Success

I was just cleaning my desk when I found a book we had to read in school. Of course we read just for the rhetoric, but the topic was interesting.

The book is called Outliers. From Amazon:

"Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

So my question is, do you believe in this. He builds a very convincing argument. That there is no "self-made" man. That success is invariably a result of our environment and times. And that many people who have "potential" don't achieve it because of their circumstances. Its quite interesting to say the least, so share your opinions.

Just trying to take my mind off other stuff ;o.

 

I can believe this, some people are talented or skilled but to lazy to act upon it, or don't really care enough to do so, while others may try their hardest but just fail at every turn. This makes me think of music, a good band like TerraFirma being good at what they do, but they played music they enjoyed, and put there heart into it, but never got popular because they didn't quite follow current trends. In the genre, they didn't decide to start the song with a breakdown, throw that heavy line in it, do the obvious build up and 'GO!' which means mosh or whatever. It's sad, because then other not so good bands come forward out of no where and get popular because of just such thing.. for example, Asking Alexandria. TerraFirma was just unfortunate that what they do fell out of favor, despite being talented, and eventually it led to failure, because they'd rather not sell out to something they dislike doing.