Outliers/Malcolm Gladwell- Review

Is it a good book? YES. Must read? Completely personal opinion but 50-50 lol 

This book is really great because it shatters people's idea that success is hardwired since birth. It's not. Carol Dweck talks about growth vs fixed mindset in her book, and I suggest reading that first or just understanding those terms before reading Outliers to be grateful for everything Gladwell wrote. 

This book basically talks about WHY some people are more successful than others. Society tends to think that these elite individuals were born great, just different from a standard human model. But they are not. There's a system that helps certain individuals get more "time" to work on their skills. 

Saying that what I got out of this book is that it's all about the "time" you put into the right work. Chapter II is about the "10,000-hour rule," you've probably heard it, even Justin Bieber just had a song released like that last year. The rule states that you need at least 10,000 hours to master a skill. Malcolm Gladwell proves this point by explaining how every successful athlete, businessmen, entrepreneurs, artists, etc. go through this process. We just don't know about how much time they've put in, or they don't even know about it because they're just following a system that ends up providing them with the 10,000 hours that is required to master a skill. 

One thing that I reflected on since reading this book is how I used my summers back when I was in school. 

I happened to compare the Japanese and American school years because.. I am Japanese. "The school year in the United States is, on average, 180 days long... the Japanese school year is 243 days long" (Gladwell 304). That is TWO months of difference. Did I use those two months efficiently? I cannot really say. And Gladwell talks about the stark drop in academic skills pre and post-summer vacation. 

But that was kind of eye-opening and made me realize that I have to really value the time I have, whether that is to golf or to study. 

So at the beginning of this post, I said it's a 50-50 whether it's a must-read. That's because I watched this YouTube video before I read the book, and the video summarized the points pretty well to a point that you didn't really have to read the book. But reading it was still nice. There are many parts that the video does not include, but if you're not a huge fan of reading, I suggest watching this video below. 




To buy it on Amazon.com:

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