Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell has written another great book. This time Gladwell observed some of our greatest rags to riches stories and explains how these stories involve more than hard work.

According to Outliers, there are multiple reasons that people become successful and part of it is due to when they were born.

Think about that for a moment. There is a specific month or year that a person can be born in order to be successful. Gladwell observes this fact in the Canadian hockey league. Over ~90% of the players that go to the NHL are born in January or February. Why is this true? Because the junior leagues draw the age line at the end of December. So if you are born January 1st you will have almost a year more of experience than the kids born in November or December.

Now this is just one of the points Malcolm Gladwell makes for the book. He discusses how Korean pilots became better pilots after speaking English and why the Beatles and Bill Gates were so successful.

I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell so try out at least on of his books when you get the time.

How it was consumed: Audiobook.

Rating: 8/10