Outliers: The story of Success - Book Review

For the last two months, I have been reading the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. “Outliers - The story of success” has two parts: Opportunity and Legacy.

“In outliers author survey the ingredients for the success. He wrote about the reason behind the success of great people like Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Joseph Flom, and the musical group Beatles. And how Chris Langan and Oppenheimer ended up with different stories. And how the culture, family, and friends play a role in determining individual success.”

Key Factor of Success:

1. Opportunity

We all have equal opportunities. Some people recognize and take advantage of them. But as per the author, In reality, these people are benefited from hidden and extraordinary opportunities. Culture benefits, the where and in which family and the time we grew up. Values received from our ancestors.

2. Environment affect

The values of the world we live in and the people around us, have a profound effect on who we are. The place we live and the people we spend time with are critical factors to success. The author explains the Roseto Mystery. Why do the people of Roseto have good health and rare heart attacks? How community benefits play a dominant role in Roseto Mystery.

3. Hard work

It takes 10000 hours to master anything from beginner to world-class expert in any field. “10000” hours is a lot, so it’s a good advantage for me to start at a young age.

The author explains how Bill Joy from age of 16 started with computers. And from that day in university, when introduced to the computer, the place became his life, and he programmed whenever he gets time. He wrote the UNIX and the program for TCP/IP, which allows us to connect to the Internet. In his early days he devoted his 10,000 hours with passion and abilities.

How Beatles were invited to play in a club where they had to play for a lot of hours, even the whole night. By the time the Beatles reached success, they played almost 12000 times and for more than 10,000 hours.

4. Legacy often drives our behavior

Gladwell points out how values passed from generation to generation. He points out the cultural legacy of Asian countries where rice is the dominant crop. How the success of rice paddy depends on the amount of hard work and diligence; we put in. To have a successful paddy, wake up at dawn and work all day. Which then creates a cultural legacy of hard work.