Outstanding Outliers

I was excited to read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I had heard a lot about the book and its analysis of what makes certain ordinary individuals stand out in extraordinary ways. Although there are things out of our control (such as the year we are born), there are certain aspects of our lives that we can harness to maximize our experience (such as, again, the year we are born).

His hair deserves its very own post. Amazing.

As you can tell from the title of this blog, I am Beatles fan. The writeup that Gladwell did on the keys to their success was of particular interest to me. I knew the origin story of the band fairly well; they got their start in Hamburg playing at sleazy clubs. However, I did not know that the sets they played in these venues were inordinately long. Eight hours to be exact. Gladwell includes a quote from John Lennon, who gives the length of the band's sets as the reason behind them developing a new way of playing their songs. Although the majority of their songs were covers from other bands, they performed onstage about twelve hundred times before Ed Sullivan had even heard of him. This insane amount of practice allowed them to become highly disciplined at what they did.

However, all this practice would be for nothing if they had not had incredible luck with breaks. Gladwell states that the Fab Four are similar to Bill Gates and the tycoons of the 1860s and 70s in that they were the right age at the right place at the right time.

I liked how the author stated that these two factors have worked in tangent throughout history to develop incredible outcomes: timeliness and talent. Which got me thinking. What is the world in need of right now? What skills am I gaining and what talents am I sharpening to help fill that need?

I took an entrepreneurship lecture series a year ago. One of the guest lecturers said that she owed her very impressive success to asking herself how she could harness her skills to fill a need she saw in her industry. Her short attention span and need for organization led her to develop a faster filing system for a medical office she worked in. Eventually that system turned into a company which was purchased several years later for nine digits.

While I don't see any unfulfilled needs quite like that in the food industry, I will keep my eyes open. And keep practicing in the meantime.