The more important (and interesting) part of the chapter, though, discusses the huge role that nearly-obsessive practice plays in making people great. Gladwell uses The Beatles and Bill Gates as examples here, showing how they both were able to take advantage of stupendous amounts of practice time to become very, very good at what they did. In each case, Gladwell estimated that it took 10,000 hours of practice for those individuals to hone their natural raw talents and become world class roughly ten years of multiple hours of practice (3 or so on average) every single day. Gladwell offers

Shouldnt IQ be a strong indicator of success in life? It turns out that IQ is only a minor indicator of success people who are successful often have a higher-than-average IQ, but IQ alone is not a predictor of success. Gladwell demonstrates this using several different angles, but perhaps the most stark was his example of a creative test given to two children. It turned out that the one who had scored higher on an IQ test was actually significantly less creative than the other child the high-IQ child gave functionally correct answers, but they didnt possess that spark of creativity that the answers from the other child provided. In other words, IQ is just one small piece of the puzzle for success a high IQ is not necessary to succeed, though there may be a minimum IQ threshold for success

In fact, there are two factors that seem to be as big (or bigger) than IQ in determining whether someone will be successful or not. The first is parenting what kind of culture is the child raised in? A home where a child is encouraged to learn for themselves, develop an independent and questioning and creative nature, and receive support in this growth is far more likely to see adult success than a child without this. A second major factor discussed here is social skills: does a person interact well with others? Are they able to convince others to see things their way? Gladwell seems to make the case that these factors in conjunction with creativity and at least an average IQ (though having an above-average one helps) are big keys to success.

Five: The Three Lessons of Joe Flom Gladwell applies some of the lessons of the first four chapters here in a review of the life of Joe Flom, who built the law firm of Skaaden, Arps into one of the largest in the world. Gladwell ignored intelligence and personality and focused instead on other aspects of Floms growth: the Jewish culture he grew up in, pure demographic luck (meaning he was born at the right time in the right social situation), and the work ethic instilled by having entrepreneurial parents who worked hard and used their minds to succeed. In other words, Flom had a culture, an opportunity, and an example of success in his life.

Harlan, Kentucky has an extensive (and rather violent) history that revolves deeply around individual and familial pride. Gladwell brings it up here because one can actually see the cultural heritage of Harlan (and many other nearby towns) in the residents that live there today. In other words, the culture of Harlan that has persisted since the 1800s is still apparent in the area today and still affects the personality growth and demeanor of people who grow up in that culture. From this, Gladwell concludes that many people are, in ways both mundane and surprising, products of the environment and culture they grew up in.

Seven: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes Gladwell offers up an intertwined set of stories about plane crashes and how crews handle them to illustrate how cultural norms can change how exactly people handle stressful or challenging situations. In the primary example, Gladwell looks at submissiveness in Korean culture and how it created a dangerous series of situations on Korean Air flights, mostly because Korean Air adopted the norms of Korean culture. This resulted in individuals on the flight crew being more submissive than they should be, and this submissiveness resulted in a poor safety record for Korean Air. It took cultural reforms within the business to change this, resulting in Korean Air becoming one of the safest airlines.

What about the cultural idea that people from Asian cultures are better at math? There are actually several cultural reasons for this, which Gladwell discusses at length. The most memorable for me was that Chinese uses very short syllables for numbers, enabling students to save more numbers in their short term memory than students from other languages and cultures. Not only does this make some basic mathematics easier for Chinese students, it also means that their mathematical education can move faster, resulting in more and stronger coverage of basic mathematical concepts.

Nine: Maritas Bargain Here, one observation stood out above all the rest, and it really tells the entire story of this chapter. Over summer vacation, students from poor or middle-income backgrounds tend to stay the same or actually slightly regress in terms of their reading skills. Students from upper-income backgrounds, however, continue to grow in their skills at a rate roughly equal to continued schooling during vacation. The result? After several years, theres a genuine achievement gap between low income children and high income children. The difference? During the summer, the high-income children are pushed to read, learn, and grow. Their culture at home is about learning, and because its a cultural norm, its a part of their everyday life.