You Just Have to Want It Bad Enough (and Other Myths)

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Outliers: The Story of Success is Malcolm Gladwell’s challenge to our understanding of the formula for the American Dream: hard work, talent, and a little luck allows for people to rise to economic and career success. According to Gladwell, this is an oversimplification that ignores the opportunities and privileges which enable those who achieve the American Dream. Gladwell uses the term “outliers” for those who rise far above the pack, likening them to snow during a French summer. We do not question the hot weather, as it is normal, but the snow is so outside of our experience that we question and want to know what caused it. So with Outliers, we question the people who are so successful as to be outliers, outside of normal experience, to determine how they were able to defy the typical results of putting in huge amounts of labor. Gladwell does not ignore the incredible feats of successful people--they spend inordinate amounts of time and energy--but Gladwell points out that there are many other people who spend incredible amounts of time and energy and are not wildly, off-the-charts successful.

As Gladwell digs deeper into what creates outliers, he identifies several common factors, most of which are outside of our locus of control, such as birth dates, which he argues have incredible significance in many realms. He also discusses location, location, location in that it impacts your behaviors and ways of thinking (and is also fun to say: location, location, location).

While Gladwell makes a good argument for the impact of “cultural inheritance,” or the ways of being and thinking that we learn from our environments and are replicated from generation to generation, I did not feel entirely comfortable with the discussion. While he focuses on how cultural inheritance can be a benefit, it easily creates an opening to berate and criticize cultural inheritance that is less functional, and therefore an opening for all kinds of prejudice and generalizations. And, indeed, the book shows how some cultural inheritance is an impediment, while prizing American behavior that could be argued to be less than appropriate. On the other hand, understanding cultural legacies can help make positive changes to behaviors and customs as well as further understanding the concept of privilege, or the advantages that were not achieved but given.

Gladwell is a great storyteller—I often taught his “What the Dog Saw,” a profile of Cesar Millan, republished from The New Yorker in Best American Essays 2007 to teach about how to turn information into a narrative. Outliers is the first book I have read by Gladwell, and I see that the ability to place people on the page transfers in his longer work. The story of Chris Langan, in particular, stands out because it is a life of missed opportunity, in part because educational institutions failed him. As an educator, it reminds me that part of our jobs is bringing out the best in our students and helping them to solve problems instead of penalizing them.

We bring our own experiences to our reading, and as a mother, the book made me think about the habits I wish to teach and cultivate in my children, both of whom are already forces to be reckoned with, especially my daughter. Outliers made me reconsider my instinct to make them “be good listeners” and to appreciate the need to push back and question--though it is exhausting at bedtime, when my daughter is crying that I am “ruining her dreams.” I once asked her what those dreams were. I had interrupted her drawing a picture, and I was expecting to hear about how she wants to be an artist and draw all the time--but her answer was, “To get to do whatever I want.” To which I replied, “Keep dreaming, kid.”

In any case, I found Outliers both thought provoking and entertaining. It is a good thing to have contentions with an author and continue the conversation in my head.

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