Outliers - Secrets of Success

Inspiration, Motivation and Determination are the Keys to Goal-Setting Success

2009-01-28T13:51:00.000-08:00

Know yourself, said the ancient Greek oracle. Others have said that to know yourself, your "inner spirit," is to know God (in whatever form you imagine that higher intelligence to be - including your "higher self"). The word "enthusiasm" derives from the Latin, meaning basically to "have God within" you (en-theos).

You need to know what makes you tick. What does that platitude really mean? It partly means to know what it is that inspires you. Again, let's specify that. Remember the last time, or an important time, in which you felt inspired, charged, revved up, or maybe just really "on top of things." I'm not saying these are all the same emotional or psychological state. I'm just saying, think back to a time when you were having what psychologists call a "peak experience." Whenever you felt way better than you normally do, for whatever reason.

Now find that reason. Trace it down. Pinpoint what exactly it was. Was it a comment a co-worker made? If so, what did this do for you? Get at the inner structure of your psyche.

Once you start tallying up all of these "ticks" or things that "set you off" in a really good way, try to recreate them, or set up the stage for them to happen again. Also, the next time you are in or having a peak experience, try to prolong it. Figure out what it is that "ruins" it for you, or when you start to "come down." Why? Can you get rid of that thing, or mitigate it somehow?

The more peak experiences we have, the easier it is to stay in touch with our higher self and the easier it will be to achieve our goals. I think we make many goals when we are in these higher states, and whenever we fall back down to lower states, we have a hard time accessing the psychological mechanisms that allow us to act toward our goals.

Self-Help Books for Personal Improvement

2009-01-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

What are your favourite self-help books? Oh, don't tell me you don't have any or you don't read that type of book.... really? Haven't found any that meet your high intellectual standards? Feel they are too preachy for you? Too didactic? Well, I say, what's wrong with learning a lesson... it can be a lesson you draw for yourself, too.

I certainly agree that many self-help books pander to a lower, lower denominator of thoughts and impulses with the "mass" culture. But you could argue that something like Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers is also a self-help book. At least this is how I see it. It's partly why I started this site about it. I'd been thinking about the topic of personal success for a while (well, who hasn't!), but this book actually has some practical tips in it that you wouldn't expect. I've already listed some of the main ones in previous posts. My favourite so far is definitely to identify the special time and place within which you live/ were born (he didn't phrase it exactly like that, this is my phrase, but it amounts to the same thing).

Wealthier, Healthier, Happier

2009-01-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

These are arguably the three main goals that we all have. Under happiness we can include all forms of personal relationships and self-esteem. If you're wealthy, feeling healthy and feeling happy.... what else is there?

We all want the same things:
-get out of the rat race
-lose weight
-lose debt
-be better people: mothers, fathers, siblings, lovers, partners, friends.
-have a sense of accomplishment in our careers: that we've made a contribution and reached our goals

Every day we should be working towards these goals.
Take two steps forward, three maybe, but don't take a step back!
Don't sabotage your efforts!
If you've gone to the gym today and put in a good workout, don't eat cake tonight!

Practical Intelligence, Emotional IQ, Social Savvy

2009-01-24T19:10:00.000-08:00

These are the skills and qualities you need to possess in order to be upwardly mobile and head for a successful life. The IQ that Gladwell talks about is primarily the old standard analytic thinking IQ. Not the broad range of intelligence factors measured by Daniel Goleman and others, such as spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence. These types of intelligence are exactly what we need to get what we want from the world.

How to Move Up in the World

You have to know your basic goal or path - or at least, you have to have some path in mind, even if it's not the be-all-and-end-all path. Then you have to know how to elicit the help of others to get there. Namely, you need to know:

-who to talk to
-what to say
-when to say it
-how to say it
-what not to say

Have you often wondered about this? I have. I've found myself wondering how to know the answers to these things for complex social situations. I think it's a lot more complex than Mark Victor Hansen and Brian Tracy and Anthony Robbins make it out to be. And Dale Carnegie and all of them. People can see through mindless flattery. And who would want to engage in such an empty practice anyway?

Identify Your Time and Place in History

2009-01-24T19:02:00.001-08:00

When were you born? Where were you born? Where are you living now? Are you a baby boomer (this means you've had to compete quite a bit for resources) or born in a trough year?

These sound like empty questions, but actually they're not. After reading Outliers, I'm quite inspired to further define the situation in which I live in order to better define what opportunities there are to be taken advantage of.

Gladwell shows that sometimes there is even only a SMALL WINDOW within which an opportunity can be taken advantage of. When the personal computer revolution started in 1975, for example, you would want to have been about 20, 21 or 22 or 23 to really be able to take advantage of it. Older than that and you might already be sucked into a "career" and a family. Younger than that and you probably couldn't cash in. But if you were born in 1953-1955, you might just have become Bill Gates.

If They Can Do It, You Can Do it Too

2009-01-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

Bill Joy. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Michael Jordan. Madonna. Quentin Tarantino. Quincy Jones. Barack Obama.

Everyone who has become a success has at least one thing in common: they've all had a lucky break somewhere along the line. As Gladwell shows, no one ever becomes successful on their own, alone.

But the thing is, how do you know when your lucky break has arrived? It's easy to look at a successful person's career and be able to point out when and where their "lucky break" occurred. But if you're in the middle of the life you're living, you might not know how to notice it.

I think the answer is that 1) you've got to have some sense of where, in general, you want to go or become (even if you don't know all the details about it yet). And then 2) you've got to be able AND WILLING to follow up on any opportunity that presents itself that you think might be able to take you closer to that goal. It might not look like a lucky break at the time. It might look like a lot of work, in fact. But lots of work means you get LOTS OF PRACTICE. Think of the Beatles in their Hamburg days.

Not So Secret Secrets

2009-01-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

Get a college education.
Practice at whatever it is you want to be good at.
Identify your unique time and place in history.
Take advantage of the opportunities your time and place afford you.

The Secret of 10,000 Hours

2009-01-24T18:31:00.000-08:00

10,000 hours. This is how much practice time one needs at something in order to become "an expert" at it according to the studies covered in Outliers: The Story of Success.

The original study comes from Daniel Levitin, a neurologist.

"In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters...this number comes up again and again...no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery."

10,000 hours might also roughly equate into ten years of practice, because that's about the minimum length of time required to be able to put that kind of practice in. So think about this the next time you're at work or hard at practice. You can turn the equation around, too -- have you spent ten or more years at your job? Do you have a level of expertise to show for it? Have you become an "expert" in something against your will, or of which you're not proud of?

IQ Only Matters Up to About 120-130

2009-01-24T17:07:00.000-08:00

Do you know your IQ? Are you proud of it? Have you also noticed, perhaps, like me, that after a certain point - after getting into graduate school, perhaps, or after completing your BA/BSc., that it no longer seemed to make a difference that you had a high IQ? Well, you're right.

Gladwell explains how IQ makes a difference once you get up to about 120, but after that, the effects and benefits of a higher IQ are negligible. They're there; it's obvious that you're dealing with someone with a higher IQ, but the increase in IQ points will stop translating so easily into an increase in "life success."

After you've reached about 120-130, the things that will spur you onto success become practical, more about your personality, character, practical savvy and "know-how" for getting your way around in the world.