This is the One Thing That Ultimately Defines Your Success.

The most important ingredient for the stew of success.

I recently got my mind blown by Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant book, Outliers.

I might’ve been very late reading it, but I’m glad I did, after all.

Here’s what we can really take away from it and apply to our own lives.

In one part of the book, Gladwell explains the reasons behind Chinese people being so adept and flawless at Math, which clearly, the rest of us hate.

It had primarily 2 reasons. They’re both very profound and interesting.

The Power of Language.

The first reason was the Chinese language itself — how the number count is structured in such a way that the brain doesn’t really have to make the effort to calculate answers.

For example:

In English, we call 13: thirteen. Here, in the word ‘thirteen’, the ones unit comes first and then the tens.

We also call 26: twenty-six. Here, the tens unit comes first and then the ones.

So, when we have to add 13 and 26, our brain has to make the conscious effort of adding the two numbers and concluding 39.

In Chinese, though:

13 is called: ten-three.

And 26 is called: two-tens-six.

Could it be any more straightforward?

When Chinese people have to compute the sum of the two numbers, they simply go: three-tens-nine.

Their brains don’t have to go through the whole confusing tens and ones reversing places and the lot.

We’re talking about Math at the most elementary level right now, but that’s what makes the Chinese so perfect with the basics — just the sheer simplicity their language gives over to their calculations.

Doesn’t matter how many Asian jokes you read on the Internet, they do have an advantage.

The Power of (your) Environment.

“No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.”

The second reason, and possibly the most important, for Chinese people to have an edge over others is their culture.

They have always been a hard working people. A Chinese baby is born in a culture where they don’t value anything over working hard.

Imagine being part of a culture where you’re constantly reminded how important and valuable hard work is. Where you have exceptionally higher standards. Where everyone around you subscribes to the same notions of success — hard work, hard work, hard work.

That’s their environment, and it gives them a considerable advantage over others when it comes to being good at whatever they do.

An example of this hard working culture, Gladwell points out, is how much work the farmers put in to cultivate rice.

How much, you ask? 3000 hours a year.

That comes down to 8.2 hours of work every single day of the year.

8+ hours. Everyday. And you thought your job was bad.

Except the farmers love their work. They find it meaningful. And that’s also one of the reasons they excel at what they do.

The Chinese live in their own hard working bubble.

Build your own bubble.

Gladwell’s whole point in Outliers was to say that no one — even the highest of achievers — ever makes it alone.

Apart from all the motivation, dedication, and grit, what anyone needs to be ultimately successful is an environment that pushes them.

You can work for 20 hours a day, but if your environment is not providing you with opportunities, there’s no way you can reach anywhere.

If you dream of achieving something big or working on your world altering idea, you can’t do much unless you surround yourself with the right, like-minded people, the right surroundings that encourage you to keep going, where creativity flourishes.

Think of your environment like a big, industrial machine. You put in the raw material (your efforts, strategies, money, plans), the machine’s parts work in synchronicity to process the inputs, and then it spits out the finished product (your successes, achievements, more money).

If your machine’s parts don’t work correctly, you might need to change them for a better output, or maybe even get a new machine.

“To catch the fish, you need to be at the sea.”

This is why we’re seeing such an explosion of ‘motivational content’ on places like Instagram, Facebook, and Medium — because unlike the Chinese culture, we need the Internet to create one for us to be a part of and be motivated to succeed.

But phone and computer screens don’t work when it comes to shifting your mindset to a productive and creative tone.

You can follow all the motivational Instagram content you like, but unless you’re in a real environment with people who are also working towards what you are, people who have already achieved what you want to, places where you meet such people, the right timing of your ideas, you’ll never really make the impact you desire to.

The Conclusion

Outliers clearly states that much of what happens to the most successful people is unseen opportunities, being at the right place at the right time, and as hard as we deny it, luck.

That’s not to say you don’t need hard work, grit, and a passionate love for what you do. There’s no success without it.

This is to remind us to factor in the uncontrollable — our environment — and to try and take over the controls as much as we can.

To put yourself in the eye of the tornado that is an environment that breeds achievement.

So the next time you’re wondering why you’re not seeing the results even after putting in everything you’ve got, maybe you don’t have to change your strategy or pivot your plans.

You just have to change your environment.

(And probably learn Chinese?)

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