I’m not out to convert the world no
interest in so doing I just simply want
people to engage with my ideas and if
they disagree fine I feel like we learn
most from people at the fringes hmm and
that’s why you constantly have to be
looking at the fringes you do not want
to be cornered by me to occupy yes it’s
just the worst you know that’s really
bad idea hello believe nation I’m Evan
Carmichael my one word is believe and I
believe that entrepreneurs are going to
solve all of the major problems of the
world so to help you on your journey
today we’re going to learn from
journalists and five times New York
Times bestselling author Malcom Gladwell
and my take on his top ten rules for
success vol 2 rule number one is my
personal favorite and I’d love to know
which one you guys like the best and as
always guys as you’re watching if you
hear something that really resonates
with you please leave it down in the
comments below put quotes around it so
other people can be inspired and when
you write it down it’s much more likely
to stick for yourself as well enjoy
pursue what interests you not what
you’re good at
you’re always better off pursuing the
things you like over the things that you
have some kind of aptitude to are in the
end of it at the end of the day passion
for something gets you much further than
some dry notion of ability what I’m
trying to get people to understand is
that our conventional notions of this
advantage and advantage aren’t accurate
that we’ve called lots of things
disadvantages when in fact it’s more
complicated than that and so the reason
I started with that story and also I
retell the story of David and Goliath
start the book because if you look at
the story closely everything you think
was a disadvantage about David actually
is and and Goliath is not what he looks
like he looks like this indomitable
giant in fact he probably had a medical
condition called acromegaly which is
solid this is sort of a side thing you
bring up medicine here in the Bible dude
what do you do it is hilarious because
if you admit he started digging into
these things you discover these little
pockets have been arguing about these
things for years for 50 years
endocrinologists have been arguing about
whether Goliath had a tumor on his
pituitary gland and which would explain
his height because when you have a tumor
in your – Ettore gland it over you will
produce human growth hormone and you get
really under the giant red this
condition and then for for a be
seven-foot for ya but one of the side
effects is that it can constrict your
optic nerves and leave you largely with
very very limited eyesight so the one of
the explanations for why delighteth
behave so strangely and why he doesn’t
perceive that David is not intending to
fight him David comes down the mountain
and he’s got no sword and no armor he
clearly is not intending to fight a
sword fight and Goliath just sits there
like he’s oblivious well the answer is
maybe he could only see this far right
so it changes everything and you
realized wait a minute the giant is
weighed down by a hundred pounds of
armor and can’t see anything right he’s
like like this right so hey I do more
with that story but it’s all about this
trying to get people to take a step back
and
and that we can give up because we have
these look or feel powerless because we
have these empty definitions or in
flawed definitions of advantage as a
writer my principal observation about
why other writers fail is that they are
in too much of a hurry I don’t think you
can write a good book in two years you
may disagree you have done that I think
but you’re an anomaly most most of us
can’t write folks that quickly and we
need to be a little bit more tore to see
and a little less here’sh the problem is
that the world wants you to be a hare
your publisher says I want it now you’re
under pressure to do this X Y & Z you
have a 1 year sabbatical where you’re
trying to cram it and finish you’ve got
teaching load etc zero zero zero zero
but in fact even something is some one
thing that almost all of the
professional writers I know
so not people who have a day job like
yourself do the very best of them do is
that they write drafts and then they put
it put the book in a drawer for six
months and then they come back to it
they build in they turn themselves into
tortoises forced themselves to slow down
and go back now does that that in a
sense harms the system and that the
amount of output is lowered but I don’t
think the problem with writing in
America right now is a failure of output
predicate the failure of quality right
so there’s a case where I think the
overall system could use maybe a little
lower level of production and some
higher production values and I think
that having individual writers who write
better books makes us all better all my
work is about storytelling but using
stories to kind of get at deeper truths
but fundamentally I’m a storyteller and
every you know in revisionist history
every one of the episodes is a story it
has a island and it’s not this is not me
ranting on about this or that
it’s we meet in really interesting
people and we tell their stories and use
that as a way of and that’s a theme in
all of my work is I I think that the way
into complicated ideas is through people
and their stories are there anything in
your books you don’t believe anymore
Wow last time I talked to you you told
me there’s the things you don’t believe
in yeah that bothered me ever since well
here’s the question here’s the thing
there has to be because you have to keep
changing your mind that’s just what I
said last time and I think is even more
stronger now I mean we could sit down
with the books and go through and I
could say here’s how I’m thinking has
changed but if you can’t do that about
something that you wrote 10 or 15 years
ago you’re not alive judge right right
you have to say so absolutely I think mi
cyant Paul Greenberg he writes
editorials in his column at the Arkansas
democrat-gazette conservative paper you
can serve your writer with a ballot he
probably has his harshest criticism as
I’ve seen since Malcolm Gladwell’s
specialty is the kind of
pseudo-intellectual tea designed for the
carriage trade and delivered with an air
of insight and only the air pretentious
ponderous and mostly piffle when it’s
not just plain wrong headed it’s the
print version of the most pompous talk
show you can think of that sound very
happy that’s it he does and I wondered
if is that you get a lot of that a long
time ago when I started writing um being
a journalist I said had a I had to kind
of sit down and think about how am I
going to deal with criticism because
criticism as a writer is absolutely
inevitable right there’s you’re always
going to have to Paul Greenberg’s
there’s nothing you do about them and
the question is what do you how do you
want to respond to them and I decided
very early on that AI was never going to
make it my sign of my own success or
feeling like I had succeeded that I that
I silence critics I don’t sign up I’m
not out to convert the world no interest
in so doing I just simply want people to
engage with my
and if they disagree fine the other
thing that I did I decided early on that
I was I would I would I would be happy
if the people that I cared about people
closest to me saw what I was doing was
meaningful if my mom likes it if my
editor likes it if my best friend Bruce
likes it I’m happy and that those are
important rules and I think if you if
you if you could have some version of
that some kind of system for making
sense of criticism it’s a lot easier to
function the best way to discover what
is special about yourself is to do it
from the outside in so I don’t think you
discovered those qualities by peering
inwards by focusing on yourself I think
you discover them by engaging with
others the fastest way to discover your
own unusual or exceptional qualities is
to hang out with people who have unusual
and exceptional qualities I had the good
fortune when I was 11 years old to meet
a guy and Terry still to the state of
smartest guy I ever met he was we were
in this random little town in the middle
of farming country and southern Ontario
and Terry was the most fearless and
subversive thinker I have ever met I
discovered through him that I can sort
of do that too I didn’t know that at
that point I was just another you know
conventional compliant you know good
student but you know very good and I met
this guy whose notion of what it meant
to explore life was to metaphorically
blow things up he you said go left he
went right you said this was true he was
like crude to me he was that kind of guy
the world just kind of opened up when I
met him I was like oh my word what a way
of kind of dealing with ideas and with
experiences
he was so exciting and so fresh and I
just followed him for years just kind of
learning from him and there was a case
where I got was something I didn’t
figure that out about
I liked that kind of way of thinking
about the world by sitting in
introspecting I found that out by
hanging out with an extraordinary person
you know I’ve always been interested in
just people who are unusual in some way
unusual good unusual bad strange
eccentric I just find that I feel like
we learn most from people at the fringes
and that’s why you constantly have to be
looking at the fringes even if you don’t
want to be like them they’re the ones
who give you the most powerful lesson
people at the fringes yeah so you know I
do my book outliers for example was
about that it was about let’s look at
people who are just not ordinary in fact
you are almost in some cases more than
extraordinary and let’s sort of figure
out what makes them tick I began with
the story of David and Goliath ooh and
then I told the story about the Indian
guy who coached his daughter’s
basketball team because they’re both
examples of people without obvious
advantages who who refused to be passive
who refused to take that the
conventional notion of themselves as
underdogs as a reason to roll over and
play dead and is that that’s the kind of
spirit that’s the intended to be the
kind of message of the book which is
just because you you lack all the things
that we conventionally believe are
necessary for success doesn’t mean you
can’t be successful I can’t I can’t have
some fun opportunity to talk about
Jamaica and Usain Bolt yes so what’s
good what is there’s many different
explanations for why Jamaicans
completely dominate the world of
sprinting one explanation though is
simply that if you have if you look at
the history of Jamaican athletics they
had a series of transcendent runners in
the 60s 70s and 80s when you have that
kind of tradition what that means is if
you are a seven-year-old and you’re
athletically minded and you’re growing
up in Kingston you have a model for how
it works look at right.you it’s not it’s
more than inspir
it’s like you know that someone who grew
up down the street from you was capable
of running nine six two in 100 meters
you know it is not just a abstract
possibility it’s a real thing you’ve
watched this guy on the track right same
thing with you know Steph starts
launching threes and suddenly everyone
is you watch College High School now
they are launching threes from so far
downtown they messed up kids basketball
I don’t want to do it head but it’s
still it’s like everyone’s all of a
sudden is like whoa it is possible to
routinely make 40-footers yeah at least
they taking the shot I’m saying I’m
happier that you’re at least taking this
shot yeah somebody have to inspire you
to take to show you something that’s it
to make it and make it concrete right
it’s concrete when you see somebody down
the street doing it you do not want to
be cornered by meters up kakapo yes
it’s just the worst you know that’s
really bad idea I I really try to get
people to kind of just stay away because
it’s not gonna end well we’re supposed
to be like jabbing you in the stomach
where does that come from this yeah that
does that that thing of you I don’t know
I mean I know I’ve exaggerating I’m
actually a very non I’m largely actually
totally misanthropic I don’t even like
talking to people here hi I was in
you’re quite good at it so your second
language is working yeah
where did it come from I mean I have
listen I grew up in small town Ontario I
now live in New York I have a massive
chip on my shoulder the best best kind
of chip you know a chip with the
terrible thing to waste you should you
have to kind of I heard that you and
your buddies that Terry said that the
best way to be punk rock in to be a
rebel as a kid in Canada at the time was
to be conservative ya know so we my
mother very artfully had foreclosed
every avenue of rebellion there’s
nothing I can do to possibly rebel
except to become a Reaganite which I
briefly did in my I had I had a I had a
I had a photograph of Ronald Reagan on
my wall for about three months and in
college until I realized this is the
worst idea in the world I am essentially
making myself into a pariah so I took a
death
thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed if you want to get your
pick of who I should profile next in the
top ten check out the link in the
description and go and cast your votes I
also want to give a quick shout out to
Tony Bennett from mastery in motion comm
Tony thank you so much for picking up on
top of my book your one word I hope you
enjoyed the read and I really appreciate
the support man so thank you guys again
for watching
I believe in you I hope you continue to
believe in yourself and whatever your
one word is much love I’ll see you soon
it is our function in the world is to
take things that are complicated and
render them in a form that non experts
can follow them and make sense of them
that’s my job so it’s like why of course
I and do I occasionally oversimplify of
course I do
that is my job as well sometimes you
have to oversimplify if the choice is
between keeping an issue in the dark
because most of us can never access it
or maybe oversimplifying it reducing
some of the nuance past the point that
experts feel comfortable I will always
choose the latter if you can introduce a
topic to someone in a form that is
digestible then they can start adding
back the nuance we can have a
conversation and we can start talking
about the complexity but you’ve got to
start the conversation my job the way I
see it is to start the conversation and
there are some people who I think I
would charitably call them snobs who are
dismissive of any conversation that
doesn’t begin with the full level of
complexity well that’s just not how the
world works you know
interest in so doing I just simply want
people to engage with my ideas and if
they disagree fine I feel like we learn
most from people at the fringes hmm and
that’s why you constantly have to be
looking at the fringes you do not want
to be cornered by me to occupy yes it’s
just the worst you know that’s really
bad idea hello believe nation I’m Evan
Carmichael my one word is believe and I
believe that entrepreneurs are going to
solve all of the major problems of the
world so to help you on your journey
today we’re going to learn from
journalists and five times New York
Times bestselling author Malcom Gladwell
and my take on his top ten rules for
success vol 2 rule number one is my
personal favorite and I’d love to know
which one you guys like the best and as
always guys as you’re watching if you
hear something that really resonates
with you please leave it down in the
comments below put quotes around it so
other people can be inspired and when
you write it down it’s much more likely
to stick for yourself as well enjoy
pursue what interests you not what
you’re good at
you’re always better off pursuing the
things you like over the things that you
have some kind of aptitude to are in the
end of it at the end of the day passion
for something gets you much further than
some dry notion of ability what I’m
trying to get people to understand is
that our conventional notions of this
advantage and advantage aren’t accurate
that we’ve called lots of things
disadvantages when in fact it’s more
complicated than that and so the reason
I started with that story and also I
retell the story of David and Goliath
start the book because if you look at
the story closely everything you think
was a disadvantage about David actually
is and and Goliath is not what he looks
like he looks like this indomitable
giant in fact he probably had a medical
condition called acromegaly which is
solid this is sort of a side thing you
bring up medicine here in the Bible dude
what do you do it is hilarious because
if you admit he started digging into
these things you discover these little
pockets have been arguing about these
things for years for 50 years
endocrinologists have been arguing about
whether Goliath had a tumor on his
pituitary gland and which would explain
his height because when you have a tumor
in your – Ettore gland it over you will
produce human growth hormone and you get
really under the giant red this
condition and then for for a be
seven-foot for ya but one of the side
effects is that it can constrict your
optic nerves and leave you largely with
very very limited eyesight so the one of
the explanations for why delighteth
behave so strangely and why he doesn’t
perceive that David is not intending to
fight him David comes down the mountain
and he’s got no sword and no armor he
clearly is not intending to fight a
sword fight and Goliath just sits there
like he’s oblivious well the answer is
maybe he could only see this far right
so it changes everything and you
realized wait a minute the giant is
weighed down by a hundred pounds of
armor and can’t see anything right he’s
like like this right so hey I do more
with that story but it’s all about this
trying to get people to take a step back
and
and that we can give up because we have
these look or feel powerless because we
have these empty definitions or in
flawed definitions of advantage as a
writer my principal observation about
why other writers fail is that they are
in too much of a hurry I don’t think you
can write a good book in two years you
may disagree you have done that I think
but you’re an anomaly most most of us
can’t write folks that quickly and we
need to be a little bit more tore to see
and a little less here’sh the problem is
that the world wants you to be a hare
your publisher says I want it now you’re
under pressure to do this X Y & Z you
have a 1 year sabbatical where you’re
trying to cram it and finish you’ve got
teaching load etc zero zero zero zero
but in fact even something is some one
thing that almost all of the
professional writers I know
so not people who have a day job like
yourself do the very best of them do is
that they write drafts and then they put
it put the book in a drawer for six
months and then they come back to it
they build in they turn themselves into
tortoises forced themselves to slow down
and go back now does that that in a
sense harms the system and that the
amount of output is lowered but I don’t
think the problem with writing in
America right now is a failure of output
predicate the failure of quality right
so there’s a case where I think the
overall system could use maybe a little
lower level of production and some
higher production values and I think
that having individual writers who write
better books makes us all better all my
work is about storytelling but using
stories to kind of get at deeper truths
but fundamentally I’m a storyteller and
every you know in revisionist history
every one of the episodes is a story it
has a island and it’s not this is not me
ranting on about this or that
it’s we meet in really interesting
people and we tell their stories and use
that as a way of and that’s a theme in
all of my work is I I think that the way
into complicated ideas is through people
and their stories are there anything in
your books you don’t believe anymore
Wow last time I talked to you you told
me there’s the things you don’t believe
in yeah that bothered me ever since well
here’s the question here’s the thing
there has to be because you have to keep
changing your mind that’s just what I
said last time and I think is even more
stronger now I mean we could sit down
with the books and go through and I
could say here’s how I’m thinking has
changed but if you can’t do that about
something that you wrote 10 or 15 years
ago you’re not alive judge right right
you have to say so absolutely I think mi
cyant Paul Greenberg he writes
editorials in his column at the Arkansas
democrat-gazette conservative paper you
can serve your writer with a ballot he
probably has his harshest criticism as
I’ve seen since Malcolm Gladwell’s
specialty is the kind of
pseudo-intellectual tea designed for the
carriage trade and delivered with an air
of insight and only the air pretentious
ponderous and mostly piffle when it’s
not just plain wrong headed it’s the
print version of the most pompous talk
show you can think of that sound very
happy that’s it he does and I wondered
if is that you get a lot of that a long
time ago when I started writing um being
a journalist I said had a I had to kind
of sit down and think about how am I
going to deal with criticism because
criticism as a writer is absolutely
inevitable right there’s you’re always
going to have to Paul Greenberg’s
there’s nothing you do about them and
the question is what do you how do you
want to respond to them and I decided
very early on that AI was never going to
make it my sign of my own success or
feeling like I had succeeded that I that
I silence critics I don’t sign up I’m
not out to convert the world no interest
in so doing I just simply want people to
engage with my
and if they disagree fine the other
thing that I did I decided early on that
I was I would I would I would be happy
if the people that I cared about people
closest to me saw what I was doing was
meaningful if my mom likes it if my
editor likes it if my best friend Bruce
likes it I’m happy and that those are
important rules and I think if you if
you if you could have some version of
that some kind of system for making
sense of criticism it’s a lot easier to
function the best way to discover what
is special about yourself is to do it
from the outside in so I don’t think you
discovered those qualities by peering
inwards by focusing on yourself I think
you discover them by engaging with
others the fastest way to discover your
own unusual or exceptional qualities is
to hang out with people who have unusual
and exceptional qualities I had the good
fortune when I was 11 years old to meet
a guy and Terry still to the state of
smartest guy I ever met he was we were
in this random little town in the middle
of farming country and southern Ontario
and Terry was the most fearless and
subversive thinker I have ever met I
discovered through him that I can sort
of do that too I didn’t know that at
that point I was just another you know
conventional compliant you know good
student but you know very good and I met
this guy whose notion of what it meant
to explore life was to metaphorically
blow things up he you said go left he
went right you said this was true he was
like crude to me he was that kind of guy
the world just kind of opened up when I
met him I was like oh my word what a way
of kind of dealing with ideas and with
experiences
he was so exciting and so fresh and I
just followed him for years just kind of
learning from him and there was a case
where I got was something I didn’t
figure that out about
I liked that kind of way of thinking
about the world by sitting in
introspecting I found that out by
hanging out with an extraordinary person
you know I’ve always been interested in
just people who are unusual in some way
unusual good unusual bad strange
eccentric I just find that I feel like
we learn most from people at the fringes
and that’s why you constantly have to be
looking at the fringes even if you don’t
want to be like them they’re the ones
who give you the most powerful lesson
people at the fringes yeah so you know I
do my book outliers for example was
about that it was about let’s look at
people who are just not ordinary in fact
you are almost in some cases more than
extraordinary and let’s sort of figure
out what makes them tick I began with
the story of David and Goliath ooh and
then I told the story about the Indian
guy who coached his daughter’s
basketball team because they’re both
examples of people without obvious
advantages who who refused to be passive
who refused to take that the
conventional notion of themselves as
underdogs as a reason to roll over and
play dead and is that that’s the kind of
spirit that’s the intended to be the
kind of message of the book which is
just because you you lack all the things
that we conventionally believe are
necessary for success doesn’t mean you
can’t be successful I can’t I can’t have
some fun opportunity to talk about
Jamaica and Usain Bolt yes so what’s
good what is there’s many different
explanations for why Jamaicans
completely dominate the world of
sprinting one explanation though is
simply that if you have if you look at
the history of Jamaican athletics they
had a series of transcendent runners in
the 60s 70s and 80s when you have that
kind of tradition what that means is if
you are a seven-year-old and you’re
athletically minded and you’re growing
up in Kingston you have a model for how
it works look at right.you it’s not it’s
more than inspir
it’s like you know that someone who grew
up down the street from you was capable
of running nine six two in 100 meters
you know it is not just a abstract
possibility it’s a real thing you’ve
watched this guy on the track right same
thing with you know Steph starts
launching threes and suddenly everyone
is you watch College High School now
they are launching threes from so far
downtown they messed up kids basketball
I don’t want to do it head but it’s
still it’s like everyone’s all of a
sudden is like whoa it is possible to
routinely make 40-footers yeah at least
they taking the shot I’m saying I’m
happier that you’re at least taking this
shot yeah somebody have to inspire you
to take to show you something that’s it
to make it and make it concrete right
it’s concrete when you see somebody down
the street doing it you do not want to
be cornered by meters up kakapo yes
it’s just the worst you know that’s
really bad idea I I really try to get
people to kind of just stay away because
it’s not gonna end well we’re supposed
to be like jabbing you in the stomach
where does that come from this yeah that
does that that thing of you I don’t know
I mean I know I’ve exaggerating I’m
actually a very non I’m largely actually
totally misanthropic I don’t even like
talking to people here hi I was in
you’re quite good at it so your second
language is working yeah
where did it come from I mean I have
listen I grew up in small town Ontario I
now live in New York I have a massive
chip on my shoulder the best best kind
of chip you know a chip with the
terrible thing to waste you should you
have to kind of I heard that you and
your buddies that Terry said that the
best way to be punk rock in to be a
rebel as a kid in Canada at the time was
to be conservative ya know so we my
mother very artfully had foreclosed
every avenue of rebellion there’s
nothing I can do to possibly rebel
except to become a Reaganite which I
briefly did in my I had I had a I had a
I had a photograph of Ronald Reagan on
my wall for about three months and in
college until I realized this is the
worst idea in the world I am essentially
making myself into a pariah so I took a
death
thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed if you want to get your
pick of who I should profile next in the
top ten check out the link in the
description and go and cast your votes I
also want to give a quick shout out to
Tony Bennett from mastery in motion comm
Tony thank you so much for picking up on
top of my book your one word I hope you
enjoyed the read and I really appreciate
the support man so thank you guys again
for watching
I believe in you I hope you continue to
believe in yourself and whatever your
one word is much love I’ll see you soon
it is our function in the world is to
take things that are complicated and
render them in a form that non experts
can follow them and make sense of them
that’s my job so it’s like why of course
I and do I occasionally oversimplify of
course I do
that is my job as well sometimes you
have to oversimplify if the choice is
between keeping an issue in the dark
because most of us can never access it
or maybe oversimplifying it reducing
some of the nuance past the point that
experts feel comfortable I will always
choose the latter if you can introduce a
topic to someone in a form that is
digestible then they can start adding
back the nuance we can have a
conversation and we can start talking
about the complexity but you’ve got to
start the conversation my job the way I
see it is to start the conversation and
there are some people who I think I
would charitably call them snobs who are
dismissive of any conversation that
doesn’t begin with the full level of
complexity well that’s just not how the
world works you know
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