A book review of "The Outliers"

1. A step to
become an
OUTLIER
Prepared by Iskandar Julkarnaen
For Yayasan Goodwill International
Pusgiwa UI Depok, 17 March 2012

2. Introduction
 A glimpse about me
 Outliers’ author is Malcolm Gladwell, journalist from
NewYorker Magazine. He is also the writer for other
bestseller books: “Tipping Point” and “Blink”.
 Objective:
 Students are able to understand the definition of
“OUTLIER”
 Students are able to understand the key factors behind
the outliers
 By examining the study case, students could get a
good example from the outliers and apply it in their life

3. Opening Quiz:
 Choose 1 from these two topics:
1. What kind of skill you want to master and how
do you master it?
2. Please mention a very successful person you
know, and how do you think those person
could be so successful?

4. Definition
 Something that is situated away from or classed
differently from a main or related body
 A statistical observation that is markedly different
in value from the others of the sample
 People who do not fit into our normal
understanding of achievement

5. What Malcolm Gladwell Said:
 The tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not
just because it grew from the hardiest acorn.
It is the tallest also because no other trees
blocked it sunlight, the soil around it was deep
and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as
a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down
before it matured.

6. The Notions of “Outlier”
 The biggest misconception about success is
that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition,
hustle and hard work
 Everything that happens to a person is not
always up to that person
 Although there was little that could be done
with regard to a person's fate, society (and
also family) can still impact a person.

7. (Some of) The Key Factors of
Outliers
The 10,000 hours rule
Opportunity
The Importance of the meaningful
work
Cultural Legacy

8. The I0,000 Hours Rule

9. The 10,000 Hours Rule
 Bill Gates
 Born at October, 28 1955
 One of the world’s richest man
 Founder of Microsoft
 Dropped out from Harvard
 His father was a wealthy lawyer
 His mother was the daughter of a well to do
banker

10. What happened to Bill Gates?
 Bill Gates’ parent sent him to private school, Lakeside
at 7th grade. Soon after that, his school started a
computer club (1968)
 Programming was also very complicated but Lakeside
could have managed to own a time sharing terminal
connected to mainframe computer in Seattle

11. What happened to Bill Gates?
 At that time most programming used
computing cards.
 Bill Gates subsequently hooked to the
programming. He was 13 at that time and still
at junior high school.

12. What happened to Bill Gates?
 Bill Gates lived near University of Washington. At that
time, a group of students from University of Washington
form Computer Center Corporation or C-Cubed.
 One of the founder of the C-Cubed had a son in
Lakeside. She asked the Lakeside computer club to
test out the company’s software program. The club said
yes, including Bill Gates.
 After C-Cubed, the club find out about another
company, ISI (Information Science Inc) who let them
have free computer time in exchange for working on a
piece of payroll software.

13. What happened to Bill Gates?
 In a 7 month period in 1971, Gates ran up 1,575 hours of
computer time. It’s equal to average 8 hours a day, seven
days a week.
 After graduated, Gates accepted at Harvard, but dropped out
in his sophomore year and establish his own software
company. By that time, he’d been programming practically for
7 consecutive years.

14. Time to digest
What is the key factor of Bill Gates’ Huge
Success?
What element from Gates history that inspire
you the most?

15. The 10,000 Hours Rule

16. The 10,000 hour rule
 The Beatles
 Considered as one of the most legendary band ever
in history
 Lennon and McCartney first started playing together
in 1957.
 The Beatles successfully invaded America in 1964,
and the rest was history.

17. What happened to The
Beatles?
 In 1960, while they were still just a struggling high
school rock band, they were invited to play in Hamburg,
Germany.
 The Beatles must play for 8 hours, 7 days a week.
 The Beatles travelling to Hamburg 5 times between
1960 and 1962.
 On that period of a year and a half, they performed for
more than 270 nights.

18. What happened to The
Beatles?
 By the year of 1964, they had performed live
1200 times.
 The Beatles not only learn about stamina and
discipline, but also any kind of musical style,
and new way of playing.

19. Why must 10,000 hours?
 Excellence at performing a complex task requires a
critical minimum level of practices.
 Researchers, one of them are Neurologist, Daniel
Levitin believed that the magic number of true expertise
is 10,000 hours.
 In study after study of greatest composers, basketball
players, fiction writers, chess players, etc, this number
comes up again and again.
 It seems that it takes the brain as long as 10,000 hours
to assimilate all that needs to know to achieve true
mastery.

20. “Opportunity”
 The story of Joe Flom
 He is partner of the law firm Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher and Flom
 The law firm is one of the largest and most
powerful law firm in the world
 The law firm has nearly 2000 attorneys in 23
offices around the world
 Graduated from Harvard Law School, and came
a very poor family.

21. What happened to Joe Flom?
 Flom graduated from Law school at 1948, and join a
small law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate.
 At that time, most of prominent Wall Street Law Firm,
only handled taxes, legal work prior to IPO, etc, and
avoid litigation, or proxy fights.
 So, the clients who need litigation and proxy fights
attorney came to Flom’s Law Firm.
 Situation extremely changed at 1970’s where investors
more aggressive and hostile takeovers became regular.
 Joe Flom got his opportunity! And then, Boom!

22. The Importance of Meaningful
Work
 The story of Louis and Regina Borgenicht
 The Borgenichts are immigrant from Europe
 Louis was from Poland, Regina was from Hungary
 They were both jewish and immigrated before the world
war I at 1889 (the period of the great exodus)
 They were really poor, could only afford a tiny apartment
for $ 8/ month and worked in the street.
 Not long after their suffering period, The Borgenicht was
managed to be one of most successful garment
businessman in America

23. What happened to Louis and
Regina Borgenicht?
 Louis sold herrings on the street with German, because
his English was terrible
 This was his chanting: “for frying, for baking, for
cooking, good also for eating, herring will do for every
meal, and for every class”
 Louis didn’t earn much by selling herrings, so he
managed to be a pushcart peddlers. But still, they were
facing a hard life ahead, and nearly give up.
 The turning point for the family was when Louis sat on
a box in front of clothing stores and found out that there
were so many clothing stores in Manhattan.

24. What happened to Louis and
Regina Borgenicht?
 Louis and Regina were from the world where clothing was
sewn at home by hand or using simple sewing machine.
 Since he has an expertise on sewing, Louis subsequently
decide to be in clothing business, but he wanted to produce
something that wasn’t being sold in stores.
 The revelation came to him as he saw a little girl wearing
apron when she’s been playing hopscotch.
 It was only an apron but he had never seen one of the aprons
for sale, so with the help of Regina, the couple started to sell
aprons, and subsequently they managed to be very
successful!
 They eventually had their own factory and stores.

25. The Importance of Meaningful
work
 The meaning of being a jewish = industrial skill
 Louis has worked since the age of 12. He worked
as a cloth maker at a store in Poland.
 This is when he learned all the things related to
clothing. He knew everything about it
 In Manhattan, he and his wife experienced that
the longer they stayed at night sewing aprons,
the more money they made.

26. The importance of meaningful
work
 Meaningful work is not equal to hard work
 Meaningful work fulfills three criteria:
autonomy, complexity and a connection
between effort and reward.
 Hard work is a prison only if it does not have
meaning.
 Hard work should be meaningful in order to
make you own some mastery.

27. Cultural Legacy
 SAT Exam in America for Math
 Asian American : Av 575
 American : Av 534
 American Indian : Av 482
 Hispanics : Av 464
 African American : 426
 It has been stereotyped that Asian is very good
at math.

28. Cultural Legacy: Chinese
Study case
4,8,5,9,6,7,2

29. Cultural Legacy: Chinese
Study case
 It is easier to remember all those digits for Chinese
speaking language.
 We will easily memorize whatever we can say or read
within two second span, and for Chinese to read all
those digits only needs two seconds.
 Chinese: yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi
 English: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten
 Bahasa: satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh,
delapan, sembilan, sepuluh

30. Cultural Legacy: Chinese
Study case
 The number system in English is highly
irregular while Chinese have a logical
counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is
ten two, twenty four is two tens four.
 By this system, learn to count much faster for
Chinese!
 And by this fundamental math skills, no
wonder Chinese and Asian are very good in
math.

31. Closing remark
 What started out as a difficulties would might
ended up being an opportunity
 Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re
good. It’s the thing you do that makes you
good.
 Successful people don’t do it alone. Where
they come from matters. they’re products of
particular places and environments.

32. Closing Quiz (for 3-4 persons/ team)
 What is your most desirable personal goal
you want to achieve in the next 5 years, and
what is your plan to achieve it?
 What is your biggest obstacle to achieve your
goal, and how do you overcome it?

33. ALL BOOKS SPONSORED
BY GRAMEDIA PUBLISHER