What is the secret to success?

Wow, that’s an age old question.  But here’s some new ideas.

Malcolm Gladwell has just authored a new book called Outliers: The Story Of Success, which raises the question why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential?

The self-made myth

Actually he challenges the old thinking that people are “self made” instead making the assertion that successful people are given an extraordinary opportunity and then they work really, really hard.

As he puts it: “They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”

He’s included compelling life stories, from the Beatles to Bill Gates, that support his assertion and makes the book an interesting read.  He builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, “some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.”

The extraordinary opportunity for the Beatles was years of playing gigs in Hamburg; for Gates, going to a high school that had a computer.  The hard work: the Beatles probably played 1,200 gigs before they took off.  Gates spent his high school years obsessed with programming that computer.

Overnight success

Generally it takes ten years of a lot of hard work to become a champion chess player, ballerina, tennis star or any other successful endeavor.  What we often think of as an overnight success is years in the making.

As Gladwell points out many people believe that you can be whatever you want to be.  “Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be” he says.

Here’s an excerpt from the Guardian that’s worth linking to:

But David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, in today’s column, brings an interesting and different perspective to this question of success.

Brooks believes that Gladwell has “lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.”

Here’s a couple of assertions that Brooks made about how individuals create success.

First ,successful people start with the belief that the future can be better than the present and that they have the ability to make it happen.

Successful people are focused

The ability of successful people to laser focus their attention gives them the power to rewire their brains.  They are not controlled by the stimuli around them but are in control.

This leads to the ability to formulate strategies (a key to success), and to have the resilience to continue on when other people think they are crazy or stupid.  And people who can focus their attention can look at a problem in a new light and solve it creatively.

Gladwell provides a lot of insight (and examples) about the path to success as a consequence of social factors.  Brooks give a lot more credit to the greatness of the individual’s character and creativity.

Look, you just can’t get enough advice on achieving success.

By the way, do you think being successful at playing games, like mahjongg, Sudoku or word puzzles, is a legit form of success?  They require focus, creativity, problem solving and there is hard work and a social element to playing games.  If you want to take that road, we invite you to visit our website – Brain Games Software – where you can find all kinds of games to be successful at.

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