Are You an Outlier?

[Kelly Leonard]

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!

[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

[Michael A. Robson]

Cool blog! I just finished reading Outliers a second time, just loved it. Not only does Gladwell point out how some of our greatest geniuses and wunderkids had amazing stories (and very lucky ones), they also point us in the direction of how we can change our own society to create even more brilliant minds. Highly recommended!

To those not satisfied with the 'how to' aspect...have you picked an area in which (like the Beatles) you want to get your 10,000 hours? Is there a way you can redo your day to day schedule to speed up your 10,000 hr acquisition time (eg. 3 years instead of 10)?