Both groups are asked to rank the teaching ability of the teachers based on either the photo or the silent 30 second clip.

The results showed the ratings each teacher received based on photos and clips were remarkably similar to the ratings the same professors received from their full time students after a semester of teaching.   From what I have read so far, Blink supports the notion that a quick decision is often an educated decision.  Although I feel this study simply illustrates our species loyalty to superficial conclusions.

Some people have a natural fear of snakes and others have a natural fear of spiders.  These fears make sense considering the problems our
species has experienced over the centuries do to both species.  Perhaps these fears are based on the same instinctual knowledge that
allows us to make smart quick decisions.

The human brain is the product of years of learning things the only way us humans truly learn anything…the hard way.

I discovered my fear of electricity by touching an electric fence.  Twenty minutes later I discovered that it is impossible to touch a electric fence
twice.  My curiosity made me want to “make sure it was an electric fence” but my brain would not allow my hand to make contact.

Just as I learned not to touch the fence again perhaps the human race has learned from collective experience and perhaps there is something to that gut feeling that helps us make life’s quick decisions.  Although I have only read the fist 50 pages of Blink, I feel I am able to review the book with confidence using the “blink of an eye” decision making the book examines.