Outliers: The Story of Success (The Matthew Effect)

The next book I am going to review, and the second I have read by this author, is Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. This book is completely fascinating and I would recommend it to anyone.

This work delves into the factors of success and basically breaks it down into two parts: opportunity and legacy. Your background and development makes you a perfect and sometimes only fit for opportunities that arise in the world. But what are the things that create those opportunities? You would be surprised at how random some of them are.

The Matthew Effect

For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. Matthew 25:29

Did you know that certain people are better at certain sports simply because of what month they were born? Now right away you think that this cant possibly be true. But it is, and there's nothing magical about any specific month or time of year. As soon as Gladwell started delving into this topic I knew that I had experienced this one personally.

He starts off by noticing a trend in a Canadian hockey youth all star team. A whopping 70% of the team was born in the first half of the year, January through June. You would think it would be evenly spread throughout the year and mathematically speaking it should be (trust me, I was a math major). Searching through all the records in Canada, he found that this was true everywhere, and not just this one team.

What if I told you if you a hockey player that was born October through December in general only had a 10% of succeeding? Ten percent! So what is going on here? Is there something weird happening in Canada? Is it a cultural thing? A climate thing? Actually no. It turns out that the cut off date to enroll in youth hockey is January 1st, and that sets everything else in motion. It turns out that the closer you were born after that date gives a person certain advantages over other players.

How is this true? Think about it. A kid turning 12 years old in January is a full 10 months older than another child born whose birthday is in November. As a youth this is a huge advantage. He is more developed, mature, and bigger in size. And because of these advantages, it opens the door for even more advantages such as better coaching, facilities, and practice time, which altogether makes for a better developed player. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

I said I had experienced this personally (and so have all of you in ways you don't even know). I played baseball for most of my life and during my early years, the all stars were always the bigger kids. Why were they bigger? Because they were older even though they were the same "age" as other players. It happens everywhere. The age cut off for youth baseball is usually July 31st. Guess which month most American major league ballplayers were born in? Yep, August.

Every year I can almost accurately predict who will win the Little League World Series on the USA side. I look for the team that has the most 13 year olds on it. It's that simple. The age cut off is twelve years old, but teams with the really good players (and more developed) are the ones that have already turned 13 after the cutoff date! Baseball-wise there is a massive difference between teams full of 11 year olds who just turned 12 (smaller kids), and a group of 12 year olds who is about to be 13 and close to puberty. You will notice that each of the teams that make it that far usually have one giant kid on it. Then it becomes a case of can I beat your 13 year old with mine? And if you have several it is a huge advantage.

(I also have a theory that all this balances out talent wise around age 15, but that's for another time)

So what is the point of all this? Are we creating successes and failures by setting up random cutoff dates? The answer quite simply Gladwell says is yes. One of the bases for success in life is something that was completely out of our control, and yet gives advantages to people simply based on when they were born.

As a side note, this also applies to schools. Remember being in school and having a friend of yours in the same grade being able to drive way before everyone else? Or someone graduate a year ahead or behind you even thought you were the same age? Ever be at a bus stop and notice how some of the kids look so tiny and can't possibly be going to school yet? Same principal at work here: their birth date.

As I write this I realize both of my daughters were born in October. Their school system has a cut off date of September 1st. They are both honor students. Coincidence? Not according to Gladwell.

I was born in January. I excelled in school (no surprise), but baseball wise I was maybe on the cusp of missing out. I didn't make an all star team until I was 13. Before that was I simply too small? Probably. Makes you look at your life in interesting ways.