Comments on: Malcolm Gladwell is Wrong

By: Gladwellologist In Chief

Gladwellologist In Chief — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:18:44 +0000

Gladwell famously said in a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper to describe his 10,000 hours theory that “Mozart was producing absolute garbage at 11″.

This is the core of Gladwellology. Learn it. Study it. Worship it.

Because Gladwell is great at taking great ideas out of depths of his *sshole.

By: Cash

Cash — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:03:49 +0000

Dude, choices sure make a difference, but if U look at those people in Gladwell’s book, there’s one thing that they have all in common.

For exceptional people like that, it wasnt a matter of choice, it was a matter of “need”. Thats right, they were either addicted to their work, or they needed to do, what they did, real bad.

Then, the only thing U need are positive circumstances that’d allow U to continue in doing that and thus make your 10000 hours.

I, for example, am an artist. I come from lowish-class family and have no graduate or art-related education whatsover. In spite of that, in last five years (iam 25 now) i already had three exhibitions (2 in London, 1 in Paris) and sold most of my works. People say i have a great talent and insight. I am also very good at math as i possess the ability to look a lot deeper at things than most people and subsequently understand them.

But i had positive circumstances as well, as i spent a lot of time (about 2.5 yrs) in company of young artists “with right connections” and only thanks to them i was able to produce enough art for my first exhibition.

See, hard work is essential to becoming successful, so is environment.

Choices? U cant really choose. I know i cant. It would ruin my life for christ sakes’D

By: admin

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:17:55 +0000

Thanks for the catch…..I changed it. I had kicked the numbers around several times trying to decide what was the right formula

By: Dan Jacobsen

Dan Jacobsen — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:39:33 +0000

Mark,

You bring up some interesting points in this article. I have to agree with you that success comes mostly from hard work and choices.

Also have to agree with you that math didn’t come easy for you! 75% choices, 15% heredity, 15% environment, lets see, that would be 105% !! LOL

Oh well keep up the good work, your posts are stimulating and insightful.