The premise of this text is crafted around uncovering the precipitates of success, exception and extraordinary achievement.
A week has passed since I completed Malcolm Gladwell’s breakout hit Outliers, sufficient time to ruminate reflectively on the lessons relayed therein. Certain books are troublesome to compact because their potency is maintained with every anecdote, every word, and the message is so masterfully woven, rendering all of its aspects indispensable. Outliers is one such book. However, for the benefit of those with little interest in purchasing the book, let alone reading it, I’ll paint you the broad strokes..
The premise of the text is crafted around uncovering the precipitates of success, exception and extraordinary achievement. But here’s the thing, his contention is to disqualify the conventional explanations for success like individual exceptional ability or remarkable force of will. Instead, Gladwell pursues environmental factors, obscure ideas, like dates of birth, place of birth, cultural context that are at first seemingly improbable but by employing anecdotal evidence leaves you utterly convinced. The result from his litany of sociological experiments is a real revelation.
For mastery of any discipline, diligent and protracted hard work cannot be circumnavigated.
The highlight for me however was the conclusion that all leaders in their respective disciplines are a byproduct of almost unimaginable amount of time dedicated to their trade. 10000 hours to be precise. It brought an important concept to the fore, that for mastery of any discipline, diligent and protracted hard work cannot be circumnavigated. An inescapable feature of success or the route towards it is hours, days, weeks, months, years consistently focused on a specific idea, skill, business, industry, competency et al. Short of that, the success we seek, will stay a theoretical abstraction.
I am grateful I had the privilege of reading this book, and soaking up the lessons it brung (sic). Malcolm Gladwell, for making the secrets to success less opaque and elusive, and by extension, success itself, I salute. Do yourself and your dependants a favor and read this book.
“A man who wakes up before dawn 365times a year cannot fail to make his family rich” – Chinese Proverb
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Draman Victor - A happy member of the Dangala Bookclub at our last meeting
