Just started reading Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers. So far the book has been very interesting.
Malcom brings up some great key points about how successful individuals actually became successful.
You always hear about the Rags to Riches story... Some Joe Blow from a poor family gets on a computer and starts making Billions of Dollars. I.E. Steve Jobs. In Outliers, the argument is very different. Malcom talks about how many successful individuals often are exposed to the right kind of environment or have opportunities that others simply did not have. As a result, they became successful.
The fact of the matter is that many of the big Computer Moguls (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen, Hewlett Packard, Michael Dell) grew up spending a significant amount of Time around an environment with computers. In other cases they spent time building the first ever computers. To do this they had some social connections that gave them early access to information that was not readily available to others.
The book then goes on to say that you need at least 10 000 hours of work in your field to become one of the best. Many of the computer Moguls such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Paul Allen were also born in and around the same birth year... So when opportunities started to arise in the marketplace these were individuals who were ready to capitalize as a result of their prior work.
At the same time Gladwell goes on to talk about A genius who simply did not have much success in life as a result of his lack of social skills. He talks about the importance of Parents in taking an active role in their child's development and success. Less wealthy Parents often raise kids who frown upon authority where as middle class to upper class born kids often are taught to be more assertive and stand up to authority in a manner that is not aggressive but open minded and objective.
Got another 150 pages to go.... but I definitely recommend this book. You can get it at the link below...
www.amazon.com