Outliers; which is a work by Mr. Malcolm Gladwell. Mr. Malcolm Gladwell is someone with special characteristics that differ from ordinary people. His thoughts and perspectives are profound and different from others. He was rated by Fast Company magazine as one of the most influential people, given the moniker "the Peter Drucker of the 21st century." Time Magazine, on the other hand, named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He wrote this book very well. Next, we will briefly summarize the important content of this book for you.
This book talks about one topic: why do the top people in the world, like Bill Gates, Jack Ma, the music group The Beatles, and others, achieve such great success in their fields? What are the important reasons behind the success of these individuals? What can we learn from them? We all understand that people who can reach the top, become billionaires, successful business people, or famous individuals, have often gone through painful stories and overcome countless difficult obstacles. We have seen videos about the biographies of famous people. Generally, they had a painful childhood, were poor and struggled, went through many years of fighting, and finally became successful people like they are today. Their stories sound quite similar to each other, as if one must go through some pain, along with hard work and honing oneself intensely, to achieve success.
In particular, it is related to the character of the person themselves. In this book, it is stated that all these reasons are not enough to evaluate the reasons for their success. We acknowledge that some people have intelligence and talent from birth. But their upbringing and living environment allow them to see more clearly, learn more, and do more than others. Therefore, if we observe these successful people by only evaluating their actions, it is not enough. We must look at their lineage, upbringing, the life they have gone through, and the important decisions in their life. These are the things that made them truly successful. What this book wants to show us is not the secret to success of any one person. Rather, they conducted research, summarized it into a formula, and presented it directly, telling us about a common key to success for these peak people throughout all eras.
After reading this book, I have received many good and important points that I will share with all of you. First point: the reason these people can become peak people is not strongly related to their natural abilities from birth. Instead, it is strongly related to the experiences they have gone through and many other factors. Second point: things you don't see, like upbringing and culture, are probably what made them truly peak people. And the third important point: what knowledge do the conditions for becoming these peak people provide us? We come to the first point. These peak people can become geniuses like this not because of innate talent or any single factor. It is a combination of many favorable conditions, coupled with hard work, that allows them to become such outstanding individuals. For example, some say that as long as you work hard, you will succeed. Is this one phrase enough? Let's look at the sanitation workers who clean the streets. They wake up at 4 in the morning, wake up before others, and work harder than others. Are they as successful as others? Therefore, hard work alone is not enough. It requires external circumstances and many combined factors. In this book, they raised an example about ice hockey players in Canada. This type of sport in Canada receives a lot of support, no different from American football in the United States or soccer in the European Union.
If you have the opportunity to become a national ice hockey player in this country, you will become rich and very famous. No matter who you are, rich or poor, short or tall, as long as you have the ability, you may get this opportunity. It's very fair. It's different from basketball, which requires you to be tall, have a large build, and be strong to compete with others or become an NBA player. As for the claim that the selection of ice hockey players is fair and equal, the author does not agree. So he conducted a deep study of this sport. He took the roster of the national team players to look at and saw a strange phenomenon that made him unable to understand it at all. That is, the birth dates of most of the national team players are all in January, February, or March. Among the 25 team members, 17 of them were born in the first three months of the year. Why is it such a coincidence? Later, they found out that, in fact, the ice hockey teams are divided into groups according to age. People born in the same year are in the same group. For example, someone born on January 1, 1990, and someone born on December 31, 1990, are in the same group because they were born in the same year, 1990. But in reality, even though they were born in the same year, their age difference is almost a full year. When talking about the selection among young players, one year makes a big difference.
Whether it's knowledge, physical fitness, or training. Therefore, those born at the beginning of the year, whether a little or a lot, have an advantage over those born at the end of the year. This is why we see that the winning national teams have more members born at the beginning of the year. In summary, we see that the factor that allows a player to succeed is related to their birth date. If you were born near the end of the year, the chance that you can become a national ice hockey player is very small. Because you are at a disadvantage to others, being born many months after them, but you are selected to train in the same group, which makes your abilities seem inferior to theirs. See? At first, we said that as long as we work hard, we will succeed. But just this one story can show that working hard alone is not enough. There are many other factors, such as the time or environment we are born into, which are also a major influencing factor. Let's look at a famous law that we call the 10,000-hour principle, The 10,000-Hour Rule, which states that as long as you strive to do any work for a period of 10,000 hours, you will become an expert. But for this principle to work, you need other favorable conditions as well. Like ice hockey, for example, you have to be born at the beginning of the year, work hard to practice this sport diligently for 10,000 hours, then you might have a chance to become a national player. Another point, even though this sports federation does not specify that you have to be the child of a rich person to be able to practice ice hockey, in reality, if your family's life is poor and difficult, you will surely have a hard time becoming a national player.
Because if you don't even have enough to eat three meals a day, where would you find the time to practice for 10,000 hours? You see? For you to succeed, there must be many factors combined. When those favorable factors come together, it's like a chemical reaction, pushing you to a high place, far away from ordinary people. Another point that is more important than anything, which can have a strong influence on the path to success for some people, is the factor of societal change. For example, in the 1930s, American law firms only hired white Anglo-Saxon lawyers to work in their field. Jewish people, even if they had high knowledge and studied at famous schools, because they did not have the original nationality of being white, they could not become lawyers either. They could only accept the leftover, small cases from the white law firms or go into business in other fields. The work that the Jewish law firms received was all litigation and lawsuits that the white law firms did not accept. As for the white law firms, they only accepted work that involved big money, like helping large companies with their IPOs, buying and selling shares, and so on. Unexpectedly, in the 1980s, these kinds of disputes and lawsuits started to happen more and more, and the amount of money involved grew larger and larger. This played right into the hands of the Jewish law firms at that time. They already had the experience, and just when the social context changed in this way, it caused them to make a lot of money. Later on, we saw large, famous law offices in New York, on Wall Street and so on, that were all from the later generation of the Jewish law firms.
Therefore, at this point, the author raised that it's not that the Jewish lawyers were smarter than others or saw the opportunity before anyone else. But it was because circumstances forced them to take on the leftover, insignificant work that others didn't want. They did this for decades. Who knew that it would turn into a blink-of-an-eye opportunity without them needing to prepare. You might say, weren't the white lawyers working hard? They did work hard. They worked harder than the Jewish lawyers. But in the end, they got different results. You tell me, who can explain this? Therefore, hard work alone does not mean you will succeed. Making the right choice is also an important factor. In summary, the author raises many examples like the one above to show us that being able to become an outstanding person, a peak person, involves many factors. Such as the time and place you were born, culture, knowledge, innate talent, diligence and hard work, practicing skills, experience, important decisions, and luck. Next, we come to the second important point, which is that culture determines victory and defeat. In this book, the author raises an example about the largest airline in Korea, which is Korean Air. In the early 1990s, this company's planes suddenly had frequent crashes. The accident rate rose to 17 times higher than United Airlines of the United States. It got to the point where the President of Korea at the time, Mr. Kim Dae-jung, said: The problem of Korean Air is no longer a company problem. It is a problem of the Korean nation as a whole. Later, this Korean president changed his personal plane, which was previously managed by Korean Air, and then transferred it to Korean Air's competitor, Asiana Airlines. From that moment on, Korean Air's flights have been surprisingly safer than before. From 1999 until now, there has not been a single problem.
Why is it that Korean Air's planes, which previously had frequent problems, later became so much safer than before? Later, they conducted an investigation, with an examination of the black box that was on the plane, and they found the real cause. The cause was not because of the plane, nor was it because the maintenance technology was not thorough. It was because of the culture of the Korean people. If we look at the culture of the Western world, in large companies, the superiors and inferiors, although their positions are different, they do not have an excessive fear or awe of each other. A subordinate and the company's CEO, if they meet by chance, they just greet each other normally, as a leader and a subordinate. There is no bowing down or obeying to an excessive degree. But for Asian culture, especially in Korea, before boarding the plane, the flight attendants, co-pilots, etc., have to stand in a line waiting to shake the captain's hand before they can board the plane, to show respect. This kind of tradition of respecting superiors excessively creates what kind of negative impact? The result is that when the captain makes a mistake, makes a wrong judgment, it makes the co-pilot or the flight engineer who is in the cockpit with them afraid to speak up or argue. As a result, it can cause the plane that is flying to have serious problems.
Therefore, the culture of a country or region can make people's communication, thinking, and behavior appear in different forms. Unseen factors like this are also a strong influence on a person's success or failure. If that culture aligns with the goal, it will help push us to get there faster or more easily. Just as the author raised, the traditional culture of the Chinese people is that everyone is a diligent person, works hard in business. This has made their production and business have an advantage over other nations around the world. Raising this point does not mean to say that this culture is good and that culture is not good. The culture of each country has its own good points and shortcomings. Some cultures push us to succeed easily, while other cultures hinder the path to our success. But the cultural factor is not something that cannot be changed at all. Like the case of Korean Air that we mentioned above. They were able to transform themselves from a company with frequent accidents to one of the safest companies in the world.
This is also because they made many reforms from the root of this problem, which is the culture itself. First, they eliminated the barrier between superiors and subordinates. They had the staff use English to communicate with each other. Because in the English language, you don't use words like "older brother," "younger brother," "boss," or "chief." There's only "you" and "I." Which sounds like everyone has equal rights. Combined with many other small adjustments, it made Korean Air change its face in the aviation industry. Therefore, culture is a very important part that determines the success or failure of these peak people. If that culture aligns with your goal, it is a favorable factor. But if it is opposite to your goal, it is a threatening factor. So, in the end, how can one become a peak person? The author summarized it briefly, saying: A peak person is a lucky person. They are born in good social conditions, a good living environment, and along with that, they have a favorable culture. And all of these can make them easily become a peak person, or it can be said in another way, they can succeed more easily than others. Listening to this, it seems like it has nothing to do with hard work at all. This is the third point in this book that we will discuss. To be able to succeed and become a peak person, you need many favorable conditions. Being born at the right time, living in the right place, meeting the right people, and these factors, sometimes we can control them, but other factors we cannot control. It's like a tree in a forest. The tallest tree is not necessarily the best seed.
But it is certainly in more favorable conditions than other trees. It also needs very good weather, such as enough heat and moisture, which is favorable for its growth. Around it, there are no other trees to cover and take its nutrients, and so on. Even with the same seed, planted in the same place, but at different times, the result will surely be different. And it cannot become the tallest tree either. It's like us humans. We are all smart in our own ways. We are all hardworking people. But if the timing is different, the luck is not the same, then the result will not be the same either. Therefore, to become an outstanding person, ability and luck are both equally important. In this book, they show us two paths. The first path: how to become a great person in a stable social environment. And the second path: how to become a great person in an unstable and unpredictable social environment. Now let's look at the first method: how to become more outstanding than others in a stable social environment. For example, you want to become a top pianist.
This dream does not have a strong connection to the social context. Meaning, wherever you are, whatever country, whatever era, it doesn't have much of an influence on the steps to reach your dream. You probably think that as long as you practice hard, one day you will become a top pianist. But the author reminds us that even hard work requires technique. If you practice the wrong way, even for 10,000 hours, you cannot become an outstanding expert. Therefore, what is more important than hard work is choice. Most people, when looking for a job or changing to a new job, always encounter something like this: one job that offers a high salary but is a repetitive job with no growth, and another job where the income is not very high but there is an opportunity to develop yourself. So, which one should you choose?
This book has given one piece of advice like this: If a work environment offers you competition, self-development, and makes you more capable than before, then you should choose it. Even if you get a low salary or no salary, as long as you can support yourself. Because it will develop you into a more capable person than before without you realizing it. If you can hone yourself to become one of the top 10 people in a field, no matter what that field is, money will come looking for you. Success will also be very close to you. Like the Khmer saying goes, "Knowing ten things is not as good as being an expert in one." The second method: how to become a great person in an environment that is unpredictable and has high flexibility. Like the billionaires Jack Ma, Bill Gates, and others, they achieved such great success because they went through a social context that had high flexibility, especially in the context of technology. Jack Ma entered the e-commerce industry and had to overcome all kinds of obstacles for more than 10 years before he could reap the rewards from what he had done.
We know that the entrepreneurial journey, especially in the tech industry, is not an easy thing at all. Bill Gates is the same. When no one even knew what a computer was, he had already honed himself to know how to write code for thousands of hours. By the time everyone started using computers, Bill Gates was the expert of experts in the world. Like this, it's hard to fail. This shows that if we want to get a huge reward before others, at a time when the social context is changing unpredictably, it requires us to have the ability to foresee the future. When we walk on this path, choice is more important than hard work. You must learn to see the opportunity and seize it. On top of that, you must sacrifice a 10,000-hour period to train yourself to become an expert in this field in order to prepare yourself to receive that opportunity when it arrives. Third, you also need to have a little bit of luck. Because when we spend time honing ourselves to become an expert, our experience also deepens, and our age is not young either.
If you struggle for 40 years, by then you will probably be 60 or 70 years old. By the time those opportunities arrive, do you still have the ability to seize them? But opportunity is only for those who have prepared themselves. Those who make the right judgment, can persevere for a long time, and can hold themselves from being swayed by the winds and waves, will surely have a greater chance of success than ordinary people. Just as the author raised, success does not happen by chance. It comes from hard work meeting with luck. The key takeaways from this book are just that. Let's do a quick recap. If you want to become a peak person who stands out from others in society, you will probably have to endure the influence of two things. First, you must be a person who strives harder than others, has good family and social conditions, makes decisions at the right time, associates with the right people, and many other external factors. When these favorable factors meet, it's like a chemical reaction, pushing you to a place that has an advantage over all other people. And that's when you have the opportunity to become a peak person. The second influence is your culture and legacy. What influences your thinking. When your culture and mindset align with your goals, it will push you to go faster than others.
Combined with the experience and work you already have, you will become a person who can see opportunities before others and can seize those opportunities. There is a saying that your destiny comes from seven parts hard work and three parts luck. But if you want to become a peak person like in this book, you have to rely on seven parts natural luck and three parts hard work. They say opportunity is only for those who have prepared themselves. If you haven't prepared yourself, even if an opportunity flies by, you wouldn't know it's an opportunity.
Afterwards, the author reminds us that besides working hard, we must learn to see the context and the changes in the market and society. As we have seen with some peak people like Jack Ma and Bill Gates, whenever they open their mouths, they say, "I am lucky." It sounds like they are being humble, but in fact, it is a condition that makes us easily achieve success more than other people. Therefore, look at things more comprehensively. When you see someone achieve success in life, you should study their knowledge, legacy, experience, natural factors, and many other factors of theirs. Only then can we evaluate and know what factors pushed them to achieve success, to become a truly peak person. All of these are guiding lights for all of you to push towards the goals that you all want to achieve.
This book talks about one topic: why do the top people in the world, like Bill Gates, Jack Ma, the music group The Beatles, and others, achieve such great success in their fields? What are the important reasons behind the success of these individuals? What can we learn from them? We all understand that people who can reach the top, become billionaires, successful business people, or famous individuals, have often gone through painful stories and overcome countless difficult obstacles. We have seen videos about the biographies of famous people. Generally, they had a painful childhood, were poor and struggled, went through many years of fighting, and finally became successful people like they are today. Their stories sound quite similar to each other, as if one must go through some pain, along with hard work and honing oneself intensely, to achieve success.
In particular, it is related to the character of the person themselves. In this book, it is stated that all these reasons are not enough to evaluate the reasons for their success. We acknowledge that some people have intelligence and talent from birth. But their upbringing and living environment allow them to see more clearly, learn more, and do more than others. Therefore, if we observe these successful people by only evaluating their actions, it is not enough. We must look at their lineage, upbringing, the life they have gone through, and the important decisions in their life. These are the things that made them truly successful. What this book wants to show us is not the secret to success of any one person. Rather, they conducted research, summarized it into a formula, and presented it directly, telling us about a common key to success for these peak people throughout all eras.
After reading this book, I have received many good and important points that I will share with all of you. First point: the reason these people can become peak people is not strongly related to their natural abilities from birth. Instead, it is strongly related to the experiences they have gone through and many other factors. Second point: things you don't see, like upbringing and culture, are probably what made them truly peak people. And the third important point: what knowledge do the conditions for becoming these peak people provide us? We come to the first point. These peak people can become geniuses like this not because of innate talent or any single factor. It is a combination of many favorable conditions, coupled with hard work, that allows them to become such outstanding individuals. For example, some say that as long as you work hard, you will succeed. Is this one phrase enough? Let's look at the sanitation workers who clean the streets. They wake up at 4 in the morning, wake up before others, and work harder than others. Are they as successful as others? Therefore, hard work alone is not enough. It requires external circumstances and many combined factors. In this book, they raised an example about ice hockey players in Canada. This type of sport in Canada receives a lot of support, no different from American football in the United States or soccer in the European Union.
If you have the opportunity to become a national ice hockey player in this country, you will become rich and very famous. No matter who you are, rich or poor, short or tall, as long as you have the ability, you may get this opportunity. It's very fair. It's different from basketball, which requires you to be tall, have a large build, and be strong to compete with others or become an NBA player. As for the claim that the selection of ice hockey players is fair and equal, the author does not agree. So he conducted a deep study of this sport. He took the roster of the national team players to look at and saw a strange phenomenon that made him unable to understand it at all. That is, the birth dates of most of the national team players are all in January, February, or March. Among the 25 team members, 17 of them were born in the first three months of the year. Why is it such a coincidence? Later, they found out that, in fact, the ice hockey teams are divided into groups according to age. People born in the same year are in the same group. For example, someone born on January 1, 1990, and someone born on December 31, 1990, are in the same group because they were born in the same year, 1990. But in reality, even though they were born in the same year, their age difference is almost a full year. When talking about the selection among young players, one year makes a big difference.
Whether it's knowledge, physical fitness, or training. Therefore, those born at the beginning of the year, whether a little or a lot, have an advantage over those born at the end of the year. This is why we see that the winning national teams have more members born at the beginning of the year. In summary, we see that the factor that allows a player to succeed is related to their birth date. If you were born near the end of the year, the chance that you can become a national ice hockey player is very small. Because you are at a disadvantage to others, being born many months after them, but you are selected to train in the same group, which makes your abilities seem inferior to theirs. See? At first, we said that as long as we work hard, we will succeed. But just this one story can show that working hard alone is not enough. There are many other factors, such as the time or environment we are born into, which are also a major influencing factor. Let's look at a famous law that we call the 10,000-hour principle, The 10,000-Hour Rule, which states that as long as you strive to do any work for a period of 10,000 hours, you will become an expert. But for this principle to work, you need other favorable conditions as well. Like ice hockey, for example, you have to be born at the beginning of the year, work hard to practice this sport diligently for 10,000 hours, then you might have a chance to become a national player. Another point, even though this sports federation does not specify that you have to be the child of a rich person to be able to practice ice hockey, in reality, if your family's life is poor and difficult, you will surely have a hard time becoming a national player.
Because if you don't even have enough to eat three meals a day, where would you find the time to practice for 10,000 hours? You see? For you to succeed, there must be many factors combined. When those favorable factors come together, it's like a chemical reaction, pushing you to a high place, far away from ordinary people. Another point that is more important than anything, which can have a strong influence on the path to success for some people, is the factor of societal change. For example, in the 1930s, American law firms only hired white Anglo-Saxon lawyers to work in their field. Jewish people, even if they had high knowledge and studied at famous schools, because they did not have the original nationality of being white, they could not become lawyers either. They could only accept the leftover, small cases from the white law firms or go into business in other fields. The work that the Jewish law firms received was all litigation and lawsuits that the white law firms did not accept. As for the white law firms, they only accepted work that involved big money, like helping large companies with their IPOs, buying and selling shares, and so on. Unexpectedly, in the 1980s, these kinds of disputes and lawsuits started to happen more and more, and the amount of money involved grew larger and larger. This played right into the hands of the Jewish law firms at that time. They already had the experience, and just when the social context changed in this way, it caused them to make a lot of money. Later on, we saw large, famous law offices in New York, on Wall Street and so on, that were all from the later generation of the Jewish law firms.
Therefore, at this point, the author raised that it's not that the Jewish lawyers were smarter than others or saw the opportunity before anyone else. But it was because circumstances forced them to take on the leftover, insignificant work that others didn't want. They did this for decades. Who knew that it would turn into a blink-of-an-eye opportunity without them needing to prepare. You might say, weren't the white lawyers working hard? They did work hard. They worked harder than the Jewish lawyers. But in the end, they got different results. You tell me, who can explain this? Therefore, hard work alone does not mean you will succeed. Making the right choice is also an important factor. In summary, the author raises many examples like the one above to show us that being able to become an outstanding person, a peak person, involves many factors. Such as the time and place you were born, culture, knowledge, innate talent, diligence and hard work, practicing skills, experience, important decisions, and luck. Next, we come to the second important point, which is that culture determines victory and defeat. In this book, the author raises an example about the largest airline in Korea, which is Korean Air. In the early 1990s, this company's planes suddenly had frequent crashes. The accident rate rose to 17 times higher than United Airlines of the United States. It got to the point where the President of Korea at the time, Mr. Kim Dae-jung, said: The problem of Korean Air is no longer a company problem. It is a problem of the Korean nation as a whole. Later, this Korean president changed his personal plane, which was previously managed by Korean Air, and then transferred it to Korean Air's competitor, Asiana Airlines. From that moment on, Korean Air's flights have been surprisingly safer than before. From 1999 until now, there has not been a single problem.
Why is it that Korean Air's planes, which previously had frequent problems, later became so much safer than before? Later, they conducted an investigation, with an examination of the black box that was on the plane, and they found the real cause. The cause was not because of the plane, nor was it because the maintenance technology was not thorough. It was because of the culture of the Korean people. If we look at the culture of the Western world, in large companies, the superiors and inferiors, although their positions are different, they do not have an excessive fear or awe of each other. A subordinate and the company's CEO, if they meet by chance, they just greet each other normally, as a leader and a subordinate. There is no bowing down or obeying to an excessive degree. But for Asian culture, especially in Korea, before boarding the plane, the flight attendants, co-pilots, etc., have to stand in a line waiting to shake the captain's hand before they can board the plane, to show respect. This kind of tradition of respecting superiors excessively creates what kind of negative impact? The result is that when the captain makes a mistake, makes a wrong judgment, it makes the co-pilot or the flight engineer who is in the cockpit with them afraid to speak up or argue. As a result, it can cause the plane that is flying to have serious problems.
Therefore, the culture of a country or region can make people's communication, thinking, and behavior appear in different forms. Unseen factors like this are also a strong influence on a person's success or failure. If that culture aligns with the goal, it will help push us to get there faster or more easily. Just as the author raised, the traditional culture of the Chinese people is that everyone is a diligent person, works hard in business. This has made their production and business have an advantage over other nations around the world. Raising this point does not mean to say that this culture is good and that culture is not good. The culture of each country has its own good points and shortcomings. Some cultures push us to succeed easily, while other cultures hinder the path to our success. But the cultural factor is not something that cannot be changed at all. Like the case of Korean Air that we mentioned above. They were able to transform themselves from a company with frequent accidents to one of the safest companies in the world.
This is also because they made many reforms from the root of this problem, which is the culture itself. First, they eliminated the barrier between superiors and subordinates. They had the staff use English to communicate with each other. Because in the English language, you don't use words like "older brother," "younger brother," "boss," or "chief." There's only "you" and "I." Which sounds like everyone has equal rights. Combined with many other small adjustments, it made Korean Air change its face in the aviation industry. Therefore, culture is a very important part that determines the success or failure of these peak people. If that culture aligns with your goal, it is a favorable factor. But if it is opposite to your goal, it is a threatening factor. So, in the end, how can one become a peak person? The author summarized it briefly, saying: A peak person is a lucky person. They are born in good social conditions, a good living environment, and along with that, they have a favorable culture. And all of these can make them easily become a peak person, or it can be said in another way, they can succeed more easily than others. Listening to this, it seems like it has nothing to do with hard work at all. This is the third point in this book that we will discuss. To be able to succeed and become a peak person, you need many favorable conditions. Being born at the right time, living in the right place, meeting the right people, and these factors, sometimes we can control them, but other factors we cannot control. It's like a tree in a forest. The tallest tree is not necessarily the best seed.
But it is certainly in more favorable conditions than other trees. It also needs very good weather, such as enough heat and moisture, which is favorable for its growth. Around it, there are no other trees to cover and take its nutrients, and so on. Even with the same seed, planted in the same place, but at different times, the result will surely be different. And it cannot become the tallest tree either. It's like us humans. We are all smart in our own ways. We are all hardworking people. But if the timing is different, the luck is not the same, then the result will not be the same either. Therefore, to become an outstanding person, ability and luck are both equally important. In this book, they show us two paths. The first path: how to become a great person in a stable social environment. And the second path: how to become a great person in an unstable and unpredictable social environment. Now let's look at the first method: how to become more outstanding than others in a stable social environment. For example, you want to become a top pianist.
This dream does not have a strong connection to the social context. Meaning, wherever you are, whatever country, whatever era, it doesn't have much of an influence on the steps to reach your dream. You probably think that as long as you practice hard, one day you will become a top pianist. But the author reminds us that even hard work requires technique. If you practice the wrong way, even for 10,000 hours, you cannot become an outstanding expert. Therefore, what is more important than hard work is choice. Most people, when looking for a job or changing to a new job, always encounter something like this: one job that offers a high salary but is a repetitive job with no growth, and another job where the income is not very high but there is an opportunity to develop yourself. So, which one should you choose?
This book has given one piece of advice like this: If a work environment offers you competition, self-development, and makes you more capable than before, then you should choose it. Even if you get a low salary or no salary, as long as you can support yourself. Because it will develop you into a more capable person than before without you realizing it. If you can hone yourself to become one of the top 10 people in a field, no matter what that field is, money will come looking for you. Success will also be very close to you. Like the Khmer saying goes, "Knowing ten things is not as good as being an expert in one." The second method: how to become a great person in an environment that is unpredictable and has high flexibility. Like the billionaires Jack Ma, Bill Gates, and others, they achieved such great success because they went through a social context that had high flexibility, especially in the context of technology. Jack Ma entered the e-commerce industry and had to overcome all kinds of obstacles for more than 10 years before he could reap the rewards from what he had done.
We know that the entrepreneurial journey, especially in the tech industry, is not an easy thing at all. Bill Gates is the same. When no one even knew what a computer was, he had already honed himself to know how to write code for thousands of hours. By the time everyone started using computers, Bill Gates was the expert of experts in the world. Like this, it's hard to fail. This shows that if we want to get a huge reward before others, at a time when the social context is changing unpredictably, it requires us to have the ability to foresee the future. When we walk on this path, choice is more important than hard work. You must learn to see the opportunity and seize it. On top of that, you must sacrifice a 10,000-hour period to train yourself to become an expert in this field in order to prepare yourself to receive that opportunity when it arrives. Third, you also need to have a little bit of luck. Because when we spend time honing ourselves to become an expert, our experience also deepens, and our age is not young either.
If you struggle for 40 years, by then you will probably be 60 or 70 years old. By the time those opportunities arrive, do you still have the ability to seize them? But opportunity is only for those who have prepared themselves. Those who make the right judgment, can persevere for a long time, and can hold themselves from being swayed by the winds and waves, will surely have a greater chance of success than ordinary people. Just as the author raised, success does not happen by chance. It comes from hard work meeting with luck. The key takeaways from this book are just that. Let's do a quick recap. If you want to become a peak person who stands out from others in society, you will probably have to endure the influence of two things. First, you must be a person who strives harder than others, has good family and social conditions, makes decisions at the right time, associates with the right people, and many other external factors. When these favorable factors meet, it's like a chemical reaction, pushing you to a place that has an advantage over all other people. And that's when you have the opportunity to become a peak person. The second influence is your culture and legacy. What influences your thinking. When your culture and mindset align with your goals, it will push you to go faster than others.
Combined with the experience and work you already have, you will become a person who can see opportunities before others and can seize those opportunities. There is a saying that your destiny comes from seven parts hard work and three parts luck. But if you want to become a peak person like in this book, you have to rely on seven parts natural luck and three parts hard work. They say opportunity is only for those who have prepared themselves. If you haven't prepared yourself, even if an opportunity flies by, you wouldn't know it's an opportunity.
Afterwards, the author reminds us that besides working hard, we must learn to see the context and the changes in the market and society. As we have seen with some peak people like Jack Ma and Bill Gates, whenever they open their mouths, they say, "I am lucky." It sounds like they are being humble, but in fact, it is a condition that makes us easily achieve success more than other people. Therefore, look at things more comprehensively. When you see someone achieve success in life, you should study their knowledge, legacy, experience, natural factors, and many other factors of theirs. Only then can we evaluate and know what factors pushed them to achieve success, to become a truly peak person. All of these are guiding lights for all of you to push towards the goals that you all want to achieve.