Finishing the series on Encouraging Lessons from the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, here are more lessons I found helpful and uplifting.
(You can read the previous tips here: Part 1 and Part 2)
5) Acknowledging from where you come can be liberating
At the risk of getting myself in trouble, I am of the belief that we are all different, fundamentally different, but that’s OK.
Many of these differences come from being of a certain gender, cultural baggage, and possibly good ol’ genetics. Some people attempt to homogenize our experiences and attempt to be successful with one recipe. Given our multitude of differences though, this approach doesn’t make any sense.
Gladwell readily acknowledges our different cultural heritages, and describes how this contributes to our successes. In Korean culture, for instance, respect and language are very important. Even simple conversations are riddled with modifiers and special sentence endings to show respect. In the context of piloting an airplane, however, this type of subtle conversation is not as effective as simple, blunt commands and questions.
In embracing and acknowledging our cultural heritage, we can better understand how and why we act, and either keep or throw away our cultural actions given certain situations.
A point that speaks to me very deeply is the idea of assertiveness. While I am not a typical Korean by any means, I still have this idea of submitting to elders or to the situation. Sometimes though, it pays to speak up and be assertive.
Lesson:If you can acknowledge where your ideas come from, it helps you work with or around them.
6) We can all be working way harder.
This lesson is not explicitly stated in Gladwell’s book, but is implied very loudly and frequently.
I am inspired by the idea that so many people can work so hard and become successful. Although there are a series of fortunate circumstances that help these people, no success would come about without this hard work.
Who are these people working so hard?
- Poor inner-city children who wake up at 5:45 to go to school, get home at 5:30, do homework until 10:30 and do it again. Even in the summer.
- Computer programmers that walk to the University of Washington at 3am to get more programming in. (See the Bill Gates story in Outliers.)
- Musicians, Athletes, and more who have practiced more than 10,000 hours before the age of twenty.
If these people can do it, why not you or me?
Lesson: Get to working, and working hard. You can do it.
[tags]outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, lessons, encouraging, literature[/tags]
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