Amanda Pelser… Ramblings of a Communications Director …

Outliers was on my radar before going to Catalyst.  I didn’t know much about it or Malcolm Gladwell.  Pastor Rob had mentioned that it was a good book, so I mentally moved it up on my reading list a little bit.  But then I went to Catalyst and heard Malcolm speak.  Wow.  He was such a great speaker.  Clear, easy to understand, captivating, and more.  He carefully wove together a story from the Civil War, the Great Depression, and our current financial crisis.  So, I got the book and it quickly moved to the top of my must-read list.  I started it last weekend and after being out at the WfX Conference the second half of the week, I read much of the day yesterday and finished the book.

The purpose of the book is to challenge what we believe about success and how someone become successful.  So, what is an outlier?

out·li·er noun 1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body  2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.

Malcolm put his purpose so clearly in this passage:

In Outliers, I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don’t work. People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.

I was raised to be relatively independent woman.  I don’t believe that things happen by chance.  I know that my family background and my educational advantages have been a large part of making me who I am and getting me to where I am today.  Until reading Outliers, it did not occur to me what a huge part those things and the systems that we put together in our society can do to make or break the success of a person.

Here are a few passages that caught my attention while reading:

• They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.
• Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
• Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement.
• We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.
• 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. The people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
• In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.  And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.
• Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
• The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls “practical intelligence.”
• IQ is a measure, to some degree, of innate ability. But social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere, and the place where we seem to get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families.
• Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
• Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.

Last night as I was talking with Josh about the book, I began to notice all the things that I do with Jonathan, my almost 3 years old son.  Now, I don’t remember many details about how my mom raised me since I was 13 when she passed away.  What I do remember is a drive to be as good as I could be in school and anything else I did, the best if possible.  I remember a push to work hard and never give up.  So, what do I do with Jonathan when he falls?  I help him up, but I tell him he’s fine and to keep going.  What do I do when he get frustrated with putting his clothes on?  I tell him that he can do it and let him persist in figuring it out on his own.  When he cannot find something?  I tell him to look for it.  When he wants to help with dinner?  I let him make the mess as he learns what to do.  When he wants to quit and do something else?  Finish what you started.  Malcolm calls this a parent who “cultivates”.  Rather than completely staying out of what Jonathan does, I’m involved, but I’m teaching him the value of hard work, persistence, and the joy of reaching a goal.  I show him how to be a problem solver and figure out the answers rather than handing him the easy answer.

I loved this book.  Again, Malcolm is a great story-teller and has a fascinating way to giving statistics wrapped in intriguing examples from real-life.  Great book and highly recommended.