What You Need to Know About Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers
First of all, what you need to know is that Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author and if you are going to read something during the era of Corona Virus you should read one of his books. The way he integrates real world events and phenomena into a book and makes it so engaging is hard to describe, but everything he writes is FASCINATING.
But you’re here because you don’t have the time to read his stuff so let’s get right into it, here are my major takeaways from Outliers!
- What month a child is born in can matter, A LOT!
Children who are born at the beginning of the age cutoff, usually have a significant advantage that amplifies over time.
Example: The earliest birthday for a youth hockey team is Jan 2nd.
Child A is born in January
Child B is born in December
Both children are in the same grade and are grouped together by age, but Child A will be almost 11 months older than Boy B when tryouts happen. Those 11 months mean Boy A will likely be a bit more developed, which means a better chance at getting more playing time and focus by the coaches. By the end of the season Child A is likely to be better than Child B due to extra practice.
The next season, Child A is considered to be more talented than Child B. Child A continues to get more playing time, focus and now has more confidence. By the end of the season the gap in ability continues to grow.
Over the years that little head start, amplifies to a huge gap in ability even if the two boys have similar genetic ability.
Takeaway: This age “gap” is applicable to many situations in child development such as academic achievement, social development and of course athletic ability. There are other variables to consider in child development, but relative age is something that should not be overlooked as small differences at a young age like compound interest can have major long term impacts.
2. 10,000 Hours is not enough.
We’ve all probably heard about needing to put in 10,000 hours to master something. Well to become extremely successful takes a ridiculous amount of work as well as LUCK.
For Bill Gates to become who he is today, he had to be:
- Ridiculously gifted with intelligence.
- Put in tens of thousands of time working with computers.
- Be born at the exact right time that the computer boom would sync up with Microsoft. Live near a college that gave him unlimited access to computers FOR FREE in a time when computer access was extremely limited.
Takeaway: the stars truly aligned for Bill Gates to get to where he is, and that is why there is one Bill Gates. (Added bonus was Steve Jobs was born in the exact same year as Bill Gates, can’t make this stuff up).
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” (Page 42)
3. The statistical improbability of plane crashes .
Let’s start with this, airplanes are incredibly safe. It is true that you are more likely to die in a car crash than an airplane crash. Gladwell dives into what happens when planes crash and it certainly reassured me. It normally takes 5 or 6 critical errors, both mechanical and human, that leads to a plane crash. It is highly improbable for each of these to happen, let alone all of them together.
An example of 5 errors that would lead to a crash:
a. Pilots are exhausted from 16+ hours of flying in a day
b. Plane gets rerouted to an airport neither has flown into before
c. Bad weather
d. Mechanical error
e. Cultural power distance/communication discrepancy between co pilot/pilot/airport terminal officer
Takeaway: Even if these still concern you, the flights described were from 2000 and in the 20 years since then even the worst airlines have been able to turn it around.
4. Why Test Scores Don’t Reflect Intelligence
Most people understand test scores aren’t the only way to measure intelligence, but they still are used, and therefore, still matter. Gladwell goes into a study of family wealth vs reading test scores, and as expected the children from higher income families did better than those from lower income.
However, upon further analysis, it was shown that lower income students begin school with a similar baseline reading score to the higher income students.
The reason the higher income students end up scoring higher year after year is because their reading scores increase over summer.
Children from wealthier families are able to participate intellectually engaging activities over the summer months that help continue to develop their mind. That increase over each summer, amplifies each year so by the time they are graduating they appear to be much smarter.
Children in Asia tend to be better academically prepared for higher education beyond high school simply because they attend more days of school throughout the year than those in the United States, not because they have a greater baseline intelligence.
Takeaway: Most people are within a certain range of intelligence, what ultimately ends up separating people academically are the resources and extra practice. With this in mind are shorter summer months something the United States should consider?
There is obviously much more to Outliers than I have highlighted in this, but these were the topics I found most intriguing.
My major takeaway from this book is that there is so much untapped potential in this world. The most successful in the world are the example of what happens when everything falls into place. But many people fail to reach their potential because the opportunity they need never finds them.
Not everyone can have the luck and skill in order to become a billionaire, but anyone can become an outlier.
