The main takeaway from this book is that we individual humans are connected to our ancestors and our community in ways that we do not even recognize and that this context that underlies our lives and guides us in a meaningful way. Gladwell suggest that “there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success.” When we look at a success story we like to think, especially here in the United States, that this person was self-made, that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made something of themselves. But this is impossible. There is not a single “self-made” person in the way that we like to romanticize it. This book points out that in all of the stories of success – the Outliers – when we dig deeper we see how their cultural history, family history, even the era of their birth helps shape who they are and the “success” that they have. As Gladwell states, they “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”
The book goes on to outline several “hidden” points that support this idea. For example, the majority of professional Canadian hockey players were born in the first quarter of the year (Jan, Feb, Mar) and this is because Jan 1 is the birthday cutoff for a certain age group. A kid born on Jan 1, when 6 years old, will tend to be much larger and more mentally developed than a kid born on Dec 31 of that same year but they will be in the same age bracket. The bigger kid appears to be better due to size and mental development, so that kid gets more attention, gets put on the travel team and gets more practice, and so on. That adds up and over the years all the way to the pros. Did most people notice this? Apparently not. The rest of the book outlines points like this and it’s fascinating.
In summary, and from my point of view, the key take away is that we are all profoundly connected to one another in ways that are hard to understand. If we have success we should have the humility to recognize that we have many people to thank and many more we may have never met who also deserve thanks. We should hold our humanity in our hearts and give thanks for unseen web that connects and supports us.
I’m reminded of a tangentially related comment from Elizabeth Warren in 2011.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
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