The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Outliers is a outside the box look at success. If you have read Freakonomics or Super Freakonomics you can see some of the similarities of how Malcolm Gladwell takes data that is seemingly unrelated and makes some semblance of sense to it all. My friend Tim gave this book a great soundbite. "The biggest point in there is how seemingly unrelated sequences and coincidences can lead to unexpected outcomes." That puts it well after you have read it.

Gladwell takes you down a path to look at success and the reasons for it can sometimes be associated with environment, chance and personal will. This book fits well with my Success formula. Success = Knowledge + Luck + Hard Work. The less you have of one, the more you need of the other 2. It also brings to the table the idea of success. What is it. Is it simply measured by monetary means? I can't believe people can be that short sighted, but we are in a fallen world filled with people that simply seek self.

The following are some of my notes from this book.

Outliers definition:
1. something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body
2. a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample

Hockey players that are born at the beginning of the age cutoff have a higher chance of success on the ice, simply due to being slightly older than other kids? The data shows it to be true. Seems nuts, but when coupled with the 10,000 hour rule, it makes a little more sense.

Amazing the chance opportunities that Bill Joy(Sun) and Bill Gates had as young kids. They both had unlimited access to a computer before many people knew what they did. By the time they started their businesses they had logged 10,000 hours of programming time. More than about anyone else around. It is almost no wonder they were successful.

Mozart started writting music at age 6, but it was not until he had been composing for 10 yrs at age 21. He did not start out a musical genius, but practiced and practiced his way to greatness. It was choice coupled with talent. The same goes for pro athletes. Most have 10,000 hours of practice by the time they hit the pros. Also, the Beatles had 10,000 hours of performing due to a chance ability to perform every night at a club in Hamburg for 2 years. They performed more than 1200 times before 1964 when they had their early success. That is more performing than many artists do in a lifetime.

When you look at the all time richest people list, you notice that 14 of the top 75 names are American men born within an 8 yr time frame. The main reason is the US went through major growth in that time frame, the railroad and Wall street created enormous wealth, probably never to be seen again. This is total chance. These men were born at the right time and took their opportunity to make the best of the opportunities they found. Taking this a bit further looking at the computer revolution and leaders who were born between 1954 and 1955.
Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Bill Joy,Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim of Sun.

Your IQ won't bring you success alone. Your environment can play a role as well as noted with the lack of success found by Chris Langen. Good Schools and a nurturing home life play a role in your success as well.

Because many Jewish lawyers took on the business of mergers cases that the high up WASP lawyers wanted nothing to do with, this segment of the population was preparing them selves for a time when mergers and acquisitions became big business. These Jewish lawyers like Joe Flom took what they could get and could never have known what was in store for them. As mergers and acquisitions grew larger so did the firms run by these men. The combination of chance, hard work and knowledge got them there.

The attitudes of herding families in the mountains carries over from the herding mentality of the families from back in Europe. Even after the herding is gone, the feisty spirit remains in these men. That is why there are family feuds that few know the origins of.

Chinese are good at math because the way they put together numbers is more intuitive and faster to say and perform. Because children can perform more advanced math earlier, they tend to advance further and faster than other cultures/languages all the way through school.

The sacrifice that a poor child can face by being given the opportunity to go to a private school may remove their offspring from the grips of poverty, at a cost. Some would say that the child has no social time. But when you consider the success rate of certain programs, you would have a hard time arguing that it may be a good solution to remove future generations from poverty. Opportunity, Environment and Personal Will.

Will you read this book again? Maybe. It is a good read and brings you back down from your high horse that you are great by your own doing. There is so much chance, environment and personal will involved that you can't help but being brought down a level on your ego trip.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library? Public Library

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt

I really only read this book for one purpose. In the past 6 months, my faith in Jesus Christ has been shocked to life so to speak. My wife and I felt led to leave the church we were attending and search for another congregation to become a part of. Part of this process brought me to go back to the beginning of my conversion to Christianity back in High School. My youth pastor at the church we attended was Doug Pagitt. His "talks" as we called them back then, were always very fundamentally evangelical in nature. He believed and preached salvation by grace alone and faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to receive that gift. I reviewed this book simply to understand based on my knowledge of Doug and who he was then, if that Doug still exists or if he has truly fallen into the heresy that I have read/heard about online.

Since leaving the church I attend with him as the youth pastor and moving into a leadership role in what now is being called the emergent church, I have been questioning what it is that he now believes and is it truly different than what he taught in HS, or is all the fuss about the emergent church blown out of proportion. I can say that yes, Doug has become a heretic in the biblical sense of the word. I now understand the futility of the discussions I have heard Doug have with evangelical leaders. There is now little to no common ground to walk along with between Doug and Biblical Christianity. From the sounds of it, those that have been posted with the emergent label are nearly all believe very similarly to Doug.

I can say with certainty that all disagreement between Doug/emergent types and Biblical Christians stem from the inerrant authority of all the scriptures, sola scriptura. Doug no longer believes in the inerrant authority of all the scriptures. This is a key component to the Christian faith. Without the Bible being the true words of God, what differentiates this faith from that of Hindu, Islam or Buddhism? Which is exactly the reason why Doug refuses to offer the idea of a hell anymore. If Christ died once for all, then that means any religion that promotes good living will get you a good life after death. The basis of the Christian faith is that Jesus Christ came to earth as the propitiation for our sin on this earth. It is also clear that this propitiation is for those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ and for no one else. I don't doubt that Doug believes that Jesus was the propitiation for our sin, however, I think he may add that he doesn't know whether that means it is for everyone unconditionally or whether it is for the select believers as written by greek influenced jews(aka the apostles of Christ).

Because Doug does not believe in the inerrant authority of all the scriptures, a discussion about anything in the faith with the emergents becomes futile.

Any further dissection of the problems with Dougs Biography/Story about a Christianity Worth Believing is not helpful when his baseline that we have as Christians is not regarded with the same authority as I have.

I pray that Doug is convicted back into the realization that the Gospel is all we have. Jesus told a story though the authors of the Bible. As 2 Tim 3:16 says, All scripture is God breathed(inspired) by God and useful for teaching, rebuking(reproof) and training in righteousness. Paul didn't write that some scripture is God breathed, but ALL of it is.

Will you read this book again? No.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library? Public Library

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

Obstacles Welcome by Ralph de la Vega

This is a decent biography about Ralph de la Vega where he spends a lot of time bringing leadership principles into the story. I have to admit I had never heard his name before reading this book, but now I know who he is. He runs ATT Mobility and Consumer Markets fka ATT Wireless and Cingular.

His is what I think is becoming a rarer story in the US. Immigrated to the US as a boy in poverty, takes advatange of opportunities that arose and became a powerful executive leader. His goal in the book is to show many of the obstacles in his life that could have lead him down a different path, but through leadership principles he gained along his journey, he was able to make the best of the obstacles and grow personally and professionally.

The book had many takeaway points as seen in my notes below:
-Faith in a better future is a key enabler to overcoming incredible odds
-Courageous decisions and willingness to sacrifice provide an enabling force to overcome the most difficult of obstacles.
-The human spirit is incredibly resilient.
-Obstacles provide growth, embrace them.

The Pillars of Success
-Planning
-Take Risks
-Recognize opportunities
-Overcome Obstacles

-Seek your pivotal points that can change your lifes direction. These can provide for the greatest opportunity to learn and grow.
-Opportunities Exist everywhere. They often come disguised as problems.
-Be your own driver. Make a road map and a plan to control your journey. You increase your chance to find the opportunities when you are working your own plan.
-Be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
-Every experience is an opportunity to learn
-Unlearning is part of getting better. Knowledge and situations change, so must we.
-Your vision should drive everything you do.
-Get peoples buy in. A vision is just theoretical unless people want to be a part of it.
-Sacrifice is key. Sacrifice is a requirement to accomplish something great.

The Value Pyramid
-Integrity
-Credibility
-Teamwork
-Attitude
-Excellence
-Vision

-Leadership is a learned skill for most people
-Dreaming big makes you more likely to succeed as long as you match your dreams with your hard work and sacrifice.
-Only you can allow limits to be imposed on your dreams.
-Its up to you to understand the "yes-but" factor in your field, and remove them from your path.
-On the path to leadership, avoid shortcuts, because nothing can substitute for experience and learning.
-Hope is not a strategy

-Your game plan should have five parts
1. honest assessment
2. clear vision
3. concise explanation
4. solid alignment of the right people
5. room for adjustment

-Executing ideas is the most difficult thing to do.
-A vision without a plan and the proper accountability will get nothing done
-A game plan for your life is developed the same way as a game plan for business. The only difference is you are the only person responsible for carrying it out.
-Communication can never be done too much.
-Listening and learning are critical starting points
-3 Cs - Communication must be Clear, Concise and Consistent
-Establish a feedback loop to make sure your message has efficiently gotten through to the right people.
-Be authentic, everything about you communicates something.
-To get the most out of people enable and empower them.
-Empower at all levels
-Think about this strategically and revisit it often to determine who should be given more or less authority.
-No personal boundaries.
-Make goals not wishes
-Plans needs steps to achieve a goal
-Constantly and relentlessly measure your progress.
-There are hidden opportunities in every difficulty.
-Sacrifice is required to create value
-Sacrifice must accompany a vision of a better future.
-The more inspired you are about the brighter future, the more you will be willing to sacrifice.
-Sacrifice opens doors to opportunity and hard work and discipline turn that opportunity into a reality
-Your workforce should look like your customer base for best success.
-Create and environment that makes contributing easy.
-Leaders help people to reach thier full potential
-Leaders help communities reach their full potential and great leaders can have a great impact here.
-Leaders must focus on critical things not everything.
-Continuously improve yourself and your leaders.
-Growth is good, talent and capabilities grow over time
-Extraordinary leaders like Dr.King are rare, but becoming as effective as him should be everyones goal.


Will you read this book again? I may pick it up down the line, but I think this is one like most bio style writings, you read it once, grab some of the important ideas and move on.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library or leave at the public library? Public Library.

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

Lessons From The Top - The 50 Most Successful Business Leaders in America--and What You Can Learn From Them by Thomas J Neff and James M Citrin

The authors set out on a big adventure on this book. A research project at its best in my opinion. They took a group of metrics to determine who they believed were the 50 most successful businessmen of the time, interviewed them and took what they learned to turn it into Lessons From The Top. What is so ironic about this book, is that when they were researching highly successful leaders, Enron, MCI Worldcom and numerous financial powerhouse executives had not yet been found to be the frauds we now know them to be. It is interesting to read lessons from someone you now know to be fraudulent. My takeaway from these successful business men and women leave me questioning all that they espouse. Overall I find this to be a good thing for everyone to do anyways, but it makes it easier to grasp some wisdom and throw other advice away, when you question the integrity of the source.

All in all this was a book full of takeaways on leadership and responsibility. A common theme was building the right team of people to build up your company with you. Not everyone gets to be the CEO, but every person in the organization is required to make the CEO and business look good. Take care of your employees was another common theme.

Will you read this book again? I think this book is one to pick up everytime your career and/or business hits a growth milestone to help you maintain humility as your leadership requirements grow.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library or leave at the public library? Personal library.

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

How I turned $1000 into a Million in Real Estate in my spare time by William Nickerson

This book was originally published in 1959. It was republished in 1969 and 1984 under updated names, to include how he has continued to expand his $1000 investment 10 yrs and 25 yrs after the first publishing. I may read the followups and report back, but overall, this book and/or one of the followups should be required reading for all potential landlords. It takes the nitty gritty of what being a real estate investor really is. You are making this for an investment not to create a job.


-Looking at properties dogmatically and identifying when it is time to improve and move forward to expand your portfolio.
-Finding the right deal each time as to not force yourself into a bad decision when purchasing.
-Showing you the real numbers during his growth process. Even though he is using values from the 50s which have little reality in the 21st century, the financial concepts are sound to this day.

The focus on educating yourself to know enough about every aspect of the process as to know when someone working for you or working against you cannot take advantage of you. His goal is to train you to be deliberate in all your decisions. Know how you are going to get out before you get into an investment.

Overall, the takeaway from this book is. Be deliberate in your investing and eventually it will pay off exponentially.


Will you read this book again? I think I will read the updated versions to see the commonality. I would recommend this original.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library or leave at the public library? Public Library. Since there are 2 updates to the book, I would leave this one at the library and purchase the 1984 version if at all.

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

Super Freakonomics by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt

This book is a followup to the best selling Freakonomics by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt. If you enjoyed their eclectic choice of economic paradoxes before, you will not be disappointed by Super Freakonomics. Whether describing the supply and demand of prostitution based on customer demographics or laying out the fundamental problems with the global warming debates that are pervasive in our political arena currently, they use entertainment to make you feel smarter about the economics of the world.

An economic purist might take offense to the simplistic approach of this author team of a rogue economist and reporter at heart. The wordplay they use to make their points can at times take advantage of the ignorant reader, but you can't find fault in much of the data they are collecting and reporting on.

Will you read this book again? Probably not, but I would recommend it to others.

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library or leave at the public library? Public Library. It is entertaining, but not something I would likely come back to.

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN

So you want to start a Business by Edward D. Hess and Charles F. Goetz

This book is a practical guide to the things you should consider before starting a business. I can all but guarantee that there would be far less people starting businesses and far less business failures if every new business owner read this in advance.

The book is an easy read for the parts that you are not familiar with. If you already understand basic balance sheets and cash flow and operating costs and expenses, parts of the book are a bit monotones. If you do not understand them, it can be a bit overwhelming, but these are things that need to be considered.

The authors made it very easy to review this book by laying out business rules and lessons learned. Each business rule and lesson is laid out in detail at the end of each chapter and all of the lessons and rules are in an easily referenced section at the end of the book.

Will you read this book again? Yes

Would you suggest this book be added to a personal library or leave it at the public library? Personal. This is a good reference book for any time a new business opportunity that you may need to review and the rules and lessons are easily accessible at the end of the book.

Reviewed By Mike W - Twin Cities, MN