Outliers

Outliers explains why “the self-made man” is a myth and what truly lies behind the success of the best people in their field, which is often a series of lucky events, rare opportunities and other external factors, which are out of our control.

To debunk the myth of the “self-made man”, which might be the most popular myth of our time, Gladwell first looked at how much your skills really influence where you end up in life.

Of course practice matters, and so do genetic predispositions in sports, but there are limits to their influence. As it turns out, once you cross a certain threshold with your skills and abilities, any extra won’t do you much good.

For example, since the 1980s, the average height of an NBA basketball player has been 6′ 7″. Even if you grow to be 7′ tall, those additional inches won’t give you a huge advantage over other players.

Gladwell also looked at law school students and their performance. Some law schools lower their admission requirements for racial minorities, and even though these students tend to perform worse than their non-minority peers both before and in law school, this gap completely disappears once they graduate.

They make the same valuable contributions, get paid just as much and receive as many honors as their peers. Why?

Because once you’ve reached a certain level of legal expertise, other factors start to take over and influence your career, like social skills, how good your network is, and even catching a lucky break.

Remember when you saw an 8th grader in high school date a 10th grader? You were probably shocked! “He’s 2 years older than her, that’s insane!” – I still remember the comments, it was a huge deal in our school. However, when you’re 40 and take your wife to dinner with the neighbors, nobody would be surprised to hear she’s 38, 42, or even several more years older or younger than you. That’s because relative age matters, especially when you’re young. How old you are compared to your peers can give you a huge advantage or disadvantage, for example in sports. Gladwell found out that most professional Canadian hockey players, who end up in the NHL, are born in the first half of the year. In fact, twice as many have birthdays in the first quarter as in the last. That’s because the annual cutoff date for youth teams is January 1st, meaning kids born in December have to compete with their friends who are almost a year older than they are. When you’re 8 years old, you stand no chance against a 9 year old in terms of strength and speed – the difference is…