Are you an Outlier?

Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink ) and now the author of Outliers has surpassed himself with his latest book.

As an avid reader I managed to read it in a just a few sittings, and the gist of the book was that luck, when you were born, and the amount of effort you put into something were the main determinants for success. Yes, but you probably know that already.

Why did Bill Gates do so well? Mainly because by the time he was heading off to Harvard he had a huge unfair advantage, he had been tinkering with software development for many years, at a school that had invested heavy in IT (rare in those days) and many evenings each week he would head down to the University of Washington to get involved in certain projects (whilst he was in school!)

Gladwell argues brilliantly what we already know - hard work = success, but he goes much further using his examples, clearly highlighting that hard work alone will not ensure success. His belief is if you do a specific task for at least 10,000 hours, by that stage you will have become an expert in a subject and success will follow. By the time Bill Gates was off to Harvard, he had around 10,000 hours of software expertise, a rarity in the early 70's in the US!

Did you know that there is a particular year to have been born in to be a mega successful software entrepreneur?

To find the answer and many more go read it, you won't be disappointed! Very Inspiring indeed! If you want to buy it you can click here!