What do you want people to take away from
Outliers
?
I think this is the way in which Outliers is a lot like
Blink
and
The Tipping
Point
. They are all attempts to make us think about the world a little
differently. The hope with
The Tipping Point
was it would help the reader
understand that real change was possible. With
Blink
, I wanted to get people
to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with
Outliers
is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success
is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts.
It’s because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of
different circumstances, and that means that we, as a society, have more
control about who succeeds—and how many of us succeed—than we think.
That’s an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.
I noticed that the book is dedicated to “Daisy.” Who is she?
Daisy is my grandmother. She was a remarkable woman who was responsible
for my mother’s success—for the fact that my mother was able to get out of
the little rural village in Jamaica where she grew up, get a university
education in England, and ultimately meet and marry my father. The last
chapter of
Outliers
is an attempt to understand how Daisy was able to make
that happen—using all the lessons learned over the course of the book. I’ve
never written something quite this personal before. I hope readers find her
story as moving as I did.
Questions and topics for discussion
1. Malcolm Gladwell argues that there’s no such thing as a self-made man
and that super achievers are successful because of their circumstances,
their families, and their appetite for hard work. How is this view
different from the way you have thought about and understood success
in the past?
2. In “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes,” Gladwell discusses one
extreme way in which different “cultural languages” manifest
themselves. In your opinion, what is our “cultural language”? How did it
emerge and evolve? Does it work in our favor with regard to our social
structure?
3. Discuss what Gladwell means when he says that biologists often talk
about “the ‘ecology’ of an organism” (
here
). How is this similar to
“accumulative advantage” (
here
)?
4. Do you believe that there is such a thing as innate talent? What,
according to Gladwell, is the difference among talent, preparation, and
opportunity? What link does practice have to success?
5. Who are the “Termites” and why did they get this nickname? What, in
Gladwell’s opinion, was Terman’s error?
6. What does Gladwell think are some consequences of the way that we
have chosen to think about and personalize success? What opportunities
do we miss as a result? Do you think that as a society we should revise
our definition of success and how it is achieved?
7. In your opinion, is the 10,000-hour rule an encouraging or fatalistic lens
through which to view the possibility of individual success? How does
this rule alter our notion of the American Dream?
8. Gladwell writes about meritocracies influenced by advantages some
people have over others by virtue of opportunities, education, and
coaching. As the income gap in the United States continues to widen, do
you think that social mobility, which is an essential part of achieving
success, will continue to suffer?
9. Are there any outliers in your life? Who are they and what are their
stories? Has reading this book changed what you think of their stories?
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