Clinton Skakun

Photo Credit: The Wisdom Journal

Outliers is a MUST READ for anyone who studies history, successful people or the hidden side of what people call “genius”. Outliers explains how people who like Bill Gates, the Beatles and Dale Carnegie achieved on a massive massive scale and how it wasn’t caused by luck or genius like most like to believe.

What the hell is an “Outlier”?

“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I’m interested in people who are outliers-in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.

Bill Gates, Lucky or Genius?

You’ll learn that Bill Gates, the whizkid who had a higher than average IQ, didn’t actually make his business success on smarts, or at least not alone, but rather because of the one in a million life time opportunity to have constant use of a computer(which in those days, most grown ups didn’t have access to a computer, unless they designed or programmed them). Bill Gates spent more time using a computer back then, than more kids now days dp. How many kids Bill’s age had a computer 40 years ago? Not too many. How many more “genius” billionaires would there be now days if more 13 year olds had full time access to a computer 40 years ago? A lot! If you continue to read the book you’ll find out that Bill Gate’s mother had a lot to do with his business success. Having two rich parents who both, had connections and money to buy him computer time, it’s not a surprise Bill Gates had chances no one else had.

The 10,000 hour rule

Malcom Gladwell says that almost everyone who has succeeded at a large scale, some time in history, all had around 10,000 hours of solid practice under their belt. 10,000 hours is a lot and Gladwell says it’s almost a guarantee that you will do well at your craft, and maybe even become another billionaire(or millionaire). Not everyone is interested in becoming a billionaire, some people are just happy to live a productive life. By any rate, success never comes unless there is a great deal of practice involved. Someone once said, “If you haven’t practiced you don’t deserve to win.” Rarely does anyone do really well just on talent, without commitment and hard work and constant practice. If you want to beat everyone else, just practice for 10,000 hours, most people quit half way through.

This was true for the Beatles, who were given the chance of a lifetime to practice over 10,000 hours before going mainstream and becoming a hit.

Even Mozart needed at least a decade before he was up to standards:

“By the standards of mature composers, Mozart’s early works were not that outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of Wolfgang’s childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for piano and orchestra are largely arrangements of works by other composers. Of those concertos that only contain music original to Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K 271) was not composed until he was 21. By that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years.” – Quote found at BeatleTracks Band

“I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody — somewhere — was practicing more than me.” – Larry Bird

Study their Environments

Gladwell says that there are tons of self-help books in bookstores that are more than eager to give you the 7 steps to success, or the 5 traits of successful people. But, he says, there aren’t a whole lot of books about the environments of these successful people, and how that contributed to their successes. It’s important to study the person, and it’s also important to understand the chances they were given in the age they lived in, their heritage, and so on. At first it may seem like Gladwell is saying that success is an accident or caused by luck(growing up in the right place at the right time) but what he’s really saying is that the people who were presented with opportunities took them. We ourselves are all born with opportunities and we have the ability to take them when presented. This theory backs up that most extremely skilled investors and entrepreneurs study the future needs, wants, changes etc and are the ones who can best adapt to them and can take advantage of these changes when they come(while everyone else wakes up one day and wonder why doing the same old thing doesn’t work any more).

Consider this book apart of your education! Read it and share its ideas with people around you.

photo credit: Raz City
Not too long ago I was speaking with a friend of mine who was laid off from his job as an engineer. He was doing his best to find work contracting for several firms, on top of that he admitted that he was collecting from EI as well. His overall impression of his job was that it wasn’t something he thought he was meant to be doing anyways. By speaking to this individual for a few minutes you could tell he had talents in things far beyond what he was currently doing. Now, I don’t want to make a judgment from my standpoint on what he should be or shouldn’t be doing. My point of view might be totally wrong, but it seems as if he was focusing time and energy on something that wasn’t quite allowing him to live a purposeful life and focus on things that he might be better suited for. Now you be thinking, welcome to life, most people are in the same situation or are quickly headed there! I agree, but lets look at it this way: most people hate their jobs anyways and were brought up thinking that is the way it has to be.

I was recently reading a book called the Power of Focus where they talk about focusing on your strengths and delegating your weaknesses to people who are better at them then you are. This is what wealthy people do every day and is the reason why many of them can enjoy a balanced and fruitful life. (Lots of wealthy people are burnt out and miserable but I mean the ones who live good lives). This is often why the jack of all trades who works 18 hours a day doing everything, wearing all the hats, can never move forward unless he allows himself to let go of a few parts of his business or management. Those people that view the “do it yourself” approach from everything like fixing a cars to spending hours with bookkeeping and transaction records miss out on a very important concept: PEOPLE who can do it BETTER than you SHOULD BE paid to do it. Don’t be afraid to let other people take over certain tasks, tasks that take your focus off of your strengths and that if delegated would save you time.

If you still don’t get it, here’s something to think about. Do MILLIONAIRES spend time on things they suck at, or do they get other people to do it for them? Because here’s the deal, if you’re worth 1 Million Dollars a year, that plays out to $390/hr(say you work 320 days a year, 8 hours a day) and that means anything you do MUST be worth your time or more. Is doing something you suck at worth $390/hr or would you pay a professional (probably less than $390/hr) to do it better than you can? How many mechanics do you pay $390/hr to fix the transmission on your vehicle? Not too many! So HOW, may I ask, are you saving money by doing it yourself?

“The key is OTHER people’s TIME, OTHER people’s MONEY” – R. Kiyosaki

By focusing on your strengths you save your time and money, you spread wealth to honest hard working people who can do it better and have dedicated decades of experience and you live a more balanced and free lifestyle because of it.

There are people who are worth economically LESS because they perform at jobs that are not worth a lot to the economy and don’t provide a whole lot of value. People who provide massive sums of value DO because they perform at a different level than people who provide LESS. If you want to maintain your standard of living you have to increase or stay at the same level that you have been. This only makes sense. This is why you pay people who don’t perform as well as you, or have different talents, to work on tasks that you either aren’t talented at or would go broke doing. Take for example the Rolling Stones, the reason why they’re so good at what they do is because they’ve spent ages focusing on music and practicing their craft. You don’t see them setting up the stage and the lights before a performance! Why? Because it only makes sense that if you want to perform at a higher level, you have to cut garbage from your life that drains time and money and delegate crap that doesn’t have anything to do with you in the first place.

“One man cannot practice many arts with success.” – Plato

Is it posible to come out with a Linux distrobution that caters to the paranoid? In my opinion Linux distros are better than other operating systems, but nothing is perfect. How will ParanoidLinux stand out from any other Linux OS.

Another question is, what are people going to expect from such an operating system? What about the Linux Kernel? It still has bugs. Aren’t any of the other distros like Redhat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, FreeBSD and the 101 other ones out there good enough? Would you expect a perfect operating system? No.

My idea of Linux is that it’s better, it shows what a computer can really do and surprises me all the time. But is it perfect? Of course not. I personally think that people should learn how to use Linux so they know more about computers.

Just because a bunch of people are going crazy from using Windows doesn’t mean Linux has to become a psychiatrist. Haha, just a joke.

If your so paranoid, program it yourself.

- Clinton

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