Outliers book review by us

Malcom Gladwell who has already established himself as some one who is out there to shatter some well established myths after writting ''The Tipping Point" and ''Blink"' comes up with another great work called "Outliers". In this books he challenges the fact that all the great achievers like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, John Lennon etc achieved great success because they were born with extra-ordinary capablities and they did it all by themselves.

In fact he goes on to prove that these great achievers were no more ordinary than us. What really made the difference was that they were presented opportunities at right time and were prepared to take full advantage of the same. Success also depends on a lot of factors like the culture, society and time that we are born in. As a matter of fact, most of the great innovations in IT happened from Silicon Valley and if you look at the Birth Dates of people like Gates, Ellison, Scott Mcnealy, Vinod Dham etc you will be shocked to see that their birthdays have a striking pattern. There is an interesting established rule of 10,000 hours behind all these gentleman, which the books explains in great depth.

The message of the book is very brief and clear. Let us examine all the stories and myth that surround an achiever. Success and Achievment is more than an individual's result of hard work or ability. There are several external factors which also help an achiever directly or indirectly. Malcom Gladwell however does not say if this is what he means "Destiny" or ''Fate". He also does not offer a solace to those who do not want to work hard and get success. All he is saying is not to get overwhelmed by the aura and mystery around an achiever. Always take such stories with a pinch of salt .

To sum up Malcolm says that Success is too simple to explain as a result of Hard Work and individual's brilliance. It is more than that and always be cautious of sources that help to spread these myths and stories arround them.