Outliers... How important is success, anyway?

I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, which I got a hold of after reading Blink. Outliers is a book about success and how some have achieved it, but its maybe not what you think. Its not about the people themselves and their personalities that make them successful. Bill Gates wasn't incredibly successful just because he was smart and determined. This book is about the circumstances that successful people come from and the series of happenings, events, and opportunities that also allow them to become successful. It's about systems and timing and location, etc.

It may sound like this way of looking at success i sdownplaying someone's drive and ability over their circumstances. It is. It very much is. One example I can explain from the book quickly deals with hockey players. A great deal of the professional hockey players in the NHL are born in January. Weird, huh? Not really. The cutoff date for little league hockey in the US and Canada is January 1st. Ah ha? If you were born in January you will be older than a kid born in December trying out for the same spot. You will have almost a year's worth of growth and development on them. That's why so many hockey players that play professional are born in January. They got the lucky draw on birthdays.

This bit is right in the beginning of the book. After reading this I felt a moment of panic. My son was just born this past December. I thought, "Oh crap! What else has a January cut-off!? Is my son at a disadvantage now?" The more I made my way through the book, though, the less panicked I was. I realized that there's a lot about "success" that one can't even control at all. For instance... the Great Depression caused families at the time to stop having kids. A little less than a decade later, the public school systems, especially in big cities, had less kids per class than normal. Less kids per class means better teaching. Better teaching means better education..... You can follow how it works. So worrying about all the circumstances I would have to consider for my son to be successful isn't a good use of time or energy. All I can do is try my best to set him up for success.

This book doesn't say that it is ONLY circumstances and coincidence that leads to success. Its in combination with people willing to put forth effort and maybe have the smarts, the talent, and drive to make the most of the circumstances they've been given. But success is not determined by these factors alone. Other outside forces must be involved. Often times, a little bit of success or "luck" will allow an individual to have another, even better, opportunity. From that opportunity, even more opportunities arise.

I think it is in this idea we see where much of the civil unrest in our society comes from. When those of us willing to work hard put in the time and effort needed and feel that we are smart enough to be successful at a high level don't see ourselves becoming successful like others, we ask why. Without having to do a lot of digging in to that question, the word "opportunity" comes to mind. If you are from the middle and low classes financially, there are often less opportunities available to build upon. Yes, certainty there are some, but its very difficult for individuals in this country to move from one class to a higher one. There are tons of different reasons for this and there probably are many books written about it. I am not advocating for anarchy or to tear down the classes. But it is good to recognize what's really in front of you, or not. Certain circumstances tend to breed more opportunity, some breed less. That's just the truth.I'll leave it at that for now.

This book also discusses the ideas around the 10,000 hour rule as well. If you aren't aware if it, there is a "rule" out there stating that it takes about 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice and work" for someone to become an "expert" at something. There are some naysayers of this, and that's fine. But logically, I think it makes a great deal of sense. This rule, in the book, applies to everyone from Bill Gates to the Beatles. 10,000 hours is a lot of time. You see in this book how a couple strange circumstances allowed some of these successful individuals to gain this time much faster than others. Right place, right time seems to come up a lot with the successful individuals mentioned in the book. I've been wondering myself how many hours I have put into certain actions and activities. How many hours have I put into drawing? How many hours have I put into running? Coaching? teaching? How many of those hours were "deliberate"? It made me wonder if I am truly working at becoming an expert at anything. Should I be drawing more often with more deliberate intentions? How would that change me? This i something I think I need to mull over for a bit. I am all for changing myself for the better... so how can I apply this 10,000 to that end?

What does all this information about circumstances and success and 10,00 hours mean for me, though? What does it mean for my son? Will he not be successful unless the circumstances are just right? Honestly, that's very likely he wont be if we are talking about "success" as it is defined by our society... which often means financially. That sounds terrible and almost like I should panic, until I look at it a different way. If I teach my son to work hard and get educated for the love if it and look for and seize opportunities when they come up, who knows where it will lead. If he is prepared and ready when an opportunity comes up, he can take it, or not, depending on what he wants to do. If he walks around in life, just looking for success, its going to be hard to find. Its elusive. It is set up for some and not for others through series of happenings and coincidences. If all my son looks for is this elusive and ever-changing path, he may never find it. But, instead, if he looks for opportunities to be fulfilled and happy, than success isn't as important. It may come or not, but he will be happy.

I'm pretty sure this is what success looks like. I love this picture.

We are only here for a short time. We cant take anything with us when we leave. All we can do is try to learn from our time here and improve our own experiences and the experiences of others' lives, if possible. If that result sin being rich and successful, great. But, if you're rich and "successful" but miserable, what's the point?

Snap Judgements and Instincts

I just read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. You may have heard of this author from his other books, like Outlier or The Tipping Point. This book is all about our innate abilities to make judgements based first impressions and instinct. Actually, that is simplifying things a little, but thats essentially the idea.

There's tons of great examples in the book about how "thin-slicing" people and situations can allow us to make the same or even better ideas than "thick-slicing". In one example, people were asked to assess and judge the effectiveness and abilities of a professor based on a 2 second clips of them teaching. This seems ridiculous, but most of the participants in the study, something like 80% of them, were able to assess them close to the professor's actual assessment by the university. In 2 seconds, people were able to tell if the professor's were good or bad at what they do. Why? That's the mystery to book looks into uncovering.

I'm not here to write a review of the book, but it is very good if you are looking for some very interesting information and studies. The idea of this book is more interesting to me.

Everyone at one time or another has come across a time or situation where you just have a feeling about what you should do. Everyone has met someone at one time or another and decided very quickly if you liked this person or not, but then are often left wondering why we felt this way.

We tell kids all the time when taking a test, that their first impression of the answer is probably the correct one. But, we also teach them critical thinking. We teach kids that, when they come across a situation, that they should think it through thoroughly before acting. That seems like the best way to approach anything, really. But the information presented in this book makes me think that its possible that its not... that maybe we should be working and processing more based our instincts and snap judgements. MOST (but not all) of the time, these decisions are just as good or better than the decisions we make when thinking it through and weighing every piece of information. Perhaps we should be teaching kids to hone their instinct and gut judgements. Not that they shouldn't learn all they can to make informed decisions, but that they should take that information they have learned and trust their judgements and instincts.

For example, think about a sport like basketball. I wouldn't expect 14 year old to make the right play and/or decision all the time while playing. In basketball, one has to make lots of decisions and make them in quick succession. It would be difficult for someone young and newer to the game to make the right decision in a split second all the time. BUT, after someone has spent a few years practicing and playing, these decisions come easier and faster. The more you practice and play the game, the more scenarios and situations you have come across. The more your practice and play, the more physically able you are to follow through on your decisions. If you have played, think about a time where you were playing someone one-on-one. I can think of many. One in particular comes to mind.

I was in 8th grade and we were playing another undefeated team. They had a really big kid on their team same Steve Young. He had a damn beard... seriously. He was very big for his age, but that meant I was quicker and faster (being our center, but being only 5'8" and skinny), which was true, but also made me feel better to tell myself. My coach told me to call for an isolation play if he guarded me one-on-one so I could dribble past him for a lay-up. In the last moments of the game it was tied and we had the ball with a chance to win. Our coach had called a play for a screen to get the ball to our best shooter and have him take a shot. I noticed, though, that they were in a man-to-man. I told everyone to change the play and held up the signal for an isolation play for me. I got some questionable looks form my teammates, but I was so confident (for no reason), no one questioned it. I got the ball off the inbounds, everyone cleared out... I took Steve Young on, skinny young man against man-child. I drove him to the free throw line... stopped... pulled up... and launched a shot. I heard my coach yelling, "Nooooooo!", which amazingly turned into more of a "Noooooeeeeyaaaaah!" because I swished the basket at the buzzer. We won!

This picture seems to sum up what middle school basketball is like

I realize that this story may not be as exciting for you, but there's a point. How did I know exactly when to stop and shoot? There was no play or plan. The plan was, take him one-on-one. In that moment, though, I didn't think... I reacted. Thats a normal idea in sports, right? You react. But, how do we know when and how to react best. I had played enough one-on-one at the YMCA and in my backyard and on the playground to know when I had enough space to pull up and take a good shot. As the situation developed, by learned instincts kicked in and I made the play. Even if I had missed, it would still have been a good, open shot. The key words, I think, though, is LEARNED instinct. We train for this in sports all the time. You practice and train your instinct and judgments. Maybe we should spend more time doing this in our everyday lives?

In the book, Gladwell brings up a comparison between military personnel and stock market traders, and it makes complete sense. These traders are making tons of decisions on, what seems like, very little information. They have "hunches" or "feelings" about what to do and when to do it. Thats not to say, though, that they they are guessing. They study trends and analytics all the time. But, when its time to trade, they use their instincts and judgement, trusting that what they have learned and studied will kick in. If they spent all their time trying to think their trades through critically, they would miss everything.

I know I tie in a lot of my ideas to school and education, but its the world I live in.... I think this idea of preparing ourselves better in order to make smarter "snap judgements" or improve our instincts is a very interesting one. What if we took that approach in the education system and when teaching? We told the kids, "Hey, I don't know when you will need this information, but at some point you might. When that time comes, you can trust you know what to do and can  trust your judgement and instincts  and make a decision. Thats why we are learning all of this. So that when you are out there, in the real world, you can trust yourself to make good decisions based on your initial reactions." Personally, that  approach sounds more exciting to me than trying to learn chemistry and ecosystems just because the textbooks says I need to know it. I think it would feel like you are actually training and preparing for something.

There are so many situations I can think of where having the ability to make a good, quick decision, would be so helpful and that overanalyzing makes things worse. If I felt like I was more knowledgeable on a subject, though, I think these situations would be much, much easier.

One example I can think of was when my wife and I were trying to buy a house. We looked at well over 100 houses and looked for months. The market was crazy and the economy had crashed, so cost was low, but our salaries were also frozen indefinitely. It made things a little more complicated, in our minds, to choose. In one house we put an offer on, we were actually under contract for a month before the deal went under. The whole time I remember not having a great feeling about it, but thought I was just nervous abut a house in general. But maybe my instincts were kicking in to tell me it wasn't good. On another house I saw what knowledge and expertise combined with snap judgements and instincts can do. My wife and I liked the house were looking at with our realtor's partner. Our realtor is an amazing dude, but couldn't make it to the house to show it, so his very capable partner came to show it. The layout was good, price was decent, location was nice, etc. We were starting to get desperate to find something, so our judgement was suspect. In the unfinished basement, we noticed two sub-pumps. Whatever...right? We were ready to put an offer down and we called our main realtor to tell him. His partner explained the house and the price and casually mentioned the two sub-pumps in the basement. I remember hearing our realtor on the other line go, "Wait! Two sub-pumps? Hmmm... I don't like that.... I driving up." A 45 minute drive for him later, he burst into the house, said a brief hello, and started sniffing around like a drug dog looking for a hidden stash. He started in the basement, saw the pumps, and grunted...not happy. Then stared at the cement walls int he basement, made more faces and grunts, then headed up stairs. He felt the tops of the doors and then looked like someone who found the remote control in the couch after looking for it for so long. "This house has foundation problems, don't buy it". There were fixed cracks in the foundations concrete. The tops of the doors had been sanded to fit after everything had shifted. The multiple sub-pumps were to deal with regular flooding. All this makes sense... but he drove 45 minutes on a week night, late, based on a casual piece of info about 2 sub-pumps. He knew instantly something was wrong, and he was totally right. His well informed instincts told him this was a bad house. He didn't need time on the phone to talk about what could maybe be wrong. He felt it was wrong and immediately headed put to see us. That ability, though, came from years of experience seeing thousands and thousands of houses. Now, maybe someone off the street might be able to come in and make the same decision based on instinct, but his instinct were informed.

What if we taught kids this way? Learn so you are prepared. Learn so you are ready when you need to be. When they get a to a test, we would tell them to trust their instincts and judgements. Read the questions through, jot down notes or numbers if needed but trust the answer you initially believe is correct. If they paid attention and learned throughout their classes, their instincts should serve them well when testing. If we teach them well, in the real world they should be able to make good decisions faster and more frequently as they will be able to trust their instincts.

I do teach this some in my art class. I tell kids, in order to check their work, have someone hold it up from a distance. But I tell them to close their eyes first, then open them and decide upon first look whats right and whats wrong with the work. Their initial judgements should help them in creating better work. I teach this as almost a trick, but now I am thinking I need to teach it as a real and useful tool. There's this big emphasis on art critiques and the steps one needs to take when critiquing a work of art. I get why and I think the thinking behind it is valuable, but maybe instead of teaching it to be repeated, I should really be teaching it so they don't have to do it anymore and tell them that. "If we can get good at this is as a class using the formal critique steps, then we can et rid of the steps and the writing and have conversations based on how you feel about the work." Doesn't that sound like a more fun way to live, anyway?