43 pages • 1 hour read
Malcolm GladwellA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The book’s subtitle presents the main theme of the book: “The Story of Success.” Gladwell largely addresses this in terms of how to attain success and how we perceive it. In Chapter 1, he asserts that the way we think about success is “profoundly wrong” (18). Too often we view it as the result of individual hard work, even innate genius, that allows a few people to rise to the top of their respective fields. Gladwell’s argument is that success is more mundane than that, more predictable, and arises from one’s background and the systems we put in place to select people in the first place and then provide them with advantages.
It’s important to note that Gladwell does not discount the existence of innate ability or the value of hard work. These are required for success, but that’s not the entire story. Many people are born with ability, and many put in great effort. The effort, however, must be herculean to reach elite status in any field. Presenting both research and the personal stories of people like Bill Gates and the Beatles, Gladwell writes that 10,000 hours of practice is necessary to master most any skill. This in turn requires an enormous amount of free time.
By Malcolm Gladwell
Blink
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
David And Goliath
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Malcolm Gladwell
Talking to Strangers
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know
Malcolm Gladwell
The Bomber Mafia
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell
What the Dog Saw
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
Malcolm Gladwell