Book Review: Outliers: The Story of Success

I finished the book Outliers last week. What a great book.

Outliers book (my copy)

It illustrates the idea of how circumstances and events play a crucial role in people’s success. In other words, many of the factors that allowed some of the most successful people in the world to succeed had nothing to do with any action they took.

That doesn’t mean that they didn’t work hard or that they’re not skillful or smart. It simply means that they had no control of the advantages they had early on that would later turn into opportunities.

In his book, Malcolm Gladwell tells us stories about really smart and skillful individuals who have not been able to succeed like others who aren’t as smart or skillful. His careful research exposed that for hockey players in Canada, it really matters what month they were born in. Or how culture played a big part of why there were so many airplane crashes for Korean Air.

If I had to explain the book in a sentence or two I’d say that the book is about taking full advantage of the opportunities given to you and that who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from.