Are You an Outlier?

[Kelly Leonard O'Keefe]

Malcolm Gladwell's upcoming new book Outliers: The Story of Success (November 18, Little Brown and Company) takes readers on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" -- the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. Gladwell asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.

Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Watch/Hear Malcolm describe the phenomenon in Video.

For participating early adopters of social media, like the Book Blogs community here on Ning, I think in our own way each of us are Outliers (well, maybe not in the Bill Gates or Hillary Clinton mode of Outliers but still, our friends and families think we're pretty hip, right?)

I'd love hearing how you're an Outlier in your life. If you post a comment to this thread, I'll send you a copy of the book as a thank you for contributing to the conversation :-)

Or if you're just interested in receiving a review copy w/o commenting, please email me your name, blog URL, and postal address. Thanks!

[Ryan Cole]

I'm so anxious the read this book. Malcolm Gladwell was on the Daily Show and I was quite interested in what he had to say.

[Wayne Hurlbert]

My book review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

[sari]

Owning my organic produce market was my outlier time. In the late 1980s I became convinced local organic was the way to go. By the late 90s I owned a small produce market on the coast of California. After only a year my biggest clients were the two five star restaurants in the area. I would also outsell the two supermarkets in town. Since then I have been struggling to keep up, but did start Twittering before my teenage son did. LOL

[RYCJ]

By my definition of success, I am an Outlier, but am more interested in learning Gladwell's 'measure' or 'theory' of the definition.

[Milka Väinämö]

I think that I am an outlier someway. In Finland, where I live, when we turn 18 we are allowed to drink and go to night clubs and stuff. I haven't found anything interesting in that and I love to stay at home and just do something relaxing. My friends love to party and they always go to night clubs and parties during the weekends. Now, when we all are 18 I am the one who is sitting at home, watching movies and reading books, while my friends are partying and drinking. I would think that I would feel sad about being an outlier, but I really don't. I rather spend my weekends doing something I enjoy than something my friends do.

If you ship internationally I would love to receive a copy of the book.
My e-mail is [e-mail]