Comments on: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

By: Mister Mister

Mister Mister — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:01:25 +0000

Great review/chapter summaries of Outliers. I also liked the last paragraph that you wrote haha, great way to wrap it up.

By: Levi McPherson

Levi McPherson — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:14:45 +0000

10 Lessons Learned from the Book:

1. Be grateful for the opportunities that have helped create your success
2. Don’t take everything on face value or oversimplify judgments
3. If you want to change you results, look for opportunities that can be leveraged in unique ways
4. Culture change is an Opportunity
5. Meaningful work is the result of High Levels of Autonomy, Effort, and R.O.I.
6. 10,000 hours of practice is a pre-requisite for mastery (it’s the ticket to the game)
7. If you are going to put 10,000 hours in, make sure it aligns with the right opportunity (i.e. most American’s can claim well over 10,000 hours of practice at being entertained, but what results has this produced?)
8. We need to work our children harder so they will have better “Opportunities” in the future
9. The concepts of retirement and summer vacations need to be re-thought
10. I need to talk my wife into forming an accelerated summer school program

By: Leah

Leah — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:18:17 +0000

thank you very much. this really helped me. I had a reading assignment but I was out of the country and the test was two days after I got back. Thank you very much again! I apreciate the work and the time/effort you put into this.

By: Annie

Annie — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:09:56 +0000

No, brain cells can’t multiply, once they’re gone, they’re gone. Same with muscle cells, except, they can expand through strenuous usage. That’s why they want to develop stem cells, because it has the ability to differentiate into any type of cell. That way, we can replace cells that otherwise cannot be replaced by the body (i.e. brain cells).

By: theholder

theholder — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:08:36 +0000

So far everything I’ve read of the comments herein are wrong about “The Matthew Effect”. The passage has been taken out of cotext to validate theories in modern sociological studies regarding class and status. If you would read the book of Matthew you would find that when you see the term “have” over and over, it is refering to faith. Think about it. Even Bernie Madoff with all his material possessions can have those taken away. Even his skills were taken for he has no means to exercise them where he’s going. But faith can never be taken and even if all your material resources are, you still have faith. Gladwell and Merton prove sophomoric in their uage. This and the rest of the internet are the sewer where dilluted ideas bread stupidy. I’m not a blogger but thought I would check to see what you people might say about this book and passage. I’ll reluctantly pick the book back up and finish it as I’m sure it contains some merit but as for chapter 1, pretty dissappointed.

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:17:13 +0000

FYI – the Matthew effect is a sociology term & the term is credited to Robert Merton. It comes from Matthew 25:29; “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” In essence, the rich get richer & the poor get poorer. Makes all the sense in the world given the subject matter of the chapter.

By: Irina @ mylifeandart.typepad.com

Irina @ mylifeandart.typepad.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:51:21 +0000

LOL.. Brains are like muscles consist of cells (brain cells they are) and like any cells they have an ability to multiply and grow and be more functional and handle their work load better if you use them regularly.

There is a debate on how much of our brain cells we use every day. But what makes your brains really a better brains is the connections between each brain cell. There is a believe that each cell has an infinite capacity to make many more connections than each of us presently have. So, each of us potentially, much smarter than we are..

In other words, the hardware is there, all we need is to add software, so to speak…. LOL..

By: thisisbeth

thisisbeth — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:52:37 +0000

Thanks for the review, because I put this book on my book list today. (Minnesota Twins pitcher Kevin Slowey mentioned it on his blog.)

What I’ll find interesting in reading the book is how so many of these things seem to imply that much of it is based on luck–being born to the right family, being born in the right place, being born at the right time. There is definitely work involved, but some of it is luck about which we can do nothing. I’ll be interested to see if the book deals with ways to overcome bad luck.

By: kosmo

kosmo — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:55:53 +0000

Some of these athletes put in tons of hours training and practicing from a young age. I’m not sure if Lebron put in 10K hours from age 6 to 16 (at which point he was already an outlier), but it’s probably not far from the truth. That would be 20 hours/week – or 3 hours a day. Watch some of the “feel good” Olympic stories and start counting up the hours of practice …

Bill Gates didn’t “write” an operating system. He bought the guts of it (QDOS) from another company. Just a clarification.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:30:23 +0000

Lazy Man, I agree with that. I was more referring to the Lebron James, or Mark Zuckerbergs, kids who would outliers from before they could legally drink. I thought it was interesting, but not the best point in the book. The one that struck me most interesting was plane crashes from certain type of countries and how the dialogue had to be changed.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:26:01 +0000

Craig, I think some of the young people put in there 10,000 hours as well. I don’t think Michael Jordan just picked up a basketball and was great. Yes, he had talent that probably less than 10 people in the world have, but he also developed that talent with lots of practice.

I don’t think anyone who puts in 10,000 hours is an automatic success. I could put 10,000 hours into basketball and I wouldn’t make many high school teams. It’s a combination of having talent and putting in the work. Some people just assume that Bill Gates was smart and in the right place at the right time. Those are true, but he also put in the time to be able to write an operating system.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:26:59 +0000

Well, he’s taken the Matthew quote entirely out of context, so it’s no wonder it doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. In the context of the passage where it appears, it is saying that if you are responsible and diligent with the gifts you are given by God, you will be rewarded with bigger responsibilities. If not, you can lose it all.

In the context of the book, it appears that he’s saying that those who are fortunate enough to have skills and talents, who are also placed in an environment with highly skilled people around them, will improve their performance.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:22:58 +0000

Good book and I thought it was a solid read, although not as good as his previous two. I understand his 10,000 hr rule, but don’t think it’s fully accurate. In that case, there would be so many “experts” out there. Also, and I know this is rare, but especially today you see more outliers who are younger, whether, sports or technology, writers, etc. They clearly have a lot of experience being young, but not sure if the 10,000 rule applies in all cases. What do others think?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:16:11 +0000

I’ve read that book and it was great to see all the little things we can’t control that matter for our success. We can’t change our birthday, our parents or many other things that help lift people to the top.

But we can work.

Work is the one thing we *can* control in the whole equation, so we need to find what we love and dive in, because it won’t matter when we’re born or who our parents are if we don’t do the work. Here’s to 10,000 hours.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:43:59 +0000

In the book, there’s a pretty interesting example of a standardized test. How many way can you use a blanket? If you say to keep warm and that’s all you can come up with in two minutes, you may not be that creative. If you come up with keeping warm, putting out fires, making your hot water heater more efficient, etc… you may be more creative.

I don’t know if anyone has put this into some kind of score.

By: kosmo

kosmo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:56:34 +0000

Interesting thought about IQs. It does make a lot of sense. Creativity isn’t effectively measured in most standardized test, and it is a big component of mental ability (mental ability = raw intellect + creativity + ???)

By: Asav Patel

Asav Patel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:39:55 +0000

Excellent review…….
I like the 10,000 Rule. I am an Indian and in India Dhirubhai Ambani (Founder of Reliance Industries) was once upon a time said that, If you want to be Giant (Rich, Ultra-rich & Sucess) than you should work 10,000 hours a Day………
Well, here the 10,000 rule is differnet from Dhirubhai’s but it is excellent.
According to Dhirubhai you have to work 10,000 hours per day to become giant like him……
So How one can do 10,000 hours a day work? Anyone can do hardly 10-15 hours a day work and more over the day is only of 24 hours.. So how is it possible?
Well, it is possible by creating jobs and highering people under you…… If you higher 10,000 people under you than it means that you have worked 10,000 hours a day..
So if you higher 10,000 writers for Lazy man & Money than you can do 10,000 hours a day work…
This is the formula of becomeing a Giant Company……..!!!!!!
Anyway…. I like ur post……..