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Outliers

 


An outlier is an outstanding person. He does not belong to the herd because of certain qualitative characteristics like exceptional intellect or skill in a particular domain. Albert Einstein was an outlier, for example. Leonardo da Vinci, another example. Carl Sagan, yet another.

Outliers stand out of the herd like a tall oak in a forest. Is it some genetic factor that shapes the outlier? Is his exceptional quality inborn? Well, not entirely. The tallest oak has its origin in a quality acorn, no doubt. But there are many other factors that contributed towards its healthy growth like availability of sunlight (no other trees blocked it), deep and rich soil, and not being espied by a lumberjack.

Bill Gates wouldn’t have reached where he did unless his parents provided the conducive environment for his growth and development. When they realised that young Bill was getting bored of his school, they took him out and sent him to Lakeside, a private school that catered to the elite families of the place. A year after Bill joined it, the school started a computer club. It was the year 1968. Most colleges, let alone schools, didn’t have computer clubs in those days. Bill Gates was fortunate. He got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968.

Managing a computer club was a tremendous economic challenge in those days. Bill’s school succumbed before the challenge in spite of the efforts by the rich parents to sustain the computer club. Bill was lucky to have a friend in his elite school whose father was one of the founders of Computer Center Corporation (C-Cubed) at the University of Washington. After the school, Bill attended C-Cubed and spent his evenings with computers.

C-Cubed went bankrupt eventually. Bill and his friends succeeded soon enough to latch themselves onto an outfit called ISI (Information Sciences Inc.) which agreed to let them have free computer time in exchange for working on a piece of software that could be used to automate company payrolls. Bill and his friends spent 1575 hours on the ISI mainframe in seven months’ time. The computer became Bill’s passion and the sure steppingstone to his success.

But was it just luck that led Bill Gates to his success? He was lucky to be born in a wealthy family that could afford him an elite school. He was lucky to get a friend whose father was a founder of C-Cubed. He was lucky to be taken on by ISI.

It wasn’t all luck, however. The boy worked for whatever he got. He went out of the normal ways to get his opportunities. 1575 hours in seven months translates into 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. He did that much work apart from his regular schoolwork.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the celebrated book titled Outliers, propounds what he calls ‘the 10,000-hour rule”. If you want to be a maestro in any field, you need to put in about 10,000 hours of hard work before you emerge a winner. Bill Gates did that. The Beatles did that. Every successful person or endeavour put in about 10,000 hours of preparatory labour before they became the stars in their respective domains.

Success requires both: the environment and your hard work. Hard work is your choice. Your environment is a gift, your luck. As Thomas Gray sang long ago, a lot of flowers are born in the desert where their beauty and fragrance are lost to the desolate air. That is their fate.

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Previous post in this series: Naïve Realism

Coming up on Monday: Paradigm Shift

Comments

  1. You have rightly summarised..success requires both hard work and the environment
    Ruchi Nasa https://thevagabond.me

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  2. Outliers is a great read, your post summarised it so well.

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  3. Interesting read! I have heard of the 10.000-hour rule mentioned in the art world as well. True that so many factors go into the making of the Outliers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 10,000-hour rule is applicable almost everywhere if one is to be an outlier.

      Delete
  4. This was a beautiful read. Outliners are made and not just born. And its always a combination of luck , labour and talent that makes one stand out. Thank you for sharing this.

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  5. There is definitely no escaping hard work. I don't think one can achieve anything without that.
    My latest post: O for Obbattu

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    Replies
    1. No escape from hard work unless you are a politician in India in which case you need to be a fraud.

      Delete
  6. Absolutely loved this post. Had my son read it too to make him understand the rewards of hard work
    Deepika

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    Replies
    1. I have a strong intuition that the present generation will need to start learning the meaning of hard work. Sorry if I sound like Cassandra.

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  7. Outlier`s is one of my fav books. I am a strong supporter of hard work and have realized the value of it over the years. Talent may give you a head start but it is hard work that will take you through.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for another lucid post.
    I read Gladwells' Outliers a few years ago and the 10,000 hour rule he mentions inspired me to hunker down and write regularly. There's no alternative to hard work.

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  9. I completely agree with the last para of the post. Unfortunately in today's world hard work ofcourse can lead you to float and sail through... But people are resorting to "smart" work to go till the outliers level!

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    Replies
    1. Smart work is fine where it works. Mastery has no short cuts, however.

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  10. Wow. I didn't know these details about Bill Gates's life. The stories about him shared on social media underscore his hard work, and none mention the fantastic support that he had. It's true hard work, skills can go unnoticed without luck/ environment to support.

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  11. Thank you for your post. This is excellent information for me. keep up it! led light strip for automatic gate

    ReplyDelete

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