First, zone5 at lunch and then Malcolm Gladwell this evening. If attending that combination of events doesn’t inspire or motivate you to get off your butt and start doing something to improve yourself, I am not sure what will. 

Malcolm Gladwell, a revered writer for The New Yorker and famed author of multiple books, namely The Tipping Point, Outliers and Blink, spoke earlier today an interesting interview at the NAC here in Ottawa. He touched on a variety of topics, both those that were included in his books as well some food for thought. He took concepts of education, health care, genetics, culture, history, and philanthropy and melted them all into the most insightful and intelligently stimulating hour I have ever experienced. Whatever idea came to the interviewer’s mouth was said, and topics that Mr. Gladwell felt didn’t effectively contribute to his beliefs or thoughts were politely excused.

When it came to his main motivation: working hard to be successful, he was brutally honest and made it a point to inculcate that working excessively hard for something is reality. It was almost like a ‘Dr. Phil’ approach with a much less Texan vibe. To make us all truly understand how and why this is ‘the richest generation’ of time’s truth he explored personal examples and life stories to get us to truly understand what he was advocating.  The most striking thing to me was that Mr. Gladwell is such an eloquent speaker that any set of words he strings together could be a stand alone quote, yet when he was talking he wore the hat of ‘a regular guy’. He joked around and was working the crowd into repetitive laughter. I can’t stress enough how valuable of an occasion it was. To relay some of the important information I retained from the presentation I have included some quotes and topics of discussion from the evening below. Enjoy!

 

Highlighted Topics of Discussion

U.S.A is the most individualistic society in the world

  • Unlike Canada, where there is a unique combination of
    • High collectivism
      • “[We] have an intrinsic motivation to include”
    • Low hierarchy
      • “[We are] not wedded to bureaucratic ways of doing things”
  • In the U.S they are at least fifty years behind the times, and they’re looking for guidance from us Canadians

 

Why are Asian students [on average] better at math?

  • There is no evidence of genetics playing a role
  • Asian countries like Korea, Singapore, Japan, etc are all rice agriculture countries – the most labor intensive harvesting in human history
  •  So it only makes sense that these people are hard workers, that is how they have been brought up
  • But “we are not prisoners of our culture. We can learn from each other”

 

Creating winners

  • Two things must be administered
  • Motivate the person/people to do something they don’t want to do
  • Be diligent in making them do it

 

Is [having] a balance in education equivalent to watered-down success?

  • We are too quick to deem things as weaknesses
  • A friend of Mr. Gladwell who has a 9-year-old daughter explained to Malcolm that he didn’t feel his daughter had a ‘math’ mindset.
  • No nine-year old has developed an aptitude for math so in-depth that one can comfortably separate them from an entire population of math-inclined people.
  • “There is zero usefulness in ranking people, [especially children], at a non-university level”
  • Everyone CAN learn the topic at hand. They just learn it in different ways and at different rates.

 

[What are some] leadership roles that outliers should play in society?

  • Bill Gates can be deemed the ‘luckiest’ man of the 20th century
  • His philanthropy is proportional to his success
  • He doesn’t feel he needs his wealth
  • Yes, some can say he is ‘insanely lucky’ but the key is that he finds humility in his achievements

 

Quotes From the Evening

“Accept and embrace that success is a function of your own efforts and opportunities that have nothing to do with you”

“[Malcolm Gladwell and his messages] celebrate the extraordinary role that WE can play in our own success”

“[Mr. Gladwell’s teachings] inspire you to think about your achievements and inspirations”

“The most important thing about solving a problem is in how you frame or position it”

“How much we succeed [individually] is a group project that we, as a society, have the control over”

“Something can be staring you right in the face, but it can be very difficult to do”

“Excellence is not an accident with things you are born with”

“Nothing can be excelled [in] without an extraordinary amount of hard work”