Seems like work your nuts off obsessively and be in the right place at the right time is the key.. makes sense to me..

Extract from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: Is there such a thing as pure genius? | Books | The Guardian

John,

I wonder how many times people have been in the right place at the right time but never spotted or took advantage of the opportunity that passed them by.

Of course there is no 1 model that fits all but for me at the moment I am approaching work life like a game of poker. For long periods it is a case of ticking over, making small small bets based on educated risks but ultimatly watching, calibrating and waiting patiently. Then when it is your time to go all in then make sure you have the energy, resources and balls to do so. Working smart is better than working hard.

Thanks

Matt

Redsimo wrote:

I wonder how many times people have been in the right place at the right time but never spotted or took advantage of the opportunity that passed them by.

Exactly. Experience does tend to train you to spot opportunities that you weren't able to see before at the apporopriate moment and respond in time. When you are inexperienced you often only spot it looking back - "Oh I could have done X then" when it is too late. This is frustrating of course but after a enough of these next time you get to spot it in time! I try to encourage this to happen quicker when learning by not stopping at the refelcted hindsight and rehearsing actually acting on it next time in the future.

If I am improvising percussion with a musician I have never met and playing a song I have never heard I can mostly spot from their body language when they are about stop suddenly or change rhythm and I can change at the same moment. They are often really surprised that I know what they are going to do but its just coz I have done it a thousand times and with lots of different people so my brain can now spot very subtle cues even from strangers.

Hi John

I think its good that Gladwell is exploring that old 10 year average.

There are many ways to build the mental model though. Time is definitely important.

Rich