by Arthur Worsley
M.A. Psychology, Oxford. McKinsey Alum. Founder & Editor at TAoL.

3 MINUTE READ

Outliers (2008)

The Story of Success

by Malcolm Gladwell

TAoL Rating:

5.0

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One-Sentence Summary

Outliers systematically debunks the myth that success is only determined by talent and hard-work - with quantitative and qualitative evidence from medicine, sport, business, history, music, science and more - by journalist and author, Malcolm Gladwell. (309 pages)

Contents

1. One-Sentence Summary

2. Outliers Summary

3. Outliers Contents

4. Best Outliers Quotes

5. Outliers PDF Summary

6. Read More: 5 Books Like Outliers

7. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Note: This Outliers summary is part of an ongoing project to summarise the Best Learning Books of all time.

Outliers Summary

When explaining/dissecting why some people achieve more than others, we often overvalue natural-talent and self-determinism, i.e.:

Who we are: Innate talent, character; and
What we did: Preparation, decisions.

But the idea that the best rise to the top because they are naturally better and brighter is simplistic.

In reality, many, interacting and compounding drivers set the odds of success. Some factors, steps and decisions are within our awareness and control. Many more are beyond them. And coming to terms with this reality is an essential part of increasing equality, opportunities and outcomes for all.

Proving this thesis doesn’t need a full competing theory. It simply needs to disprove the self-deterministic incumbent. This is the task Gladwell takes on in Outliers – drawing on medicine, sport, business, history, music, science and his own life to illustrate the true complexity of success.

For specific stories, refer to the original (a hallmark of Gladwell’s writing is his wonderful storytelling). Some of the fascinating principles highlighted include:

The powerful accumulative biases hidden in the details of supposedly meritocratic systems (e.g., cut-off dates and streaming in schools and sport);
The early, vital and unequal opportunities unlocked by parenting and patronage (prodigies aren’t born, they are made);
The difficulty of defining talent and failure of intelligence tests in predicting long-term achievement;
The role of luck in enabling both quantity and quality of practice needed for success (N.b., Outliers popularised the 10,000-hour rule);
The profound impact of cultural legacy and prejudice in distributing opportunities; and
The effects of language in making it easier or harder to learn (e.g., Chinese number systems and mathematics).

Gladwell’s conclusion? The self-made-success template fails across many domains. And even factors that we might think of as in our control (e.g., character and practice) are often much more dependent on opportunity and legacy than we realise.

What truly distinguishes success stories from stories you’ve never heard isn’t extraordinary talent – it’s extraordinary opportunities.

So why does the old myth persist? Because:

Our brains just can’t factor everything in – We aren’t able to visualise compound results of many causes working together, at once or over time.
But simplifying forces narrative fallacy – Story-telling forces us to pick a single, linear line of causality through complex and non-linear systems.
And when we do, we suffer from self-serving bias – Given the choice, we naturally store, recall and overweight factors we control to explain success.

Why does any of this matter? Because realising that success is more than innate talent and preparation allows us to better understand reality. And a better understanding of reality is the first step in:

Navigating it more effectively; and
Improving it for us all.

So, take the success stories of others with a pinch of salt. Be aware of creating, endorsing or falling on the wrong side of systems that distribute opportunity unfairly. And remember, much more of success than you realise is neither deserved nor earned.

“Your choices are half chance, and so are everybody else’s” – Everybody’s Free, Baz Luhrmann

N.B., Like all of Gladwell’s writing this is wonderfully researched and full of illustrative stories and evidence. Outliers is a book I need and want to come back to for a full crunch – if you haven’t yet, it’s well worth a read. Like the gist of what we’ve covered here? Check out this crunch of Matthew Syed’s Bounce and Gladwell’s fascinating podcast Revisionist History.

Outliers Contents

Outliers has 9 main chapters in 2 parts…

Introduction: The Roseto Mystery

Part One: Opportunity One

The Matthew Effect
The 10,000-Hour Rule
The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1
The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2
The Three Lessons of Joe Flom

Part Two: Legacy Six

Harlan, Kentucky
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
Rice Paddies and Math Tests
Marita’s Bargain

Epilogue: A Jamaican Story

Best Outliers Quotes

These Outliers quotes come from The Art of Living's ever-growing central library of thoughts, anecdotes, notes, and inspirational quotes.

"Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"Autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”"

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?"

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"People don't rise from nothing... It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

"Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities."

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

Outliers PDF Summary

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