The Matthew Effect

First off, what a great way to start the book. It was immediately intriguing, thought provoking, and it opened my eyes to many new ideas and facts I don't think I would have ever tried to find out on my own time. I am really glad that we got to read Outliers for the break, and I would love to have anyone recommend more books like this.

"The Matthew Effect" talks about how success is perceived and achieved. Most people think of success as commitment like the "10,000 Hour Rule" in the following chapter, blood and toil, and obviously some sort of skill or talent in that work. Gladwell reveals a different side to success that many people ignore, which is "the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies" that different people experience.

The study of Canadian hockey players and how they were singled out by age surprised me because it was so logical yet illogical at the same time. Players who have physically matured more have a higher chance at being picked because they have more strength and the better physique to play in a higher league, pushing down players who are born at the later months of the year. It makes sense and it produces a better output of skilled players, but is a very unfair method. This age advantage is applied in an academic setting as well, which made me sad as a September child, but I can not use that as an excuse because there are no "handouts" for success. I agree with the idea of "accumulative advantage" because those who cannot receive these privileges are almost always guaranteed to lag behind those who do. Not always, and not permanently, but that lag plays a profound effect on the entirety of a career.

So on this hand, someone's success is attributed the luxury of advantage and privilege they have like birth year, age, race, sex, etc. On the other, people who have little privilege build their success on that blood and toil we are familiar with. This doesn't mean that everyone who has privilege has never sweat in their life, it is just the ones who have received "a small loan of a million dollars" who are not exactly qualified to talk about success to disadvantaged people. There is a clear difference between the journeys to success between someone who came from very little and someone who came from an abundance of opportunity.