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Showing posts from September 14, 2010

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM OUTLIERS AND ICONOCLASTS

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In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement. The emerging picture from studies is that then thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a worldclass expert – in anything. So, you need to have parents who encourage and support you. You can’t be poor. But before we can become an expert, someone has to give you the opportunity to learn hw to be an expert. What truly distinguishes outliers is not their extraordinary talent, but their extraordinary opportunities. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up. IQ is a measure, to some degree, of innate ability. But social savy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from