Outliers - The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Julie reviewed one of the teams fave "team books".

What a cool book. Fascinating really. This book review is a bit of a spoiler as it gives you some examples of the authors most amazing stories of how some people become so exceptionally successful! I highly recommend the book to you!

Of course it started off with a memorable story that appeals to Canadians, and that is about hockey and the birthdates of the most successful players – the vast majority are born in the early part of the year. Mr. Gladwell analyzed and noted that the system is geared towards that because of the schedule, and enrollment when kids are really young. And when kids are young a few months makes a big difference in their development, so the "gifted" players are singled out and taught more skills, basically because they had the advantage of being born in the first quarter or half of the year. Ya gotta read it to get the whole scoop.

Who could forget the 10,000 hour theory? Apparently the Beatles became such a phenom not just because of their talent but because they literally spent ten thousand hours playing in Hamburg Germany in these crazy all-night clubs way before they became famous.
Or the rice patty theory because Asians in a certain part of the world spend their livelihood and their childhood helping their parents with the crops and they had to compute so many calculations so often in their head, that it is almost inherited skill now that they and their offspring are exceptional mathmeticians.

Malcolm Gladwell is also the author of Blink and The Tipping Point (which may find their way onto our site for review – they were both thought provoking too!). His style of writing is very engaging and filled with facts yet in a storybook fashion. It is not a novel, but as much fun as one.