Book Report: Outliers

Everyone has heard of Outliers. If you haven't, you might actually be an Outlier. HEYO! Anyway, I was reading a post about becoming an expert, by Penelope Trunk. Penelope links to a couple posts. And although Penelope's post and links have more to do with the first part of Outliers (Opportunity) none of them discussed the book at all. And it would have been interesting if those articles explored the Legacy aspect the way Gladwell does.

Aaaaaaaaaanywho.......

The part about Outliers that was the least accessible to me was his quote from Matthew at the VERY beginning of the book:

Matthew 25:29 - "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

This quote did not make much sense to me so I asked my cousin if he could expound. Which he did with aplomb:

The verse comes at the end of a parable that Jesus tells called “the parable of the talents”. In brief, a master leaves 3 men in charge of a great deal of money (a ‘talent’ may be the equivalent of 20 years of wages, so in other words, a boat load of cash. This is important because it is not about ‘natural talents’.) (for a modern translation, read: this [sic]).

To one guy he leaves 5 talents, to the second 2 talents, and the third 1 talent. The first two dudes double the money, but the last guy takes the money and hides it in a hole. He’s worried that the master will be mad if he looses any, so when the master comes back, he gives all of the money back, down to the last cent.

Well, that pisses the master off, and the master takes the money and gives it to the guy who has done really well, leaving the the 3rd guy with nothing. Which leads to the verse in question.

Why is the master so upset? He got his money back. Well, technically the 3rd guy did ‘less than the least’. The ‘least’ he could have done was taken the money to the bank and collected interest. But he didn’t even do that. Instead he operated from a place of fear, and the explanation point for Jesus here is that that is the real sin. (side note: the end of the story talks about “throwing the 3rd guy out into the outer darkness”. Its tempting as modern readers to read that as “the third guy” or “people who fail” go to hell. Not the case. Jesus is saying that the fear itself needs to be cast out. But, this is getting off topic.)

Why it works for Gladwell: His book isn’t about people born extraordinary. Bill Gates wasn’t born a computer genius, he was born in a very specific window of time in history and had extraordinary access to technology at a critical age. BUT, he also worked. Hard. 10,000 hours. The first two guys in the story above take what they have, whatever it is, and work. Plain and simple. The third guy does not work. He doesn’t do anything.

The message I most take from Gladwell (and Jesus), is that it is the opportunity directly in front of us that matters. Not the pie in the sky what-ifs, but making the most of what you have each day. And, as ‘proven’ by the 10,000 hours theory, hard will will repay itself. Exactly like Jesus said it would.

Book Report: Bonfire of the Vanities

I just finished Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. It took me a couple weeks to get my Krugman post up but I wanted to get through this one is much faster, mostly because I've been reading the book off and on for a few months and I'm sick of it being in my life. Nevertheless, I'm still taking credit for one of my 26 books of 2010 though.

There are a couple reasons this book took so long: it's mammoth (almost 700 pages), the characters are very hard to identify with, and I just can't seem to get into Wolfe's writing style. There are a lot of similarities between the characters in Bonfire and the current mess on Wall Street, which if anything made me like the book less. It would have been better if we had left the Gordon Geckos in the 80's (or Vin Diesel in the Boiler Room?). I also have a dog-eared copy of The Right Stuff that I plan on finishing this year but for the same reason that I decided to read Bonfire: I just want it off my shelf. At least Right Stuff is about some cool historical shit, er, stuff.

Next....

Book Report: The Return of Depression Economics

I'm testing a new feature here at Nacho Lovers Anonymous, cataloging the books I read throughout 2010. A friend of mine made a resolution to read 25 books in 2010. I thought that was a good number. I actually like 26 better (a book every 2 weeks) but let's not quibble over details. So in addition to my previous resolutions (which, as it turns out, isn't such a great idea) let's add "read 26 books".

My first book of 2010 was The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. For those who have never heard of him, I apologize. For those who dislike him, I'm not sure I like you. And for those who know and like him this post will be relatively meaningless since I don't have anything of substance to add to any of his topics.

In addition to his work as an economist Paul is a columnist and blogger for the New York Times, with an article entitled Conscience of a Liberal (an interesting sidenote is that while his is very liberal and progressive, Times' policy does not allow him to endorse political candidates). I read the blog regularly and have read a couple of his other books. His writing is clear, concise, and persuasive. He makes the subject of economics extremely interesting (at least for this humble blogger), in addition to offering keen insights to other parts of the political spectrum (especially health care).

Here's a quick book review, another from the UK, and an interesting video of a talk he did recently about the book.

RLOTW: Indian Summer

Oh yeah, and the coworkers and I did a ROLTW at Indian Summer (in the pouring freaking raining to boot). Yelp already has a ton of reviews so I didn't do anything there but I was pleasantly surprised that they had samosas as part of the buffet. It also seemed like they had a bigger selection than other places. Although all the meat was chicken they did have a big assortment: chicken tikka masala, curry chicken, biryani, and chicken kabob (including some sausage-like pieces). Anyway, I highly recommend.

Maybe New Year's Resolutions aren't such a good idea

Okay, so maybe it's not such a bad idea that I didn't write a post about my New Year's Resolutions. Turns out that they are really hard to keep. One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, did all the research here. These are her takeaways:

1. Start Small
   
2. Think in Increments of Three Weeks
   
3. Get the Wording Right
   
4. Visualize what you will look like
   
5. Forget New Year's day. Start now