Outlier: “Someone who stands apart from others of his or her group, as by differing behavior, belief, or religious practices.” That is the definition of outlier according to Webster’s dictionary.
The book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, explores why certain people achieve so much further success relative to the rest of the population. After all, isn’t it intriguing that there are 6 billion people and counting in the world, and yet only 1% of that number achieve abnormal success in life? It has always interested me, so when I read the description of this book I had to buy it. I read it in just 4 days at the beach.
Today, I’ll give away just one of the very fascinating topics / real life events and statistics this book uses, to describe why and how some of us become “outliers”!
The topic is one that is greatly debated in all areas of success: what is more influential in eventual success: talent or hard work? Everyone likes to look at famous athletes and singers and say: they were born with that talent, it is”meant to be”. Outliers uses an amazing example to reveal the factual answer to this question.
According to the book, psychologist K Anders Ericsson performed a study of violinists at Berlin Germany’s elite Academy of Music. The psychologists divided the violinists into three groups based on their reviews from their teachers. The first group were the star players, those that were on pace to become the best in the world. The second group were set as average, and the third group were set as below average. They were all then asked the same question: Over the course of your career: how many hours have you practiced? The majority of the group all started around the age of 5 and practiced about 3 to 4 hours per week, then around the age of 8 differences emerged. The students in the first group (top group) began to practice more than the rest of the group, which only increased over time until the age of 20 all of the violinists deemed in the top group had already practiced about 10,000 hours.
That gave me chills when reading it, can this really be true? What gave me more chills was this: Ericsson (the psychologist) then took this same study to pianists: and the results were the same. The best pianists practiced exponentially more than the rest of the group over the years.
What was most interesting about this study was the following: the psychologists were not able to find one single “natural” – those that didn’t practice nearly as much but became amazing violinists or pianists. They also could not find any “grinders” those that put in the 10,000 hours but couldn’t become the best.
A light bulb should immediately go off in your head after reading those two sentences: YOU CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE: ALL YOU NEED IS DESIRE AND TIME.
This was only one of the eye opening point that Malcolm’s book brings to fruition. It has been three years since I read his book, and some of the points he makes have already drastically changed my life in that short time. Cheers to Malcolm Gladwell!
It’s no surprise the all three of Malcolm Gladwell’s books have remained #1 New York Times bestsellers. They are truly life changing, Thank you Malcolm!
Check out the below links to Outliers and Malcolm’s other books:
Outliers: The Story of Success
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Onwards and upwards!