A few months ago, I read a book that I've been anxious to blog about. It's Malcolm Gladwell's latest book Outliers: The Story of Success. I first became acquainted with Gladwell about five years ago when I read The Tipping Point, another excellent book. So after I saw Gladwell talking about Outliers on the Colbert Report a few months ago (here's the vdeo), I knew I had to get it. I read it . . . loved it. And soon I started hearing about others talking about the book. Here's a quote from an LA Times article I read:
"[Outliers] seems to have become the topic of conversation around [Holywood], during holiday parties and Oscar soirees. "Revolutionary Road" director Sam Mendes recently mentioned it during an interview. Will Smith, currently starring in "Seven Pounds," didn't mention "Outliers" by name during a recent chat with the Los Angeles Times, but he described a small movie he'd seen as featuring thespians who "I could tell . . . weren't world-class actors with 10,000 hours of experience."
If you haven't read the book yet, you'll understand the "10,000 hours" reference soon enough.
Because 10,000 hours, like several other overlooked factors, tend to be very high indicators of success in people. In
Outliers, Gladwell, goes after the commonly held notion that the people who become wildly successful in life (those who invent something new, earn alot of money, influence alot of people, etc.) are able to achieve thir level of success because they were either exceptionally intelligent, talented,
or ambitious. Gladwell makes the case that while ambition and intelligence may be a factor in success, other important indicators of a person's success are the place and year they were born (1835 America being the most significant breeding ground for the wealthiest people in human history), or even the month you were born (Did you know that an amazingly high number of professional hockey players were born in either January or February?), or your ethnic background, or other unusual twists of fate which some of us might chalk up to "luck." Gladwell blows up the old notions that everyone has an equal shot at greatness if we can simply pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. According to
Outliers it's alittle more complicated.
It's a very well written book, and there are too many interesting ideas to talk about to try to cover it all in one blog post, so I decided to blog through the book one chapter at a time. I want to look at some of the individual and unusual factors that have led to success in people, and I want to think about the spiritual implications and implications for ministry they suggest. So if you get a chance, pick up Outliers, and join me in the discussion.
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