Why do some get everything and others nothing

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

In one of his most famous books, Geniuses and Outsiders. Why is it all for some and nothing for others? Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell questions the popular notion that success is personal merit. Anna Baibakova, editor-in-chief of the service of book ideas, shares with the readers of Lifehacker Gladwell's important conclusions about the nature of success and geniuses who are forced to remain outsiders.

All the topics touched upon in the book "Geniuses and Outsiders" are connected by one basic idea: we reduce the reasons for the success of people exclusively to their personal qualities, overlooking many not so obvious, but no less significant factors. This is a rather unusual view of success, different from that promoted by popular books on self-development and motivation, the main message of which can be reduced to the phrase: "Believe in yourself, try, never give up, and you will succeed."

So let's take a look at the key ideas of Geniuses and Outsiders.

1. It is impossible to explain someone's success only by personal merit. Opportunity and luck play an equally important role

Explaining the success of a person solely by his own merits, we discount people whom we consider hopeless. And this is like thinking that the tallest oak in the forest became so only because it grew out of the most tenacious acorn, without taking into account other equally significant factors:

that this acorn had to go to a fertile place,
that other trees did not hide the sun from him,
and the fact that neither the woodcutters nor the animals got to him.

The great importance of favorable opportunities in achieving success is confirmed by the analysis of the birthdays of Canadian hockey players. It was discovered by chance that most of them, including members of the national league, were born in January, February and March, and the least at the end of the year.

This phenomenon was not associated with mysticism or astrology. The explanation was simple. The fact is that in Canada the selection for age hockey groups ends on January 1. The child will be included in the group for nine, even if he turns ten on January 2. And he will play in the same group with the child, who will celebrate his tenth birthday in December. And at this age, a difference of 12 months means a noticeable difference in physical fitness, which, accordingly, gives significant advantages to children born at the beginning of the year.

Taller and stronger kids get into the teams of the best coaches, they have to train more and play more matches, and as a result they become great hockey players.

However, most people are convinced that success is solely due to talent and personal merit, and therefore, no one wants to try to look closely at those who are considered insufficiently capable.

2. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a professional, which is the equivalent of 3 hours of practice a day for 10 years

The book Geniuses and Outsiders popularized a study conducted in the early 1990s under the direction of psychologist Anders Ericsson at the Academy of Music in Berlin. This study found that the best students in the academy exercised more than others:

by the age of nine - six hours a week,
by twelve - eight o'clock,
by fourteen - sixteen …

And so until the age of 20, when they began to study more than 30 hours a week. Thus, by age 20, the best students had a total of up to 10,000 hours of study. Average students had 8,000 hours and laggards 4,000.

Then Erickson and his colleagues found a similar pattern among professional pianists, each of whom had 10,000 hours of practice by age 20, and amateur pianists, who never practiced more than three hours a week.

Erickson's research is also interesting in that he could not find a single person who has achieved a high level of skill, who would not make serious efforts and exercise less than his peers. On the other hand, there were no those who, working with all their might, did not get ahead.

Based on other studies of professional competence, scientists have deduced the number of hours leading to mastery in any field (music, sports, programming, and so on).

It takes 10,000 hours to become a master, which is the equivalent of about three hours of practice a day or 20 hours a week for 10 years.

However, it is important to note that in order to work out such a number of hours, young people need support from the environment, participation in special programs, or some kind of happy coincidence that would allow them to fully devote themselves to learning.

3. A high level of intelligence does not guarantee success in life

In the 1920s, Stanford University psychology professor Lewis Theremin began researching the life path of about one and a half thousand children with outstanding intellectual abilities, which he measured using modified Alfred Binet tests. The IQ of each of the selected children ranged from 140 to 200. Theremin tracked the life of his wards and documented all the significant events in their lives. With his research, he wanted to prove that IQ plays a major role in a person's success.

Despite the fact that some of his geniuses have achieved some success in business, science, writing, jurisprudence, few have become a figure on a national scale.

Some had decent incomes, but not fabulous profits, and some were generally considered losers. None of the carefully selected geeks have won the Nobel Prize. Conversely, William Shockley and Luis Alvarez, whom Theremin's colleagues did not include in the sample, considering they were not intelligent enough, became these laureates.

It turns out that in order to achieve success, it is enough to have a high, but not phenomenal IQ, equal to about 120 points, and all subsequent points do not bring much benefit. Also, a huge role is played by a favorable environment in which a person should grow and develop.

4. Practical intelligence is much more important than IQ

But what distinguishes successful people from unsuccessful people if they have the same IQ? It's about the so-called practical intelligence - understanding what, when and to whom to say, and knowing how to achieve maximum results with the help of these words. Such everyday ingenuity should be formed under external influence. First of all - under the influence of the family.

As an illustration of the importance of the role of practical intelligence in achieving success, Malcolm Gladwell contrasts the stories of two people: the famous physicist Robert Oppenheimer, under whose leadership the atomic bomb was created, and one of the smartest people on Earth - Chris Langan, whose IQ estimate varies between 195-210 …

The environment in which Robert Oppenheimer, the son of an artist and successful entrepreneur, grew up, developed the ability to forge connections, negotiate with others and resolve difficult situations. A unique case is when Robert Oppenheimer did not receive a serious punishment for trying to poison (!) His university teacher. The university administration gave him a probationary period and sent him to a psychiatrist for treatment. And even the presence of such a fact in his biography did not prevent Oppenheimer from becoming the head of the most important military project to develop the atomic bomb.

On the contrary, the life story of a smarter man like Chris Langan shows that intelligence without the necessary social skills will not help to achieve success. Chris grew up in a poor family with many children and was often attacked by his drunken stepfather. He was deprived of attention and care, and from childhood life taught him to keep his distance, trust no one and be independent. Despite the fact that he understood many subjects better than his teachers, he could not establish contact with any of them. And this led to the fact that he had to leave the university and work in low-paying jobs. When Gladwell was writing the book, Chris Langan was living on a farm and doing his own research. His work was almost never published.

5. The culture we belong to largely determines our behavior

Culture can have a huge impact on the fate of people: lead to a misunderstanding of each other or give certain advantages.

The power distance index is of great interest. It shows how a particular culture relates to hierarchy, to what extent people agree with unequal empowerment, whether members of society have respect for the elderly, whether those in power have special privileges.

Countries with a high value of the power distance index include, for example, India, China, Russia, France, Korea, Brazil. Countries with low - Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Australia.

Also, cultures differ in the level of isolation on the scale of "collectivism - individualism". The United States occupies an extreme position on the side of individualism. It is not surprising that the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not have a universal health care system.

Cultural heritage also manifests itself in unexpected areas such as mathematical ability.

Why are representatives of Asian countries often ahead of others in math tests? According to Malcolm Gladwell, the explanation is simple. The logic of Asian languages and the easier way of naming numbers compared to other languages initially contributes to better learning of Asian children.

A four-year-old Chinese child can count to 40, while American children at this age only count to 15.

All of these seemingly insignificant factors affect our perception, behavior and the way we interact. They can both give us advantages and deprive us of the opportunities available in other cultures.

However, as Malcolm Gladwell points out, culture is not a prison you can't get out of. Experiments show that a person is able to try on new behaviors and change his personality, which frees him from a fatalistic outlook on life. But before deciding where to go, you need to realize where we came from.

Final comments

The book "Geniuses and Outsiders" became a bestseller immediately after its release. And deservedly so. Malcolm Gladwell is a talented journalist, he expresses his theory not dryly and abstractly, but through stories, each of which is interesting in its own way.

On the one hand, the book offers a somewhat pessimistic view of the nature of success. But on the other hand, her conclusions can be used in practice: