This article is part of my final requirement for my subject in the MBA "Human Behavior in Organization"
Written by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Tipping Point and Blink), Outliers is a motivational book that narrates how exceptional people reaped extraordinary
success despite unconventional circumstances. It also tells us how the influence of the environment, upbringing and
generation contribute massively to the fate of an individual.
Outliers, according
to the author, refer to the unusual or extraordinary circumstances of the lives
of the people “where normal rules did not apply…it refers to men and
women who do things that are out of the ordinary”, people who have been
given and lucky enough to be surrounded by opportunities, people who make good
use of their passion, their skill and talent.
The book introduced the readers to the extraordinary circumstances that propelled Silicon Valley
titans and Bill Gates to fame and wealth. Silicon Valley titans include the
late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems,
Dave Hewlitt and Will Packard, founders of HP. They lived in a California
village known as Silicon Valley, where world billionaires had traditionally
built their enormous wealth. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Lawrence
Ellison (currently, the 6th richest man in the world), founder of
Oracle, also operated their respective business empire around Silicon Valley.
The opportunities
given to them were vast, they did not rise to greatness because of their
intellect alone, but they did it through spending time honing their skills,
experience and possessing a unique enthusiasm towards their passion. Success
and achievement therefore have something to do with the environment we
currently lived and understanding the trend and needs of the generation we
belong. For instance, the fate of computer geniuses like Bill Gates, Bill Joy,
Steve Jobs, and Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), and their talents were
intensified with the kind of environment they lived. They were born in the
1950s and when they were approaching their adulthood life, computer revolution
was also unfolding, thus, having enormous opportunity to explore the skill and
talent they already have.
In a world where
society plays a major part in every person’s survival, success sometimes
depends on what is necessary in the environment, society therefore influences the
way we perceive life and the way we live and strive. For instance the tech
wizards: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckeberg, both college drop-out but
founded companies that would later left an astonishing mark in people’s
consciousness due to its world-changing innovations, all because these world
billionaires had seized the opportunities their generation had given (Jobs and
Gates for computer revolution and Zuckerberg for Social Networking revolution).
Gladwell pointed out the influence that we must
remember through the 10,000 house-rule, based on a study conducted by Anders
Ericsson, here, the author emphasized “vastness and magnitude do not simply
happen, it requires huge time and opportunity to achieve what we are looking”.
The 10,000
house-rule refers to the time, period and circumstances that individual
must endure in order to gain enough experience into the field they would be
joining. Success sometimes depends not only on our roots, culture and
influences but on how time would help us improve and develop our skills and
talents, thus, more than 10,000 hours of spending in what we love doing will
help a lot.
The book also emphasized
that even if we’ve got all the talent and intellect in this world, without
having given an opportunity to explore what we already have or without the
support of the society we are living, we will ended up nothing, take for
example the case of Chris Langan, who might be the smartest person in the world
today and believed to have an IQ more than that of Albert Einstein, but life
and circumstances deprived him with the kind of opportunities that would bring
him to where he should be, so he ended up nothing.
Gladwell also
illustrates how IQ and success are interrelated, but it doesn’t mean that
people who have higher IQ are smarter than those who have an average IQ level.
This concept also leads to the belief that not all college graduates are
smarter than those who did not earn a diploma, remember that most of the world
billionaires and computer geniuses like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark
Zuckerberg did not even finish college.
The true-to-life
stories presented in Outliers book are immensely wonderful. It provides
thought-provoking lessons and realizations that there’s an interconnection
between culture, environment, success, joy and achievement in our fate. It’s
not merely destiny or bad luck that undermines our chances to be successful or live
in comfort, sometimes it is the product of effort and opportunity. There is
important connections of the decade and generation we were born, the trend of
that generation, the social position of our family and our roots, the
relationships between intellect and perseverance, success and triumph,
opportunities and chances and our determination and enthusiasm to pursue a
certain goal. It is very difficult indeed to build a certain goal away from
what the present world is asking.
People’s mindset has
something to do with success too, if we are too focus on failures and
weaknesses, if we refused to move on with our lives after misfortunes, chances
are, fate would never cooperate to the kind of life we always wanted. We should
constantly look around for opportunities and explore different possibilities of
maximizing its advantages and believe in what we are doing. It is also a great
advantage discovering what the present world needs so that we can fit our
life’s goal in it.
In
order for us to become “Outliers”, we should do extraordinary things beyond
imagination or beyond expectations, we should think differently because the
world is changing, we should be crazy enough to think that we can change the
world, we should try to be visionaries. Life itself is no magic. There are
times that we are very passionate in doing things we thought would bring us to
greatness but circumstances refused to cooperate, having a burning passion to try again and avoid
those things that won’t work would surely bring us to where we should be no
matter how long it takes. Sometimes, it depends on ourselves how we view life
and how we would spend every hour working on that dream.
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