Thanks for a very thoughtful set of comments about Outliers. I do believe you are correct to say that the ideas should not be accepted unchallenged. Like many things around us, this is a story of trends and probabilities. There is no exact science that we can develop at this point that describes everything perfectly.

I tend to agree with your challenge of the 10,000 hour rule, for example. I have heard it said that one can become exceedingly knowledgeable about many things with 1,000 hours of study. One thousand hours for you and I as newbie bloggers will leave us much more talented than we were at hour five. The same is true for learning to drive a car, learning a foreign language, or playing softball.

I do believe that Gladwell is right about building upon successions of advantage. Small advantages can grow into large advantages. As a former venture capitalist, for example, I did some research on the probability of someone getting financing from a venture capital company. The odds are small that you will get any attention at all, perhaps one in 100 at the time. But if you could get attention to your idea, the investor began to help you think it through and your odds went to one in five. Similar numbers apply to getting your book published or even finding the perfect date with an on-line profile.

In my own personal life, I can see much of the trend that Gladwell discusses. People often ask me how I got from being a minority kid from a low income family in a steel town to the point of being visible to the President of the United States and appointed to be Superintendent of the United States Mint Philadelphia, the world’s largest Mint.

I can assure you that I did not start my youth with that as an aspiration. However, after a couple close scrapes with death, I did know that I did not want to be a steelworker all of my life. I had above average academic skills and was named a National Achievement Scholar by National Merit Corporation. That lead to a degree in engineering from Purdue University, which lead to sharing an office with an engineer who worked on a taskforce doing operations research, sort of a combination of engineering, operational planning, and finance in a refinery. When he was temporarily moved to fill another critical role, I was assigned to step up to fill in for him because we had become friends and I had been interested in what he was doing.

We discovered that I had a talent for this stuff and I was nominated to fill a position as a financial analyst in a new division that was being formed to train some oil people in understanding non-oil related business as a possible diversification strategy. I assumed a managerial role and officer title in a very small subsidiary of a very large corporation. This created eventually an opportunity to back up my trial and error education in business by going to a little school down the street, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

So when the head of the search team looking to fill the position of the President’s appointee to Superintendent of the United States Mint Philadelphia came to town, he and his team talked with engineers, and oil company executives, and bar association chancellors, and bankers, and the Dean of Wharton. One of the things they asked was if they knew any minority person who might be a good candidate for them to interview since the President wanted to make some non-traditional appointments of minorities.

I was not on the top of anyone’s list, but I was on everyone’s list. That got me the first interview. And that interview was much like the eye to eye meeting with a venture capitalist or the endorsement of a literary agent for your book. It changed my odds.

And interestingly enough, my advantage was I had been a steel worker as a kid. I had worked on the bottom rung as a laborer in exactly the same type of heavy industrial environment as the Mint. My ultimate advantage was the disadvantage that got me started on my course of self-improvement.

Surely there is much more detail to how finally getting noticed led to my selection, nomination and ultimate Senate confirmation to become the 16th Superintendent, the youngest in the history of the United States and the first African American. Yet, the point is clear to me that my life correlates exactly to Gladwell’s hypothesis. I worked hard in one way or another every day of my life, but working hard was not sufficient to make me step into a small place in history. Everyone around me worked hard.

Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog

The high art for our most bountiful future is being wise in choosing those partners
for all parts of our lives, especially those with whom we can share a single and singular goal,
bring different talents, temperament and resources to the table
(thus testing our capacity to work well with someone who does not act “right” – like us).

-Josh

Nice post. With regards to Gladwell mentioning that “Poor children are less likely to succeed than those raised in rich or middle-class families” I wonder how Charlie Chaplin fits the bill? I don’t know whether he engaged in his pantomime skills for 10,000 hours or not, he porobably did. But Gladwell seems to be saying that you need 10k hours PLUS those other factors that you mentioned above.

However, Chaplin was poor. He didn’t start earning money until he was older and working for Fred Karno in the U.K. So perhaps one can conclude that there are exceptions to the rule? And perhaps there are many other exceptions too?

And is the 10,000 to be a master or just successful? Did Macauly Culkin put in 10,000 on film sets before become famous? Today’s reality TV “stars” certainly didn’t put in this amount of time and some of them have gone on to cash in on their initial fame.

Being “primed” by multiple, difficult situations to be wary in the next is an inescapable reaction in our primitive triune brain. It takes an enormous effort to be open and present in the moment, to see what is happening in this situation (not the past ones) and to look for a sweet spot of mutual benefit where you might be supportive of each other – George Leonard believes this is a sign of mastery in ones life….

It may not take 10,000 hours to learn it yet some researchers have found (re Daniel Goleman, et al) that monks and others who have meditated 10,000 hours (how ironic it is the same number as Gladwell cited) are considerably less reactionary to negative stimuli in a situation.

• often in the company of compatible colleagues…

• with whom they achieve greater success than they could alone …

• and can savor their shared success together.

Be safe, well and happy,
Maxine