The Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell's The Outliers is an interesting perspective on successful people . . . people extending beyond the perimeters of accomplishments to those that have membership in great accomplishment. Gladwell is a modern day Csikszentmihalyi.

As I am in the early pages of the book, he has identified incredible talent, diligent persistent work topping at least ten thousand hours of grunt time, and historical opportunity of context as precursors for incredible success.

Very successful people go beyond just the hard luck story of pulling themselves from a disadvantaged bootstrap raggamuffin to richamuffin tale. No one does it alone. The environment of opportunity must be there poised and waiting. The concept is an interesting one. Ideas must bloom at the right time.

We live at an intriguing crossroads in history - - A baffling explosion of Internet and technological possibilities fueled by a needy world in a time of plenty.

Who will recognize what, plant their ideas in the dirt of opportunity and fertilize the abstract with the thousands of hours of pure work? Will shrinking work ethics affect productivity of solutions?

Too often modern day American ingenuity lies fat and happy in the lap of entertainment.