Book Ponder

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• Published: November 18, 2008
• Pages: 309
• Rating 4/5 Stars
• Read: 12/19/2022 – 12/29/2022

The People at the Top Work Much Harder

 It’s a common saying that if you work hard good things will come to you.  We get a few exceptions, especially in sports with athletes who hit the genetics lottery and have the perfect speed and size for certain sports. Gladwell explains that those at the very top have a combination of genetics and hard work, but a key difference is if you have enough skill to be part of the “elite” then how hard you work is the only thing that separates you from the field.  Once we focus on the details, we realize that the people ahead of us are working much harder than us, and the ones at the very top are working even harder. 

“Their research suggests that 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

Not All 10,000 Hours Are Created Equal

 Malcolm Gladwell came up with the idea that it takes an individual 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field or skill.  This was hotly debated and most likely added to the popularity of the book.  Whether or not you believe this to be true Gladwell goes on to say that not all 10,000 hours are the same.  Someone who spends 10,000 hours on a skill for ten years, doing the bare minimum and never really pushing himself to be better will not have the same mastery as the person who spent 10,000 hours doing challenging work.  In some cases, you see people like Tiger Woods who reach 10,000 hours at a very young age and become the youngest number one golfer in the world.  To reach 10,000 hours at such a young age you need help.   

“The other interesting thing about that ten thousand hours, of course, is that ten thousand hours is an enormous amount of time. It’s all but impossible to reach that number all by yourself by the time you’re a young adult. You have to have parents who encourage and support because if you have to hold port you. You can’t be poor, down a part-time job on the side to help make ends meet, there won’t be time left in the day to practice enough. In fact, most people can reach that number only if they get into some kind of special program-like a hockey all-star squad-or if they get some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to put in those hours.”

Malcolm Gladwell

Go to Sleep With a Question

 One of the ideas from the book I began to implement right away was going to sleep with a question.  I made sure to not make it something stressful that would keep me awake or cause me to have bad sleep, I would instead think of something deep that I was pondering.  Most of the time when I woke up in the morning and thought about it, I had more clarity on the question.  Gladwell would ask himself questions about things he was going to work on the next day.

“’A typical day is, I get up and make coffee. I go in and sit in front of the computer and begin working on what I was working on the night before,’ he told me not long ago. ‘I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. Sometimes I realize what the answer is because I dreamt the answer and I can remember it. Other times I just feel the answer, and I start typing and the answer emerges onto the page.’”

Malcolm Gladwell

 There are many lessons you get from books that are long-term changes, but ideas like these can be implemented immediately with instant results, give it a try tonight.

Final Thoughts

 The main takeaway I got from this book is something that most of us already know.  Whether you have an innate skill or not, to become great at something takes a lot of work, I believe that you must work so hard that you can’t even fathom it until you are there, almost like the popular quote, “Work so hard that people think the aliens did it.”  Now the question you must ask yourself is if it’s work worth doing.  Most of the time it is if it even made you think about it. Whether you are a young adult or already retired, you only live once so why wouldn’t you give it a shot?  Get your 10,000 hours in and see what greatness you have inside of you.

Further Reading

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