Outliers The Story of Success By Malcolm Gladwell is the first book that I have completed reading since my break.
Amongst the many nuggets that I got from this book. The biggest inspiration is the idea of 10,000 hour.
In the book, Outlier is defined as:
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
It's been more than two weeks since I have drafted this post. However, I never found time for this. And soon, I got on to the next book. While I continue greedily on this hobby of mine, I hope to starting sharing the nuggets I've got from the Outlier.
Chapter one begins with The Matthew Effect. It's interesting how this book illustrates the biblical verse (Matt 13:12), "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."
It is those who are successful [,] who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It's the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It's the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it's the biggest nine-and ten-years old who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call "accumulative advantage." The professional hockey player starts out a little bit better than his peers. And that little difference leads to an opportunity that makes that difference a bit bigger, and that edge in turn leads to another opportunity, which makes the initially small difference bigger still - and on and on until the hockey player is a genuine outlier [pg 30, 31]
Malcolm Gladwell quoted how the sociologist, Rober Merton famously called this phenomenon the Matthew effect. Before, I recall questioning myself and asking why it is so unfair? Shouldn't more be given to those who do not have? For example, the rich is already so rich, why shouldn't more money be given to the poor so that there will be less poverty and the society will benefit as a whole. However, reading the text off the Outliers, I couldn't agree any lesser how this Matthew Effect is indeed a a true reflection of how it is in the society. Or, the society is showing how true the biblical words are? Reading on, I do not know if,, I have to accept this harsh truth, or, agree that this could only be the way.
*** to be continued ***
