Outliers: The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell
One of the things I enjoy most about working the Nike Skills Academies is talking shop and learning from the coaches who are there. We exchange ideas and thoughts on everything you can think of. At the Vince Carter Skills Academy several coaches where raving about the book Outliers: The Story of Success (by Malcolm Gladwell). Given my enormous respect for these coaches; I knew I had to read it as well!
I believe I have mentioned in previous posts that I am a huge fan of Audiobooks; a new age “books on tape” approach using iTunes. While I still believe in the dying art of actually reading, I find listening to books is just as valuable and makes car rides and plane rides not only more enjoyable, but productive as well. I listened to Outliers a couple of weeks ago traveling to and from Ocean City. It was captivating.
I have always been fascinated by successful people and intrigued by what makes them tick. I have studied the decisions they have made in their life to enable their success. Malcolm Gladwell takes traditional theories of success head on as he studied several groups of outliers; people far from the norm on a standard bell curve. He examined many of the worlds’ brightest, most famous, most successful, and wealthiest to devise a theory on why folks reach uber-success. His goal was to answer the question; what makes super high achievers different? What did he find? We pay too close attention to what successful people are like and not enough attention to what opportunities they have had, their culture, age, and where they come from. He proves without doubt, those characteristics are just as important to being successful as the standard ones we all know and preach; hard work, intelligence, etc. His findings are fascinating and eye opening.
Among many others, he explains why most professional hockey players are born in January, February, and March, why Bill Gates is Bill Gates, why Asians are superior in math, and why the Beatles are arguably the greatest rock band in history.
I highly recommend this book, or Audiobook, as the theories and stories are applicable to everyone.
I will post a similar book review each week; so make sure you check back often. Next week I plan to review an amazing book I read on my way to and from Jamaica; Game-On: The All American Race to Make Champions of Our Children.
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Train hard. Train smart.
Alan Stein
www.StrongerTeam.com