It took me awhile to start to read this book, but once I started I couldn't put it down. It is SO interesting! It changes your perspective on success. Also makes me wonder a little about the future, and social media - being someone working towards a career in basically social media, I wonder which year is the optimal year to be born. This may be a little confusing so take the time to read the points - you won't regret it!
Pages are in brackets!
out-li-er \noun 1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body 2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample
INTRO
No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community. (10)
They had to look beyond the individual. (10)
They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are. (11)
PART 1 - OPPORTUNITY
If we look at young kids, in kindergarten and first grade, the teachers are confusing maturity with ability. (29)
The 10,000 - Hour Rule (35)
Achievement is talent plus preparation. (38)
The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder. (39)
Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. (40)
"But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery." (40)
Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness. (41)
Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good. (42)
But before he could become an expert, someone had to give him the opportunity to learn how to be an expert. (46)
What did virtually all of those opportunities have in common? - Extra time to practice. (54)
Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up. (67)
The Trouble with Geniuses - Part 1 (69)
all because of a brain that appears to defy the description (70)
"There is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ, except possibly his morals," (75)
extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity. (76)
IQ - In general, the higher your score, the more education you'll. get, the more money you're likely to make, and - believe it or not - the longer you'll live. (79)
Intelligence is a threshold. (80)
The Trouble with Geniuses - Part 2 (91)
When you accept a paycheque from these people, [Universities] it is going to come down to what you want to do and what you feel is right versus what the man says you can do to receive another pay check. (97)
"knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect." (101)
"Its the culture that you find yourself in that determines that [success]. (110)
In the end, only one thing mattered: family background. (111)
The Three Lessons of Joe From (116)
Successful people don't do it alone. Where they come from matters. They're products of particular places and environments. (119)
To have been born before 1911 is to have been demographically unlucky. (132)
The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with. (137)
It was clothes. (140)
Complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work. - Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful. (150)
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. (150)
If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (151)
PART TWO - LEGACY
Harlan, Kentucky (161)
"culture of honour" (167)
Whatever mechanism passes on speech patterns probably passes on behavioural and emotional patterns as well. (175)
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes (177)
The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication. (184)
Our ability to succeed at what we do is powerfully bound up with where we're from. (209)
Rice Paddies and Math Tests (224)
"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich." (224)
Working really hard is what successful people do. (239)
Its not so much ability as attitude. (246)
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. (246)
Marita's Bargain (250)
Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. (267)
A Jamaican Story (270)
The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all. (285)