Crazy Hair, Jamaicans, and What Makes us Tick

Malcolm Gladwell. I guarantee you will not find many more interesting people on the planet (I mean just look at that hair!). This is something I’ve learned in my recent reading history. I just finished the third and most recent book by this gentlemen. This man is quite literally obsessed with the goings-on within the human brain and how that translates into the way we act and interact. Through his books, The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, he uses a myriad of fascinating stories to explain everything from why Bill Gates is the successful man he is today to why exactly it is that you actually prefer chunky Prego when you’ll swear up and down you love classic!

I don’t want to spoil the books, so I’ll just touch on each and you can decide for yourself which adventure you want to take….

The Tipping Point

The first of Malcolm’s books. It examines some of the more influential trends in our culture and what it is exactly that caused them to rise to the ranks of unforgettable when they could have just as easily been just another blip in history.

The book is centered around a theory he introduces, The Three Rules of Epidemics. These being the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. Basically what it boils down to is that for something to really stick, to really anchor itself as a something noteworthy, it needs to have the right people to get it off the ground, it has to be presented in such a way that every person who sees, hears, tastes, it remembers it, and it has to be presented at the right time. Now thinking to myself, these all seem pretty obvious now when it’s spelled out, but the way it is presented in the book really helps tie it together in a way that it, for lack of a better term, sticks!

Blink

Think about how many decisions you made today. What socks should I wear today? Should I have one cup of coffee or two? Do I really want to go to the gym tonight? How many do you think you made? 50? 100? 200? Well how many decisions do you think you made without even knowing it? I’m sure the number will surprise you.

This is Blink. It, I think, is the most applicable book of the three for us as climbers. It examines the snap decisions we make every day, hour, millisecond, and how that is translated in our behavior. He introduces concepts like “thin slicing” and The “Warren Harding Error” (no, not him. The former president), among others. It is basically a dissection of the powerful tool our brain happens to be, and how to recognize its potential, and harness it to the best of our ability be it on the wall or at our jobs.

Outliers

This is the most recent book by Mr. Gladwell. It is a series of case studies on some of the most successful people in recent history, and what it is that got them where they were.

He tries to put to bed the notion, being the fairy-tale addicted Americans that we are, that successful people are born or even self made. He shows that while, yes, successful people have certainly worked for what they have (the 10,000 hour rule), a collection of fortune and dozens of people to help them along the way are just as responsible for their success as their own talent and determination. Among others, he cites the fortune and realized opportunities of his own Jamaican ancestors.

So I know these sound like a series of self help books (that’s what you get when an engineer tries to write a book review). But the great thing about his books is though he spends a great deal of time examining and explaining who we are, how we interact, and what guides us on our way through life, he quite nicely sums each book and examines its applicability to our own lives. His anecdotal style of teaching is as entertaining as it is informative. I highly recommend any of these books. I have The Tipping Point and Blink and, like Eli, am willing to share with anyone who’ll provide me an address to mail the books.

P.S If you ever get a chance to hear him speak live, do it. His captivating story telling is even better in person!