Hard work is overrated, do this instead

Extraordinary achievement is less about talent and more about special opportunity – Malcolm Gladwell.

21^st century civilization has stopped believing in the racist notions of ‘Good genes’ and ‘bad genes’. It used to be a very popular belief not so long ago. White people thought they were better than black people, Nazis deemed themselves better than the Jews and India was divided into ‘The Brahmans’ and ‘The Kshatriyas’, ‘The Vaishyas’ and ‘The Shudras’.

Now, when we see someone prosper, we take a different approach to justify it. We tend to assume that, the successful people are more hardworking. We think maybe they have made sacrifices that we failed to make.

This idea is way better than the former racist and culturist notions of ‘purity’. It has given us a solid blueprint of what it takes to be a better individual than the absurd notions of the past.

However, this modern way of thinking omits one of the biggest contributors to success- Luck.

This is Malcolm Gladwell. He has written several best sellers. In 2008, he published a book called Outliers.

(For those of you who don’t know what an outlier is: it’s the values that are very distant from the averages.)

Bill Gates is an outlier, The Beatles were an outlier, Lionel Messi is an outlier.

Outliers tend to outperform the masses by unfathomable margins. We the common people, can only dream about such results.

Malcolm digs deep into the lives of these types of people and finds out an uncomfortable truth. Luck plays an undeniable factor in their success.

Take Bill Gates for example. His school was very expensive and only wealthy parents could afford to get their children there. A mother’s club in the school, which had enormous funding set up a facility for computer programming, in the early 80’s, that most Universities didn’t have. This portal was extremely costly to access. But Gates having a rich mom, had no problem accessing it. When this facility was shut off, gates hung around University of Washington to practice coding as his house was at a walking distant from the U o W.

How many of us can expect to get such a head start? Malcolm’s book, which I urge you to read, is full of examples like this.

So, stop over idolizing the outliers and start looking for opportunities. What matters most in life is being in the right place in the right moment.

You don’t have to wait for luck to bring you the perfect opportunity. Go out there and look for opportunities. There are a lot of them hiding in plain sight.

(For starters, students can try: youthop.com

I’m sure there are many other online and offline resources out there to find you opportunities. Reach out to the local clubs, go to the toastmaster’s meetings, meet the Olympiad committees or just search for opportunities in your field in google. Even Facebook can help you find the right communities.)

( The title is there to catch eyeballs. I don’t mean to say hard work isn’t an essential factor for success. But it’s far from being the only one.)

Outliers is an outstanding book.

Malcolm Gladwell has a unique way of writing.

He starts all his chapters with one story, only to be interrupted by another one. Half way through the second story you realize that the 2^nd one is actually there to help you understand the first one. It’s a fun journey to go through.

His stories always have themes and counter-themes, and the whole book is there to subvert your expectations and change your mind about how success really works.

But having said that, its not a storybook at all! It’s a non-fiction about how success is not an individual achievement.

Success comes from luck factors, lineage, demographic advantage and even from the month you were born!

No he does not suggest that astrology is at play. Rather he shows how athletes can get advantage from their birth-date because they were born a few months earlier from there peers in the same age class.

He talks about how airlines have solved their ‘culture’ problem, how Bill Joy and Bill Gates got to the top and why KIPP works.

He even talks about how his mother came from Jamaica to lead a successful life in Canada.

This book is sometimes enthralling and enticing. Other times it can get tragic and even terrifying!

But one thing is for sure, this book will change your attitude towards success forever.

It will help you develop gratitude, get rid of envy and create a better platform for you and your family.

This is a book that you definitely want to read.