Hello Steemit Community,
Before the year ended I wanted to give you an update on the book list I started last year.

Book List Update

So far, since I made the post here I've read or listened to the following books:

Zero to One,
The Lean Startup,
& Good to Great.

But there are a few books that I've read or listened to this year that weren't on the list I made a year ago. These books include:

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
and David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

To be honest when I first created my book list I was not sure how many books I would read or listen to this year. In order to get around this I gave myself a time line of "5 to 10 years" to get through my relatively short-but-growing book list. Now that I have established a baseline book/year rate I will be able to track this (and hopefully improve) this over time.

Now, I'd like you to know that over the course of this year a lot of the books I've read or listened to have felt pretty natural. I listened to a few during long road trips from Missouri to Kentucky, I've read a little bit on flights or during layovers. Although there were times when I would get distracted and have to put a book down, I tried to bring a book with me during travel so that I gave myself the opportunity to read if I felt like it. It makes me wonder if

Outliers Review

When I was recommended Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell I was not sure what I was going to listen to. Before reading it I heard "It talks about why professional hockey players are successful", but after listening to the book I will say it is not about hockey.

In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell takes an analytical approach to discovering what fosters success. Is it hard work? is it dedication? Is it size, shape, race? Malcolm Gladwell's professional hockey reference suggests that it could come down to something as simple as what month you are born in. Malcolm Gladwell explores this conclusion by analyzing the birthdays of a number of hockey players in an objective way - without ignoring or discrediting hard work and the amount of hours someone puts into something.

Without giving away too much of the book I want to mention a few topics that stood out to me:

First, possibly the most well known topic being the '10,000 hour rule'. This 'rule' suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of doing something before mastering it or becoming an expert. In outliers the '10,000 hour rule' is only one factor in what leads to large scale success. For anyone curious it would take someone almost 3 and a half years of doing something 8 hours a day every day to reach 10,000 hours.

Second, Malcolm Gladwell references the Beatles who had the unique opportunity to play at a night club in Germany for eight hours a day seven days a week for months before moving to America.

Lastly, one of the most touching points of the book was a story about a little girl from a low socioeconomic class who had to give up a lot of her care free childhood for the opportunity to attend a school that could lead to her future success.

Overall from my point of view Outliers suggests that large scale success whether it is in sports, music, business, or any other industry is derived by multiple factors. Success does not only come from the amount of time you put in to something but it could quite possibly come from your location, culture, your unique opportunities, the resources available to you and even possibly the year or month you are born in.

Thank you for your time,
McKenzie Gary