“The…more intriguing possibility is that they succeeded, in part BECAUSE of their disorder — that they learned something in their struggle that proved to be of enormous advantage.”
– Malcolm Gladwell, in “David and Goliath”
Dad used to say, “Anything worth having is worth working for.” I wanted to smack him.
Still, the older I get, the smarter he becomes.
Think about the things you’ve had to work the hardest to master.
How rewarding is the level of accomplishment, knowing that you earned it, that you overcame something — or sacrificed something — to get good at it?
The easier we have it, the harder it gets to keep it. Gladwell makes an argument in the book that raising exceptional kids in wealthy homes is statistically not that much different than raising kids in less “privileged” environments. And, in fact, a kid that has to work for what he or she has, isn’t the underdog at all. Their “disadvantage” becomes an advantage.
The more intriguing possibility called out in David and Goliath is that we can succeed, in part, because of our disadvantages.
Leave a Reply