Outliers - The Story of Success By Malcolm Gladwell

I just finished reading "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell.



This is by far better than his hippie, new age voodoo book called "Blink".

The long and short of the book:" hardwork + initiative+ ambition +(opportunity/family background) = Success."

The whole premise of the book is that the story of the bootstrapping lone ranger that single handedly overcomes life's obstacles and rises to the pinnacle of life, is well, a myth.

As I read his book I had the uncanny sensation that I was reading my own life story especially when he recounts the stories of two individuals Chris Langan and Oppenheimer.

Both these men were geniuses.

You probably heard of Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.


You may have never heard about Chris Langan and that is the whole point.


Chris Langan was born a genius. He had taught himself how to read by the age of three. He breezed through school never having to take notes or prepare for exams like us mere mortals.


He liked academia.


Where do you think he ended up.


In a bar working as a bouncer!


The difference between the two was that Chris Langan lacked practical intelligence.


Social psychologists define practical intelligence as the ability to say the right thing at the right time to the right person.

I define social intelligence as "Street Smarts".

One telling example of the lack of social intelligence in Chris Langan was an anecdote where he argues with his Calculus professor and is rebuffed by the professor who says that Chris Langan lacks the intelligence to appreciate mathematics.

In the entire conversation Chris never managed to convey to the professor how good he was at Calculus and how much he loved to engage in its discussions!

In an equally telling example there is a stroy about how Oppenheimer manages to get away with just a probation after he was caught attempting to poison his tutor in college.

But how does this story relate to the argument that the book weaves. Here is how. Oppenheimer's father was a wealthy businessman. From a young age he was exposed to the wheeling dealing and learnt much about human psychology.

Chris Langan's father was a drunkard who used to beat his kids. Chris and his siblings grew up deeply distrustful of authority.

It was Chris's upbringing that turned out to be his undoing.

Malcolm cites cutting edge research to stress the importance of practical intellience.

I cite my life lessons.

Sadly my story is more similar to Chris's than Oppenheimer's.


Be warned, a high IQ is not enough.

In fact Malcolm cites research that proves that beyond a certain level, I believe 120, IQ does not really matter.

Another environmental factor is the culture of the society we live in. Malcolm goes on to give the best explanation of how culture affects us that I had ever read anywhere in a fascinating chapter titled "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes".

There is an account here of how often Korean Air was crashing its planes. If not for the tragic results this account is comical.The main culprit for the crashes was culture.

Korea is what is called a high PDI (Power Distance Index) culture. Because co pilots and flight engineers were so deferential to the captain, the highest authority on the plane, there was poor communication and co ordination in the cockpit.

Once this was mitigated Korean Air crashes reduced dramatically.

I am a project manager so team work and communication is very important. I can't help but think of the outcome if we were to apply a similar mitigation strategy to corporate life. How much better would the project success rate be.

Finally this is the book that explains why some Asian cultures have a very strong work ethic. You can blame it on rice paddy cultivation. This kind of farming requires intensive manual labor and sophisticated planning and co ordination. Japanese farmers and Chinese farmers in the Pearl river delta therefore developed a culture of rising early every day and putting in long and intense hours required to successfully farm the rice paddies. This culture created the work ethic that has put some Asians and Asian countries on the ascend.

Hmm! Rice is the staple crop in South India as well but the author , as is the case with many westerners, is predominantly focussed on China.

Not in career development books but in this one did I find a great formula on what makes for a satisfying career, a satisfying business and a satisfying everything .

The formula ->"Complexity, Autonomy and a Relationship between reward and effort"

Read this book to get a 50,000 ft perspective on the major revolutions in human history and how some people were well placed to benefit from it. This will sensitize us to any revolutions we are already living through.



Read this book to understand that the relationship between an individual and success in life is far more than about just the individual. It is about riding the wave of opportunistic family upbringing and being placed at the right location at the right time.


Read this book if you want to get depressed about its underlying theme of fatalism. In one chapter Malcolm claims to predict one's success based on one's birth year and family background. How depressing can that be.



Hard work, ambition and initiative are necessary but apparently not sufficient.


Malcolm does however say that hard work pays especially working really hard. The chapters that deal with the 10,000 hour rule and the rice paddy cultivation allude to this.


In the end Malcolm leaves us hanging on whether hard work by itself is enough or not. He does not really clarify that.



Key Phrases That I Like In The Book



The Matthew Effect - "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath"



Chinese Proverb - "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich". (What a fantastic work ethic!)

The Phenomenon Called Eben Pagan

Recently I attended the Guru Mastermind Content Summit in LA held by Eben Pagan.

There were about 500 of us. From all over the USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, Switzerland and Australia.

It was held on January 23 and 24 and was worth every penny of my money and every second of my time.

In fact it was worth more than that.

I first came across Eben Pagan as Eben Pagan the Internet Marketer. But quickly realized he was different from your usual Yanik Silver, Stephen Pierce and Rich Shefren type, not to demean anybody at all.

Eben believes that a stronger "You" will lead to a stronger business and therefore he focuses on a holistic approach. His "Wakeup Productive" product is one stunning example of this. He does not just teach about Internet Marketing, very substantive as that is, but also about life.

In fact we were given a very brief preview of his new product "Cool,Calm and Collected' on stress relief. I will most likely purchase this. This guy oozes talent.

His lucidity and profundity make for an almost hypnotic message.

I liked the content of the summit, it is about creating information products.

I will post the highlights of the 2 days conference to my blog soon.

But why am I going gaga over Eben Pagan and his conference?

Have I really achieved a difference?

Not yet but soon.

In one of the exercises he made us do, I had to write a pitch using one his frameworks.

I dreaded to begin, nothing seemed to flow from my mind.

But once I started I ended up with some of my best content. I will be creating a pitch page out of that exercise that will take my landing page development to the next level.

I am really excited about that.

Keep in mind that it is tough to get his attention. I was rebuffed three times at the conference when I attempted to ask him a question. Women have a better chance of getting his attention!

It is only going to get worse. It appears that at subsequent summits there will be more guest speakers and so we will see less of him on the stage.

Also we had to resort to extreme note taking. No handouts or reading material for the attendees!


Nevertheless watch out for this young man. He seems to read everything and know all the wise guys (both the serious and the fun ones). This guy is super smart and is only going to get bigger... much bigger.

What I learned at Disney World, Orlando, Florida

We visited the park in the last week of December 2008.

The flight tickets were expensive, the rental car was expensive, the park tickets…exorbitant, the lines long!

We learnt an expensive lesson that you can all benefit from. After all why be the fool when I am one already!

Immediately obvious were the huge crowds everywhere. You had to stand in line for 25 minutes just to grab a vegetable roll at a food stand!

But there was something more subtle that I noticed, Disney runs an efficient organization. I noticed a lot of Disney employees picking up trash and keeping the park spick and span despite the huge crowds.

Also impressive was how everything kept humming. Once you go on the various rides and attend the various shows you begin to appreciate the enormous number of moving parts in the form of toys and other gadgets. However not one of them was malfunctioning. Keep in mind that the parks operate long hours sometimes up to 1 AM into the morning and then reopen at 8 AM .There is very little recovery time for the moving parts.

Crowd control was another great Disney trait. We had to wait 2.5 hours for some of the rides, but the wait was bearable because the line kept moving, in myriad serpentine forms. The movement created an illusion of progress and helped us keep our sanity. We had two kids in tow, one 3 years and the other 2 and they lasted the entire length of the queue. For one of the attractions, the fireworks show called ‘Fantasmic’ the crowds were so large, it was a 6000 people stadium, and we were so far back in the queue that we never expected to make it to the show in time. But turns out not only did we make it, we got to park our strollers in the designated spot and find good seats all before the show started.

But please try to minimize your interaction with Disney employees if you can. I had an encounter with a rude employee at the City Hall in Magic Kingdom that ruined a part of our park experience.

Aah...Disney world…great operations but rude people. Why can’t they just fire the rude ones? Are they in business for their employees or for the customers?

Do not visit Disney in the week between Christmas and New Years. It is not worth the hype about special holiday decorations. And do not bring kids around the age of 3 to the park. Of the four days that we visited the various parks the most fun my 3 year old son had was when he played with my friend’s son at their house!Kids that age just do not get it. They miss out most of the fun. And the long lines mean we the parents do not have a chance either.

Do not plan 4 consecutive days at the parks. You end up spending atleast 8 to 10 hours daily at the park. While the rush will keep you going it will eventually make for a very tiring vacation. Plan a break between the park visits. There are many great beaches not too far from Orlando which will make for a nice departure.

If you only to plan to visit the Disney parks in the Orlando area then consider booking into a hotel with free shuttle services to the parks. The car rentals plus the 12 dollar daily parking fee quickly add up to a tidy sum.

Of all the parks Magic Kingdom was the best, it was truly magical. Of course this is a purely personal and subjective assessment. Animal Kingdom was more like a zoo plus it closes early because the animals chose not stay up late for our convenience. So plan on getting there early if you still wish to visit it. Disney studios is not bad but it is more for bigger kids and adults.

Also if this is your first visit with the family and if you are there only for a few days then it is not worth spending 50 dollars more for the ‘hopper’ option. You have enough to keep yourself more than busy in each park.