By Malcom Gladwell

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Price: Rs.772/-

Book rating – 2.5/5

Reviewed by Aditya Govindaraj

Since the release of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, there has been a lot of talk on what defines success.

 
Do you want to be an outlier? An outlier is a person who is immensely successful, like Bill Gates. Well, who would not? Except, it is not possible for everyone to become one because then everyone would be ordinary. Few get there and Gladwell’s book explores how outliers got there – was it luck or effort? Or both? 

First of all, what is success?  

Success is a relative term. Success for one person could be a failure to another and vice versa. If a lower middle class person earns Rs. 1 lakh per year, he could be an outlier in his or her community. But if a scion of a business tycoon earns the same amount, then he or she would be considered a failure. 

Success can also be applied in a cultural context. For example, in some states in India, getting an engineering degree (preferably from IITs) and an MBA (preferably from IIMs) is considered a success. Elsewhere, particularly in states like Gujarat, making a few crores when you are still in twenties by starting a business would be considered success. In southern states of India, without a degree from a reputed institution, a person could be called a failure. This is unlikely to be so in Gujarat. Success in business enterprise may matter more than which college one went to, if one went to a college at all. 

Gladwell is a shrewd writer. He writes on topics that seem irresistible at first glance. But on scrutiny, you will find that a lot of his stuff is more on style than substance. He goes on to merely list a number of factors required for success such as genetics, education, family background, birthplace, money, doing the right thing at the right place at the right time, and so on.  

I would think that Gladwell is trying hard to revive the so called "The American Dream". It is this very illusion that brought down Wall Street and America today. Everyone wants to be successful by some quantifiable measure (i.e. degree from Harvard or Yale or a minimum $100 million net-worth). Perhaps they try too hard for money and fame that they forget other important things like family, nature, etc.   

Gladwell does not deal with a critical question – how do YOU define what success is?  

Success can be defined only subjectively. If a person thinks having a family and a secure, even if low paying, job is enough for being successful, then so be it. Who’s anyone to question that?

 
Success, for me, would mean crossing personal milestones that I've set for myself. I will keep setting new milestones and try to cross those. It could be anything - doing pushups 100 times a day, completing Sudoku in hard mode in less than 5 minutes, getting my handicap down to five by the end of this year, beating a bad habit and growing good habits, procrastinating less, etc,. This is what success truly is. And yes, it does require effort and luck!  

Maybe a better question to ask yourself is - are you happy? If you're happy, then maybe, you can be called successful. I don't think it really matters whether it is effort or luck, or both, that brings a person happiness. In the grand scheme of things, success/outlier is a rather meaningless term. Why? Because it defies a definition that stands the test of time.