Gladwell’s final chapter outlines the culture legacy and happy accidents which led to his success. Then the book provides a “reading group guide” which includes “a conversation with Malcolm Gladwell” and “questions and topics for discussion.”
Gladwell explains that he wrote Outliers because we was not satisfied with conventional explanations of why people succeed. He says that he knows several people who are smart and ambitious (the usual rationale) and who aren’t as successful as Bill Gates et al. He thinks habits and personality traits alone can’t explain success, that we have to consider culture and family and timing.
“My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is…we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds – and how many of us succeed – than we think. That’s an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.”
Amen.
Indeed, success is an interesting word. I always try to change my husband's thinking about this because he'll comment about how he's not successful because he still can't get a teaching job while his friends have steady jobs and houses, etc. I keep telling him not to assume that these accomplishments of his friends are all there is to "success." Are his friends happy? Do they feel good about the work they do?
ReplyDeleteAnd the idea of success being a group project is right from the book I read too. Bowling Alone emphasized that achievements are often found by being involved in the community and reaching out to know and bond with not only people who are like us but those who are different from us too. That way, we become a community and help each other succeed in ways that really matter.