Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers AND Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated – A special issue double act!
The Big Idea
Success is not simply a function of talent. In fact, ‘natural’ talent may have very little to do with it at all.
Speed RAP
To be a world-class performer requires two specific factors: the community in which the individual lives and works; and, an individual’s effort over time. Passion and innate talent bring up the rear.
Gladwell’s Outlier’s promotes the role of the social context as the decisive factor in top performance. Colvin’s Talent is Overrated promotes ‘deliberate practice’ as the path to greatness.
Both concur. It takes a long time to reach mastery. Success rewards the individual who puts in an apprenticeship of around 10,000 hours. That’s 3 hours every day for ten years. Mastery is based in practise. It’s applied experience over time.
People get good at the things they love doing – why else would you spend 10,000 hours falling over, making mistakes and working your butt off?
Your Challenge
Be a top performer in your field. Are you up for it? In this issue we show you how. Now create your plan and implement. Do the work. Enjoy the journey. Otherwise it’ll just be another nice read.
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June 7, 2026
You’ve spent years building your experience. But what if some of it is quietly becoming less useful? In this excerpt from my On Experience conversation with
June 3, 2026
For most of my career, I’ve been wrestling with the same question: How do you turn what you know into something of value? And inside
May 28, 2026
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