Barnabas Notes

When I posted that I was about to read/finished Outliers, I got a number of questions, so I thought I would post my thoughts.

After my first post an old friend, Andre mentioned something he called the “standard Gladwell caveat” when I asked what that was he replied:

Gladwell is a reporter, not a visionary. His books are starting points, not end points.

That had the unfortunate effect of framing my entire reading of the book. I say unfortunate, because I generally like to not put a frame around books I’m reading. However, after finishing this book and thinking about Blink, I have to agree with Andre.

Gladwell finds things that are out there and puts a story to them. Now to be sure the things he finds are things many of the rest of us, in some cases everybody else, has overlooked and that is the mark of a great reporter.

This book does a great job of dispelling the common wisdom of outliers. Specifically, that exceptional people are exceptional for some intrinsic reason that is special to just them. Instead, Gladwell argues that circumstance and consistent (not hard) work have much more to do with success than our mythologies would have us believe.

What the book is light on is prescription for how to maximize these favorable circumstances. With the one exception of Junior League Hockey in Canada. Since Joe is the only Canadian I know, this bit of advice is for him: have kids as close to January 1st as possible.

After I finished the book, Katharine asked if the book, “was worth reading.” From a content perspective, if you take the following on authority:

• When you are born has a lot to do with how successsful you are
• Where you are born has a lot to do with how sucessful you are
• You have to spend 10,000 hours at something in order to master it
• You only have to be “smart enough” past that point there are other skills that will determine success, even in very academic fields

That’s the short, short version of the book. The rest is evidence. However, I find Gladwell a very good writer. As someone who has to express myself for a living I find reading good and great writing is worth it regardless of the content.

That’s my longish answer to two shortish questions.