Malcolm Gladwell & Outliers: The Story of Success

It’s a common misconception that successful people are simply born that way. That some of us come into the world with the ability to be Shakespeare in their DNA. Whereas there can be something to be said about natural talent, no one truly great has ever gotten where they are today without putting in hours of hard work and effort. Malcolm Gladwell explores this idea of 10,000 hours of practice to be successful in his book “Outliers” Throughout the novel, Gladwell sprinkles invaluable knowledge that not only explains how certain individuals have become so successful but also outlines what can be done to ensure more opportunities for people to become successful.

Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.

Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.

Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.

Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.

“I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.”

How do you use where you came from to be successful in your daily writings? In your life?