It all started when I was on a consultancy trip to Nellore and I had seen this book with one of the directors of our company. I borrowed this book and read a few lines and I fell in love with this book. I asked him if, I could borrow it from him and return it to him after reading. He vehemently denied it as if I had asked his daughters hand in marriage, I realised at that point of time the “Outliers” is definitely a book which will make a place in my personal collection.
I came back from the trip and read the book completely; I became a great fan of the author Malcolm Gladwell. He is also the author of “Tipping Point” and the “Blink”. Read ahead, to find out why I recommend this interesting piece of literature to be cherished for a life time in your personal library.
Practice Practice and Practice - An old age adage says that "Practice makes a man perfect" quite true Gladwell has estimated that people who have become successful have had ample hours of practicing a particular skill or working in the specialized arena for more than 10,000 hours trying to perfect that skill. He exemplifies his statement by giving across some brilliant names like Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) Bill Joey (Co-owner Sun Micro systems) Both of them practiced writing computer codes for more than 10,000 hours invariably enabling them to become one of the finest minds in the world of computing. Phew...it’s a hell lot practice guys, so the root to become successful is to follow the ten thousand hour rule in a manner that leads to skill enhancement during that course of time. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness. What goes in the making of successful people - One of the interesting points about the book is the fact that talks about the ingredients, that goes in the making of successful people. What I mean here by ingredients is the small mischief’s that they carried out to become “Outliers”. Let me quote a few instances from the lives of great and successful people, which only a few people would be aware of.
Bill Joey (founder Sun Micro Systems) tweaked the coding system at the Ann harbor campus to gain access to the computer lab, so as to access machines longer than the stipulated allotted time.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen got kicked out from the ISI (no its not Pakistani intelligence, it stands for Information Science Inc) for stealing a bunch of passwords and crashing the system. Moreover they stole computer timing from the University of Washington to practice writing codes. (Now i understand why Bill Gates is so generous towards the University of Washington.)
The snippets here should not be taken in a negative sense as they were events in their life which led them to become successful. Obviously I am not advocating students to gain illegal access to their computer labs, but i am just making a point that even these mischiefs’s worked in their favour as the field of personal computing was at its nascent stages during that time.
Being there at the right place at the right time - The book forces the readers to think, "Am I at the right place at the right time". This question generally props up in the minds of the entrepreneurs who keep on pondering on this again and again. It is this thought that propels and drives entrepreneurs towards innovation. I emphasize this because in order to be at the helm of affairs one needs to be constantly innovate to match the expectation of the masses. It’s due to this innovation the entrepreneur gains a cutting edge over others and thus becomes the right man at the right place at the right time.
Roots do matter – In the final chapters of the book; Malcolm focuses on the fact that a person's root plays an important role in determining the performance of people across various fields. Malcolm draws a beautiful comparison of Asian paddy farmers and the Asian students and he is of the opinion as to how both are co-related. He says that the Asian community students are quite hardworking and it’s reflected in their academic performance in international achievement tests. Ditto are the Asian paddy farmers who are well versed in the cultivation of paddy which by nature is one of the complex crops to grow. Finally he says that Asians have the ability to persistently follow a problem and they do not give up easily.
In the conclusion I would like to state a few lines of the book which I found very interesting and thought provoking -"Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard to make sense of something that most people would give up after 30 seconds".
My Verdict - Go ahead and read this book who knows there may be an OUTLIER waiting inside you to come out.
