Marks out of ten: 7/10

Although I found Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell less profound than Blink and The Tipping Point, it is still a brilliant book.

I’ve often wondered why some people achieve so much and others so little. Those that are successful can often seem so ordinary. What is their secret?

According to Malcolm Gladwell, their secret is a combination of luck, where they are from and lots of hard work. Success can often be based on a random selection of circumstances and being in a group that’s excluded can sometimes be an advantage. This was the case for Jewish lawyer Joe Flom, who became fabulously successful from specialising in “hostile corporate takeovers”; something “white shoe law firms” would not touch at the time.

Something as accidental as which month he was born in can affect the chances of a boy becoming a successful baseball player. Success isn’t something that’s unquantifiable, but something whose cause can be analysed and documented. It’s made me feel better anyway.