It’s called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell and he has studied what makes people successful in life (hint - it has little to do with IQ). It is so thoroughly fascinating and a super fast read. Everyone on this site will love this book!
An excerpt:
“In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell argues that the true story of success is very different, and that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more looking around them - at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth date. The story of success is more complex - and a lot more interesting - than it initially appears”.
Gladwell also wrote “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”. Those are equally fascinating and also about the “why” of human behavior that is looked at from a completely different angle.
This was an interesting look at success and how people get there. I certainly think that this applies to all of us working to give our kids a head start in compounding their knowledge. Gladwell talks about how knowledge and experience can mulitply themselves into success. My favorite example is of the NHL hockey players. This is not a book that references scientific studies, but it does make you think a little differently. Especially about School Year and sports cut-offs as well as other areas we focus on with our children.
I found his first two books fascinating! And once I have the Doman Reading/Math/Encylopedic Knowledge programs running smoothly - I will definitely reward myself with this book!
I agreed with some of the chapters but not all, especially with that of the Maths abilities in Asians. Being an Asian myself, I found it a little incredible at times, I mean, Singapore was never a rice-growing nation to start with… we are not even agricultural… our roots are actually in trade (which may mean that we understood the value of numbers from our forefathers). On the concepts of the miscommunication and positive effects of 10,000 hours of practice to confer benefits to one, I fully agree with him.
My main takeaway from reading his book: as parents, we have to persevere with our practices - so that our kids are primmed to make use of opportunities that appear in their lives. What we might not be able to, though, is that we may not recognise an opportunity when it presents itself. Anyone here has an idea on this?
lol