Outliers success

Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers" talks about the idea that one needs a number of factors to succeed beyond talent or inteligence: one needs to put in a lot of hours of training or practice, one needs to be in the right place at the right time, one needs to have good enough social skills, the culture you are raised in, the biological and historical background you and your family come from.


Gladwell talks about how those people who put in more hours than those with the same amount of ability, rose to the top. Ben Franklin did this in many ways. He would read when others would eat or read through the night because that way he could return books before they were noticed gone. In fact, he was known to be a tireless worker, a real nose to the grindstone kind of guy. For me, my major limitation is that of being somewhat lazy. I don't always work particularly hard. I'm probably not the exception, but I am learning I can work, if it is interesting enough for me. I think that that is an important thing to look at and learn from Ben, part of his exceptionalism, was that he could really get interested in a number of things, and then go for it. He had no interest in being a soap-maker like his dad, but his dad saw his love for reading, and he thought being an apprentice in his older brother's print shop was a better fit. From that, Ben not only continued to read, but also became an accomplished writer by practicing and eventually writing for his brother's newspaper.


Gladwell shows that Canadian hockey players born in January-March have a much better chance of success because the cut-off for age devisions is January, so they were older and bigger than their peers, and subsequently were initially ahead, so put in place better training throughout all the way to the pros. Ben was born in January and was bigger than his peers, eventually growing to be 6 foot, which was substantially taller than the average man of that time. So, he was predisposed to be a leader. I wasn't born earlier in the year, but I am 6'2", and was always taller than most of my peers growing up. I also was used to competing physically and mentallly with a brother 6 years older than me, there was a seven year gap for Ben, which made my peers seem weak and simple in comparison. I was always put in leadership position because of my precosciousness, just like Ben.


The time in history is also very important. For instance, Gladwell shows how being born just before the onset of the industrial revolution or the technological revolution created more million and later billionaires. Ben would not have been a "founding father" of the U.S., if he had been born 100 years later. He was in the right place at the right historical time. I guess I can learn to be content in the fact that I wasn't in the right time period for anything as great as Ben, but I must say that in my field, it was good that I came along before it became so much in vogue to be a Psychology major, because now it is hard for someone starting out in the field to make a living.




Ben definitely had good enough social skills, but additionally he lived in a time when Philadelphia was basicly a small town, less than 10,000 people, which enabled him to be freinds with the governor of Pennslyvania. I can't have those kinds of connections, but I can work on my networking skills. It is interesting how many counselors out there don't have very good social skills. I think much of my current success in the field is because of my extroversion, which sets me apart from about 70 per cent of my colleagues, but I have gotten lazy about networking, something I actually enjoy. I'll be making that a goal before the year is over.

I guess the point of all of this analysis is that there are many factors that come into play for the level of success that Ben had, that can not be replicated per se, very often or by many people, but there are some principles and practices that I can do.