Read a Book or Two, or Twenty

Here is an interesting read; Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Although he may look kind of like a goofy guy with his Fro, the man knows how to engage readers with both facts and opinions that keep the narrative flowing and informative.

Outliers, "The Story of Success", focuses on successful individuals and the paths that led them beyond the pane of ordinary existence. Malcolm's argument (and a good one at that) is that successful people are genetically different, they aren't predetermined celebrities, they instead have just been able to capitalize on fortunate circumstances.

Malcolm uses many (and I mean many) real world situations to drive his point home. From Junior league hockey players to Bill Gates, Malcolm Gladwell illustrates just how these people became successful and shows that if it weren't for some fortunate timing and events that these people would be classified as simply "normal." Malcolm does a great job informing the reader and drawing out his hypothesis with great examples, a good motivational read.

One thing worth mentioning is Malcolm's 100,000 hour theory. He claims that if anyone practices any certain activity for 100,000 hours, that person would then become an expert. Very interesting indeed. He uses the Beatles as an example stating that in the early stages of their careers they would play in Hamburg for eight hours a day, 5 days a week. By the time they made it across the pond they had already put in an incredible amount of stage time and thus became superstars. So start practicing whatever you love to do, 100,000 hours is no easy chore.