Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Outliers Summary of Chapter 2 & 3
Chapter two opens up with computer scientist and UC Berkeley graduate, Bill Joy. Gladwell mentions his many achievements and accomplishments due to his extraordinary and brilliant mind, and he goes more in depth of how innate talent and practicing effects success. The 10,000 hours he refers to is the amount of time needed to be an expert. Even for prodigies, practice only will not be enough, you need support from family and to be financially secure, and opportunity gives a person the chance to be an expert. Gladwell touches upon if the 10,000 hour method works for all people, specifically the Beatles and Bill Gates. After discussing their background, he concludes that what sets them apart is their lucky and random opportunities. Chapter three begins with Chris Langan, the man with 195 IQ, a intelligent and very successful person. Lewis Terman conducted intelligence testing on about 1,5000 young geniuses. He hypothesized that they would become great, successful, and famous. In general, the higher IQ, the higher achievements you will make in your life but once you reach about 120, that rule doesn't apply anymore. At the end of the test, it proved that Terman was wrong, at first it showed that many students became like what he had said, but many lived middle class lives.
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The 10,000 hour method caught my attention because it connects to my book as well. In my book, it discusses memory and touches on chess players, and it also mentions how they become so good at chess. This would be because they practice and play it so much. For example, all of the chess experts and masters around the world have been playing for many, many years, which may help prove the 10,000 hour method to be even more true.
ReplyDeleteI found the tests by Lewis Terman to be intriguing also. This sparked my interest because it shows that just because someone has a high IQ, it doesn't mean they will be rich and successful when they are older. Although, I feel like there are definitely many other factors for someone to become successful, like luck (which you mentioned in the summary) and also perseverance. Without perseverance, they may become lazy and not take advantage of their intelligence.
I truly believe that 10,000 hours of practice and work spent into a certain skill or job will refine it a point of just pure skill. When I was first reading the section I was a bit skeptical at first, but I soon realized that if someone isn't good at a certain skill that they put 10,000 hours into then they either haven't really put in 10,000 hours or they should go find something else to do. The sheer amount of time really does support the phrase "Practice makes perfect".
ReplyDeletePracticing something for 10,000 hours isn't a new idea for me. When I first started at my second dojo they had a little plaque that suggested practicing a single technique for (I don't remember, but the amount of times to practice a form was a lot) to master it. When I was younger I would read it over and over trying to comprehend how that was even possible, but it is true. The more you practice anything, the better you're going to get at it.
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