I think that both you and I are comfortable with the definition of an outlier. After the first couple of chapters, I believed that an outlier was a person that became successful through opportunity and connections, not just working hard and being smart and savvy. On the contrary, that is what being an outlier is. It’s as simple as being smart and working hard. Now, I’m not saying that if you are a lazy bum and not the sharpest crayon in the box that you won’t be successful, but you need to be intelligent and willing to work. That is what the Canadian hockey players, and one very important man, Bill Joy, had in common.
Throughout the whole book, I believe that the most important chapter, and the most interesting one, was chapter two “The 10,000-Hour Rule”. I could not believe what I was reading during those 33 pages. When I heard the word “success”, read about it in the paper, learned about it in school, I never really thought about how much practice these people put into what they were successful at. Think about it: 10,000 hours. How many days is that? Rounded, that’s 417 days (props to wiki.answers.com). Imagine sitting in your dinning room, playing piano for 417 days straight. No breaks, no water or food, no bathroom. That’s how the Beatles became famous, how Canadians born in January became professional hockey players, and how Bill Joy changed the way we use a computer.
Think about the word “practice”. My parents always say “Practice makes perfect!”. I never truly believed that because every time I practiced the piano, I would just get sick of it and watch some silly cartoon on the television. Sometimes I think to myself, “If I only listened to my parents, I could be the next Mozart”. But I know that that isn’t true. To be successful you have to practice. To practice, you need to have the support of your parents who encourage you. Even with the support of my parents, I still never loved playing the piano. I found completely zero happiness when my fingers touched those porcelain white keys. This makes me think if those hockey players truly enjoyed waking up at five in the morning and practicing until they had to go to school or if they yearned to play on the chess team on a Thursday afternoon and spend the rest of the time being a kid.
With the Canadian hockey players in the back of your mind, let me talk to you about the success story of Bill Joy. He first started out at the University of Michigan, a prestigious school with one of the best computer science programs in the country. Graduating from high school and entering college at the still young age of sixteen, he automatically fell in love with the Computer Center. After being introduced to the Computer Center, he was programming all day long. Went to Berkley in California, programmed all day long there. It was his lifestyle. Tradition. Almost as if there was no other way to live then to be programming. “At Michigan, I was probably programming eight to ten hours a day. By the time I was at Berkley, I was doing it day and night. I had a terminal at home. I’d stay up until two or three in the morning. Sometimes I’d fall asleep at the keyboard....thirty years later...so, so maybe ten thousand hours? That’s about right” (Gladwell 47). If you don’t think this is a dedicated man, then put me in a psychological home because I don’t think I have anything that I’m THAT dedicated to, and I’m the same age he was when he started programming. It’s amazing to read about someone like Bill Joy. You don’t read in the daily newspaper anyone like him. In our generation, I think the only thing that people my age are “dedicated” to is getting extremely wasted on a Saturday night and drunk text someone random on your contact list. People in the older generation say that it’s a shame that kids are the way they are, but to be brutally honest, it’s never going to change. As much as I wish that we could have a good time with playing a good ole’ game of Monopoly, that’s not the way that society is run these days. We were born during a time where technology was at it’s highest peak, and cell phones and computers were being purchased at the thousands every day. Now here comes the part of the book that I was most interested in. Remember how the most talented and successful hockey players were born in the beginning of the year? Well, the same goes for being a successful computer science genius. Let me name some of the most famous computer wizards that you probably have heard about: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Joy (as of a few minutes ago, at least). When were they born, you say? Great question! Bill Gates: October 28, 1955, Steve Ballmer: March 24, 1956, Bill Joy: November 8, 1954. What do you notice? Nothing about the months or the days, but the years? Yes, you’re right! All three of these wildly successful men were born only one year of each other. Why were these men successful? Yes, they all were “out of the box” type of thinkers, worked their asses off programming day and night, and were simply bright men. However, they all went to college during the 1970s, the time when computer revolution had began and had access to computers whenever they felt the need to program, which happened to be all the time.
With both hockey players and computer programmers, being born at the right place at the right time was vital in becoming successful. Canadian hockey players are professionals and are making millions of dollars every puck they swipe into the net, and people like Bill Joy and Bill Gates are the richest men in the world due to their computer programming skills from practicing 24/7. Even though the 10,000 Hour Rule plays a significant role in being a successful outlier, having the will power and brains to complete the practice, is a task even more cruel. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good” (Gladwell, 42). This quote is one that I will remember for the rest of my educational career. Men like Bill Joy, Bill Gates, even the Beatles, are the people that I will look to for inspiration and the desire to be dedicated, and to be successful.
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