Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I read this book after it was recommended to me by my cousin.  She was in DC for a work conference, and we met and had a wonderful evening of catching up and getting to know each other.  Turns out, we both share a passion for a reading.  So it didn't take long for recommendations to fly back and forth.

Outliers:  The Story of Success explores the factors that set people up for greatness.  He explores this phenomenon in several settings, with very enlightening conclusions.  Long story short - success is part talent, part timing, part practice, and part history.

I really enjoyed the chapter entitled "The 10,000-Hour Rule."  Do you know what the Beatles, Bill Gates, and Mozart have in common?  They all put a lot of time into learning their craft.  Much more time than any of their peers.  No one would ever claim that they didn't have an enormous amount of natural talent.  But that talent alone wasn't the secret to their success.  It was the time they put into honing and developing that talent.  Note to self:  This is one area in which I've never excelled.  I'm a hard worker and enjoy learning new things.  But I've never focused that time in one area.  I'm more of a Renaissance woman - fairly good at lots of things.  Which I suppose is a type of success.  But there's really no way around it.  To have the kind of success these men did, you need to decide where to focus...and then put in the time. 

I also liked the chapter "Rice Patties and Math Tests."  I liked it for two reasons.  First, Gladwell has a fascinating (and believable) theory that explains why Asians excel at math.  (It's based on the way their language handles mathematics.  Pretty cool actually.)  Second, he explores the different approaches Eastern and Western cultures have for education and the impact that approach has on the children of each culture.  They're both rooted in agriculture.  But the appraoches are as different as rice patties and corn fields.  In Eastern cultures, students are expected to put in long hours year round.  Gladwell quotes a farmer who states: "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."  Before dawn.  360 days a year.  That's the kind of focus these cultures place on education as well as tending rice patties.  And it shows in the academic achievements of their students.

I also enjoyed Gladwell's conclusion at the end of the book.  I don't want to steal his thunder, so I'll leave it there in hopes that you pick it up and read it for yourself.  It's worth it.  (And it's an easy read, so it won't take you that long to conquer.)