Opportunity and Success. Malcolm Gladwell redefines these terms in his book "Outliers" via case studies. One such study involves a man named Christopher Langan. Many of us don't know who this guy is and he happens to be the smartest man in America. His IQ surpasses that of Einstein. He started talking at 6 months of age and taught himself to read when he was 3 years old. Malcolm contrasts this guy with Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is well known and much more successful than Chris.
Christopher Langan right now is a theorist while Steve Jobs was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company that has touched the lives of many with his ideas, technology and skills. If Chris Langan’s and Steve Jobs’ stories tell us one thing it is that higher IQ does not guarantee success, opportunity does. Steve Jobs was fascinated by computers and through diligent effort he ended up at a summer job with Hewlett Packard and well now we all know how much he is accomplished. Christopher Langan, despite diligent effort, was not even able to attend college. He had to study on his own. Success is always eluded to be exclusively a matter of individual merit. Steve Jobs' story shows that apart from possessing individual merit, seizing the right opportunity at the right time is crucial for success.
The book Outliers brings to light many stories like these and the true reasons behinds one's success and another's failure. Author Malcolm Gladwell does not condone sheer luck, good karma or the hand of a spiritual being in any sense in the successes of these people. He does, however, highlight that preparation is necessary to take advantage of opportunity. The book's theme: Luck is when preparation meets opportunity, is proven repeatedly through different scenarios.
It is both an inspiration and a reality check to read these stories. It is now a constant reminder to me that to be successful it is important to possess individual merit coupled with extraordinary effort (some thousand hours worth) AND the opportunity to put talent to work. All of what we do will come in handy in another function at a later time and it will surprise us. I think this goes hand in hand with the following speech by my favorite nerd of all time: TedTalk -- Steve Jobs
