The reality behind the success
Hard work and consistency are believed to be the foundation of all successes, but there are a series of other factors that play a heavier role.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers argues that the way we perceive success is psychologically wrong. Most of our perception of success revolves around hard work, consistency, determination, and similar factors. In contrast, Malcolm Gladwell uncovers the secrets that separate the best from the rest and introduces various other factors that play a major role in defining the achievements of the celebrated businessmen, athletes, artists, and other personalities.
I will take you through the exact factors that Gladwell talks about in his book, get yourself ready to soak in the information as it drifts a little away from the factors you have considered as the pathway to greater achievements.
The Matthew Effect
By conducting researches on top hockey players and by comparing various other earlier performed researches Gladwell distinctly points out that the top hockey players were born between January and June. Also, among those players, the ones ranked on top of the table were born in January, February, and March. You might think what is the relation between being born earlier in the year and being a top player, let me simplify it. The players born earlier in the same year had more time to practice and build up their game as compared to the ones born late in the same year. They were physically and mentally matured as compared to the ones born a few months back. This simple factor of being born earlier in the year provided a huge advantage for those players while they were getting selected for national games earlier in their teenage years. Not only hockey players but this pattern is distinctly seen in other sports also. Along with work ethics and talent, their birth circumstances played a huge role in the selection of young players and ultimately their success later in life. Sociologists call this “accumulative advantage” which very much depends on the circumstances.
The 10,000-Hour Rule
By briefly describing the early lifestyle of personalities such as Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the music band The Beatles, Gladwell points out that the opportunity that they got earlier in their life defines most of their outcomes. All of these famous personalities got a tremendous opportunity that only one in a million could get and taking advantage of the opportunities they excelled at their careers. Take a look at Bill Gates's early life, he got an opportunity to be enrolled in the only school that had computers during that time. He was exposed to computers and programming ten years earlier than the rest of the population. Having a friend connected with the computer background and a genuine curiosity he started coding before the rest of the population even knew about computers. The same applies to the band the Beatles, they got an opportunity which no other bands at that time got, which was to play continuously for eight hours in a local pub in Hamburg. By the time their career grew exponentially they already had accumulated 10000 hours of practice which led to their success. If a background check is done on other famous personalities the same pattern can be detected. The opportunity they got, the time they were born in, the circumstances they grew up in gave them a chance to excel in the 10000-hour rule and everything mattered. The opportunistic circumstances played a heavier role in the achievements of these triumphant personalities.
The Trouble with Geniuses
Gladwell presents two different case scenarios of two different personalities and concludes that having a greater intelligence and skills along with determination only does not lead to success there are other factors to be considered. The two personalities that Gladwell talks about are Chris Lagan and Robert Oppenheimer. He starts by talking about Lagan, he was a brilliant young boy with an IQ of more than 195. Among other talents, he could speak at six months, read at age three. He got a perfect score on the SAT, even though he fell asleep during the test. His determination and curiosity along with his intellectual ability were astonishing. With such ability he could have got into any college studied any subject run any business lead any organization, but due to the circumstance he grew up in and the missed opportunities his chance of success in any field became thin. While Chris Langan was blessed with the mind of a scholar, his opportunities were squandered by outer circumstances. Similarly, Robert Oppenheimer was also a genius, in his context even though he was kept on probation and sent to a psychiatrist because he tried to kill someone he made it to the path of success. The difference between these two is that Oppenheimer was raised by affluent parents who sent him to a progressive private school and took an active interest in his hobbies, whereas Lagan was raised by financially deprived parents who knew nothing about achieving in the real world. The strategies used by the parents of two different socio-economic classes played a huge role in defining the path of these two young boys. If Chris Langan had been raised in a family that valued education like Oppenheimer, he probably would have had more success.
Cultural difference
Your successful endeavors or unsuccessful endeavors are also linked with your cultural background that came from your great great grandparents. To understand how cultural differences play such a role Gladwell portrays various studies among them, let us look at that Joe Flom. Joe Flom is a successful lawyer renowned as “Mr. Take over” who fights the cases of company takeovers. Even though he was a Jewish who were not provided opportunities to run or work for a bigger business he made it, to know how Gladwell links it with cultural values. Flom's grandparents were Jewish immigrants who started a small garment industry and made it into a big business, while they were building a business a lot of values, negotiation skills, market research was being passed down to the younger generation and those same skills came in handy when Flom started his career. During that time no lawyers were willing to fight for company takeovers, Flom saw an opportunity and build a firm dedicated to fighting cases of takeovers. When these types of cases became abundant he had already had 10000 hours of practice and this brought out bigger achievements for him. Another example Gladwell presents studies how the children of Asian countries get good at math than that of other western countries. The agriculture of Asian countries started with the plantation of rice which requires much more effort than the cultivation of other foods. People who planted rice gave more effort and believed hard work is the key to harvesting abundant food. The same values are passed down from generation to generation and still, people of Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries carry that value which has led to an advanced education system with higher school hours causing students to work hard and score harder. Various other studies explain how a cultural difference plays an impact on what we achieve and what kind of opportunities we get.
An outlier is not an outlier after all. Success simply doesn’t happen by determination, hard work, intelligence, and isolated efforts. Outliers are those who have been presented with an opportunity and have had the strength of mind to seize it. For Bill Gates, it was his school; for Joe Flom, it was being born at the right time, to the right parents, with the right ethnicity.
The opportunities you get, the external circumstances you grow up in, the cultural background you come from, the school you attend, the friends you make and various other factors play a heavier role when it comes to describing success and achievements in life.
