Outliers

Instead, Outliers looks into the hidden advantages and disadvantages over which we have absolutely no control. Things like where we grew up, who our parents are, what part of the country we're from, and when we were born all matter. The author makes the case that these factors play a much more significant role in success than we think.

For instance, do you think there's a perfect time and place to be born if you want to be a successful New York lawyer? What about a Sun Valley billionaire? Or a major league hockey player?

You might not believe it, but the book says there are perfect times and perfect places to be born if you want to do any of these things successfully.

If you're rolling your eyes in disbelief and are about to turn this podcast off, wait just one more minute. Why?

Because the author repeatedly proves his point in this book. These aren't claims based on vague assertions or pie-in-the-sky theories. The author presents numerous case studies that back up his arguments. He looks at the lives of people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mozart, and the Beatles, and examines what, exactly, made them so successful.

Yes, talent and intelligence do impact on a person's achievements. But so do a lot of other factors.

Outliers offers us a fascinating, provocative look at success. The book is very readable, and the author's writing style makes you feel you're discussing all of these things in the local coffee shop. It's friendly, accessible, and you may find yourself sitting up late into the night to finish it.

So, keep listening to find out why most hockey players are born in January, what happened to the Beatles to fast-forward their careers, and why being a genius is no guarantee of success in life.

The author begins Outliers by examining hockey. In particular, Canadian junior league hockey.

Here's how it works: Junior league hockey is set up in a pyramid format. Children begin playing the sport very young, often before they're five years old. As they move up the ranks, they're shifted and sorted into different classes, based on their talents and abilities.

Sounds simple and fair, right? Well, there's more to the story.

The author shows us a team roster for one junior league team, and prods us to examine it closely. At first, there's nothing noticeable. But, as you look closer, you see what he's getting at.

What stands out is that an overwhelming majority of players were born in January, February, and March.

As he digs further, all the rosters for elite Canadian teams show the same thing. Forty percent of the players were born between January and March; thirty percent between April and June; twenty percent between July and September; and ten percent between October and December.

The explanation for this is fairly simple, and it has to do with Canada's cutoff date for age-class hockey, which is January first. This means that if your child was born on January second, he'd be playing with a group of children who might be as much as twelve months younger than him. At the ages of ten, eleven, and twelve, this age gap would give your child significant physical advantages over his team mates.

All this means he'll probably get chosen to join a more prestigious team with a better coaching staff, more practice time, and more opportunities to play games. Although your child might not have started out a better player than his team mates, by the time he's fourteen or fifteen, he really is better, thanks to these opportunities that the others, with birthdays in the late fall and early winter, didn't get.

And it's not just in Canadian hockey that this proves true. United States baseball uses a cutoff date of July thirty-first for their leagues. As a result, more major league baseball players were born in the month of August than any other time of year.

What does this all mean? Well, the author uses this case study to show us that in many instances, successful people, including athletes, are there as a result of lucky circumstances and other factors far outside their control.

This study also illustrates a sad fact. Many times, kids that might have been amazing successes are overlooked, simply because they were born at the wrong time. They don't get the advantages their bigger, older counterparts get, and so they don't have a chance to shine. They're casualties of the system.

Fortunately, it's not just birthdays that shape our destiny. The author also devotes a chapter to practice time. Sounds boring, we know, but the reality is far from it.

Ever wonder what Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy and the Beatles have in common? What about Bill Gates and Mozart?

The answer's easy: all of them were born in the perfect place, at the perfect time, and in the perfect situation to allow them to log thousands of hours of practice time perfecting their craft.

It's called the Ten Thousand Hour Rule, and to prove his point, the author looks at a study done in the early nineteen nineties by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his team. What they found is fascinating.

They were studying musicians at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. Basically, they discovered that while innate talent does play a role in the success of musicians, preparation has much more to do with it. Growing up, the elite players practiced much, much more than their average counterparts.

Other scientists, psychologists, and neurologists have come to the same conclusions: that ten thousand hours is the magic number for mastery of any skill, be it fiction writing, basketball, chess, or music composition. If you want to be a master, then it's going to take roughly ten years – one thousand hours per year – to get there.

Seems overwhelming, right? Well, the author again provides evidence to bolster his claim, by looking at some of the iconic figures you heard about a moment ago.

Let's look at the Beatles as an example. They're probably the best-known rock group in the history of the world. And yet, the Beatles might not have made it if it wasn't for one gig they scored early on in their musical career.

The band was hired to play in strip clubs in Hamburg, Germany. The crux was that they had to play sets that were eight hours long, seven nights a week. And they did this for hundreds and hundreds of nights. By the time their success exploded in nineteen sixty-four, they'd played an estimated twelve hundred shows.

Before they went to Hamburg, their shows were lousy. They knew only a few songs, and had no confidence.

By the time they came back, though, they were amazing. They'd been forced to expand their set list to include hundreds of songs. This knowledge directly helped them produce innovative albums like "Rubber Soul" and "Sergeant Pepper" a few years later.

Plus, the sheer number of shows had helped them develop an incredible stage presence. Their talents had been put on fast-forward, thanks to Hamburg.

Imagine what might have happened without a gig like Hamburg to force them to practice and expand. The Beatles might have ended up an interesting side note in the history of British pop, instead of the icons they are today.

The author next takes us down an interesting road by exploring the nature of genius, and how much sheer intellect has to do with our success in life.

Now, you might think that having an IQ of one hundred and eighty would give you certain advantages in life. After all, who couldn't succeed with that kind of brain?

Most of us assume that genius equals success. But, we're wrong.

The author argues that past an IQ of one hundred and twenty, additional points do very little in terms of real world advantages.

He offers us yet another study to substantiate this. It's nineteen twenty-one, and the psychologist is Lewis Terman of Stanford University. He's scoured California's classrooms administering intelligence tests to students, and come up with a group of over fourteen hundred kids whose IQ is over one hundred and forty. In short, geniuses.

His goal is to track their lives and see how many go on to do great things like win Nobel Prizes, write books, run for public office, and contribute to society. His theory is that he's tracking the next generation of heroes and world leaders.

As it turns out, he's way, way off.

His group of geniuses do very little once they reach adulthood. Sure, there are some who write books, and some who achieve public office. But the overwhelming majority grow up to live completely ordinary lives.

The author's point here is plain. In most cases, it's not intellect that matters. It's a combination of factors that put you in the right place at the right time.

It's your parents that instill a sense of drive in you. It's being born just in time to take advantage of the next big trend, and it's going to a school that recognizes your gifts, and offers you unique opportunities to grow and learn. And, perhaps most of all, success comes from being able to spot hidden opportunities and take advantage of them – even when they look like clods of dirt.

In short, success comes down to circumstances and luck, just as much as talent and intellect. And in many cases, it's nothing but circumstances and luck.

Chapter after chapter the author makes his case. He shows us glimpses of lives that should have been brilliant but weren't, simply due to bad luck or rotten circumstances. He tells us the sad story of one genius, a man with an IQ that's off the scale, who should have been up there with the likes of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Instead, the man never finished college, and is now living on a farm in rural Missouri.

The author shows us people who soared through the sky like brilliant comets, thanks to lucky breaks, stubborn parents, or growing up in the perfect place or time. You'll read about Marita, a young, poverty-stricken student in New York who, by sheer chance, heard about open enrollment in a prestigious school in her neighborhood. She's now enrolled, and her math and reading skills are going through the roof thanks to this opportunity.

The author leaves us with the sober lesson that our society needs to replace a system built on lucky breaks and special birthdays with one that truly gives everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. His point?

To put it simply, think of how many hockey stars Canada would have if they had a separate league for children born during the second half of the year. There'd be a lot more superstars out there.

However, critical readers might find themselves wondering what you can actually do with this information. It's interesting, of course, and while reading, you may marvel at the author's witty writing style and colorful anecdotes. But there's not much here of practical use. After all, you're not a child with unlimited time to put in your ten thousand hours of practice time to become a master, and it's highly unlikely you'll predict the next Industrial Age or dot com boom to position yourself accordingly.

A second bit of criticism has to do with the case studies themselves. Because they so neatly fit the author's arguments, readers may wonder if he's ignoring other research that pokes holes in his theories. After all, there might be an overwhelming number of studies proving that age, race, and background have little or nothing to do with someone's success – quite the opposite of what this book suggests. Could he have taken a more balanced approach? We can't say yes or no either way, and it's this uncertainty that makes us just a bit uneasy. Unless we go dig up evidence ourselves, we're pretty much taking the author's word for it.

But overall, Outliers is an entertaining look at the nature and history of success. It won't teach you to be a better leader, or offer tips on how to improve your life. But it's an intellectually stimulating way to spend an evening. And, we think it's worth your time to check out. You'll enjoy the read, and have plenty of interesting material to discuss at your next business lunch.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, is published by Little, Brown and Company.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon.