So I’ve begun listening to/reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I’m about 5 chapters in and so far the ideas the author has presented are really thought provoking. I haven’t finished reading it yet and will post a full review and analysis once I have, but there is one idea that really hit me that I wanted to get my thoughts out about.
The basic idea is that anyone wildly successful in their field and heads above anyone else, never got there purely out of talent. Surely, all that have, take Bill Gates for example, are immensely talented and deserving of their position. But no matter how much it appears that person got to where they are by pure grit, determination, hard work, and talent, there’s also other factors that allowed that person to rise to the level of success that they have achieved.
The first of those factors is luck and happenstance. Behind every wildly successful person is a series of “just happened to” events. That Bill Gates just happened to have access to a Mainframe terminal from the 8th grade, that a classmate had a parent that just happened to work for a company willing to fund his schools computer program, that he, and Paul Allen, just happened to be the only people a certain company could find expert enough in the software their company ran on, and so on.
The second, being much more interesting to me, is that every successful genius is also a product of the environment that they grew up, matured, and learned in. Gladwell compares and contrasts a man named Chris Langon (a semi-famous genius with an IQ of 195) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project). Langon growing up in a small town in the middle of nowhere in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father while skating through high school. Langon eventually goes to and drops out of college due to a discrepancy with his full-ride scholarship being dropped after his first semester. Instead of fighting, negotiating, surviving the hardship, Langon leaves and goes back home. Eventually enrolling in a state school and eventually dropping out again after a dean refused to let him change classes to accommodate his schedule. Again instead of fighting, convincing, surviving Langon dropped out. Eventually Langon ends up relatively unkown, especially considering he is likely the smartest person alive. Oppenheimer, in contrast, grew up in a well-to-do home with supportive, successful parents who encouraged him to follow his interests. At one point Oppenheimer ended up attempting to poison a professor in college, and instead of being arrested, kicked out, jailed for what he had done, he managed to get nothing more than probation. Time after time, Oppenheimer is met with seemingly insurmountable circumstances and manages to survive in spite of it. Gladwell does a much better job of telling the story and I highly recommend the book so far.
I find the idea encouraging for this reason. If every highly successful person did not get there by pure talent, but is a product of both luck and the ability to overcome obstacles, then the inverse of that idea must also be true. That if you are “smart enough”, one can become highly successful by recognizing the fact that though there are more talented people out there, with a little luck, a little charisma, and a lot of determination, there’s nothing saying one cannot also enjoy success.
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