Malcolm Gladwell has attempted an ambitious project in analysing the secrets behind successful individuals, "Outliers" - providing wide coverage including hockey players, rock bands, software entrepreneurs like Bill Gates & Bill Joy, European Jewish Immigrants success in Law, challenges with schooling, misconceptions of relating high IQ with success, cultural legacies & social differences, & other interesting tid-bits that forces the reader to think & question, generally acknowledging Gladwell's logic of analysis in most cases. Gladwell ends accounting for his own personal success, an exercise I'm sure most readers will no doubt apply to themselves.
This book by far does not solve the puzzle of understanding talent, intelligence & success; but it definitely is a very good attempt backed up by research & accompanying references that sets it apart from being the unsolicited opinions of the author. However I'm inclined to challenge some of the cases put forward by Gladwell. I agree talent & IQ doesn't make one successful - hard work, dedication & the will to succeed - grit are those qualities that really pay off. Indeed, the timing counts, environment, cultural heritage also do play a part... There are 6+ billion people on this planet, success is measured in different ways - it means different things to different people; examples cited are indeed popular & well known figures in western society, the sample size for the research should extend to outside the US, for example Africa & India; Nelson Mandela for example would've made a good citation for Outliers...The 10000 hour rule is also an interesting observation....
I'm glad I came across this book as it forces one to gain perspective; re-affirming most of what I already know & learnt through experience myself. For example, how does a someone from South Africa of Indian descent - born to a family of labourers who's parents had no high school education (Mother's education stopped at age 8, Father's age 12), growing up through the apartheid era - work his way out of the ghetto to become a relatively successful professional now living in the UK, continuing to support more than one family??
Following Gladwell's analysis, we start by going back to understanding a bit of my cultural heritage: Indians started to arrive in South Africa during the early 1860s from the British colony of India - mostly labourers to work on the plantations, but some traders & skilled people also tagged along as it was an opportunity. Sadly not much is known of my heritage past my parents: my father was orphaned at the age of two & took the name of Khan under his foster family. Growing up, I vaguely remember my father's foster family as he liked to distance himself from them. My mother's family tree stops at her father, her mom died when she was 2 years old, her father remarried. I grew up listening to stories of difficulty, sadness, hardship but the underlying message was always honesty, taking pride in what you do & working very hard. Mother lived in a village, with African neighbours side-by-side, houses were made of mud. Mom would walk 5 kilometres to fetch water twice a day...her house got destroyed by floods, when it rained they would be busy patching the walls...under Apartheid they were dispossessed & relocated to an Indian area under the Group Areas act, whatever land they could claim they had was gone...Father's foster family seemed to be slightly better off, city people, street savvy - he'd recount stories of how everyone would be afraid of the Khans, the fights he would get into - he was part of a gang, etc - to this day, he stands for what is right & single-handedly patrols his neighbourhood watch...My father worked all his life in a shoe factory, earning the same £20 a week for 30 years. Five siblings in total, a brother & 3 sisters. None of my sisters finished high school, just my eldest brother & I did...I started reading at an early age of 5 years old - my eldest sister thought me to read, would take me to the library, I still remember my mom reading to me the newspaper, she could barely read & write herself, but she tried her best. Growing up I had the support of my older sisters & brother - I being the youngest, was taught by them. My parents weren't teaching me after hours, they would stress on the importance of education & made sure the homework was done, etc...We were not well off, I remember not being able to go for school excursions or even pay for school photos...
My brother started working part-time at the age of thirteen, I would do grocery shopping & go to pay the bills when I was 10 years old..we would walk 4kms carrying bags of groceries, sometimes with a 10kg bag of potatoes...I finished primary school with flying colours taking most of the awards, went to public, state-funded school, where most children were of a similar background as me - i.e. most of us had someone in the family working for a shoe factory...Enter high school, I meet a whole different bunch of kids from different backgrounds - all Indian - but this time, I was the only one in my class who's father worked in a shoe factory - the rest were middle-class families...In high school I met my best friend Zeyn (His mom was a high school physics & Maths teacher, his dad was an Accountant. Zeyn was absolutely brilliant at everything - he grew up in completely different circumstances to me - but for some reason we became best of friends, he was pushed by his parents to excel at school & sport, passing whatever he learnt to me, helping to advance on my own...for example we’d finished much of the maths and physics courses a year in advance of the final high school year...During holidays I would be working part-time or helping around the house, whilst my friends would be enjoying their vacations - I was always bitten by the practicality of life. Knowing what it takes to survive in this world, that one has to work hard to succeed, nothing comes for free, one has to determine one own’s future through sheer hard work. Despite my humble conditions, I was fortunate enough not to join the wrong company, diligently living through teenage years with the goal of finishing high school, studying to become a doctor, earning lots of money to support my parents one day...I finished high school with distinction...
It was this environment that challenged me & kept me motivated to strive to break through the barriers of my heritage...but as Gladwell proves in his book, dig deeper & I'm not singularly responsible for my break in life..My brother, through his hard work managed to complete high school, enter university & become an accountant, the first university-graduate in our family! He's a true outlier himself - through his working through high school, he impressed the local businessman, a Mr. Asmal who funded his 4 years of University tuition fees. Over the years my brother would marry, leave home & fall out of contact with the family, leaving me to figure out how to deal with the situation...So when it was my turn to graduate high school (it was still tough then, I couldn't afford going for the school prom, I'd just enough for Physics tuition & couldn't afford buying a suit for the ball), I finished with an A-average. I'd applied to Medical school & got a place confirmed for a university in Johannesburg, 5 hours away from my home - I'd never been to Joburg. Like Chris Langdon as Gladwell explained, Chris didn't have the wits or family support required to help him break through the obstacles he faced. Here I was unprepared to know how to make my decision - do I accept the offer on the phone or not?? Medical school costs R20000, plus food plus residence - I didn't have that kind of money, neither was anyone in my family able to take a loan or stand guarantor for me for a student loan. Besides my estranged brother I didn’t know anyone else that went to University. My parents were not equipped to deal with the situation. I had no one present that could offer me guidance on what my options were; I had not lived away from home - a life-changing decision awaited my response, the admissions officer was pressing me for an answer on the spot, so what happened? Based on the financial reality of my situation, I turned down the offer! Sadly, no medical school for me then...maybe even no university at all...I was set on looking for a job and figuring out a way to work and pay for my studies...
Then a surprise came my way - my estranged brother (my eldest sister made contact with our brother & urged him to help) managed to talk to his friend Mr. Asmal into calling me in for an interview & offered to pay my tuition fees through university. By that stage I missed the medical school boat, so settled on Engineering (Eng was 4 years compared to 7, so I could start earning money faster contributing to the family by being an Engineer). Mr. Asmal funded my first two years of University...Again, drawing from Gladwell's analysis, I got lucky - there was an element of timing that helped me out: I was part of the transition out of Apartheid, in 1990s there was a big push for equal opportunities & affirmative action grants - where companies would seek out individuals offering scholarships/bursaries & work placements. Late in my second year, I received a surprise phone call from university finance department saying that Vodacom were giving bursaries to students & I'd been chosen (what wonderful news this was to me since I'd been sending letters to hundreds of companies each year) - so I got three times as much as what Mr. Asmal was offering - it allowed me to live on my own, be an independent student...In the spirit of Gladwell, dig a bit deeper & we might find that the year I was born played a part too: people born between 1976-1979 would see the transition of Apartheid & new opportunities for tertiary education, although competition was still tough...if I remember correctly, all my classmates from class of 1995 had distinctions in Maths & are also living quite successful lives today...
After university though, Vodacom had no jobs to place me in so I was left in the lurch as I'd not applied for jobs elsewhere...it would be a good few months till I landed my first job after graduation, with UEC...After 13 months with UEC, I applied for a job with S3 in Ireland (advert in Sunday times newspaper) - I had never been out of my country but jumped at the opportunity - got the job, went to a land where I had no family, knew no one & started on my own with just £500 in my pocket, although S3 did a nice job with relocation assistance...18 months from S3, moved to the UK with NDS...Wait, could this be another stroke of luck? Indeed, my specialty is in Digital Television, a technology area that was only coming of age at the turn of the millenium. Had I not gained experience with UEC, there wouldn’t have been any opportunity to leave SA. S3, a small Irish company had received money from the EU to increase its workforce, investing in employing foreigners, and companies were targeting places like South Africa at that time!
And getting the role at NDS had a bit of good timing in itself as well. At S3 I had just come off a project to implementing an end-to-end software stack for Digital Terrestrial TV and my experience from that project had direct relevance to NDS at the time. Not to mention S3 was well known for its professionalism and competency, so that reputation helped as well. Within NDS I’ve spent the last 8+ years, climbing the ladder every 2-3 years, always interested in learning more and trying out new things. My overall ambition is to learn and experience all facets of software product development in practice, from the early grassroots ideas that start-up projects, moving on to continuous product development and maintenance, supporting customer projects and delivery. NDS provided the platform to grow, opportunities presented themselves, due to sheer hard work & determination, I was able to move between departments to pursue my personal interests at the same time adding value to the the company. No luck breaks from that point on I’m afraid ,continued success is a result of consistent perseverance past the point that got you there, something that Gladwell fails to present in his book.
I continue to support my immediate & extended family. I paid for my father's driving lessons & even bought him his first car (how often to you see a son setting up his father, almost as if the father/son roles were reversed)....In my journey I was able to achieve what some might've predicted as next to nigh on impossible given my cultural legacy - but as Gladwell's chapter on European Immigrants highlights, the family tree that I'm about to start should set the stage for my kids, nieces & nephews to become equally successful, if not more successful than me or my brother...So as Gladwell points out, no one is singularly responsible for one's success: Thanks to my brother, my parents for teaching me about grit & patience, Mr. Asmal, Nelson Mandela for succeeding to bring change to SA, Vodacom, UEC & Sunday Times, S3 & NDS...I am always striving to move forward, hopefully this will be enough motivation for my children, and it is my hope they are more successful than I am, which according to Gladwell should be a natural progression...
Aslmz
ReplyDeleteYou have left me in tears;-) Its as if I'm getting to know you all over again.
Zakeera