Here at Forging Honor, we’re big believers in trusting the process. The road worth taking is never easy, but often surprisingly simple. The path to greatness might be as clear as putting one foot in front of another. Malcolm Galdwell, author of numerous books and host of the podcast Revisionist history, in his 2008 work Outliers, challenges popular notions of talent, greatness and what it takes to achieve. Over the course of nine chapters and almost 300 pages, Gladwell demonstrates geniuses may in fact be made and not born.
Compiling copious amounts of data and spinning a compelling and entertaining narrative, Gladwell reveals the things that make for extraordinary leaders may be as ordinary as the day on which they were born. He illustrates how many of the icons popularly held up as natural geniuses came into their own by putting in hour after hour after hour of hard work and sweat-soaked effort.
Gladwell writes with a delightful sense of humor and a charming humility as if walking right along with you on the journey. His writing style is encouraging and irresistable. Finishing the book one feels ready to put in the effort to join the assembly of geniuses.
Perhaps more valuable than anything is Gladwell’s ability to present an issue that seems unshakable in its assumptions and slowly, carefully and methodically display an entirely new way of looking at the subject. If nothing else this book is worth reading only for the opportunity to learn how to challenge one’s assumptions and begin to ask new and probing questions of ourselves and the way we think of ourselves and the world around us.
