The one-sentence summary

Trust your first instinct, because a snap judgement made very quickly can actually be far more effective than one you make deliberately and cautiously.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• Our ability to “know” something in a split-second judgement, without really knowing why we know, is one of the most powerful abilities we possess
• A snap judgement made very quickly can actually be far more effective than one we make deliberately and cautiously
• By blocking out what is irrelevant and focusing on narrow slices of experience, we can read seemingly complex situations in the blink of eye
• This is essentially “thinking without thinking”
• He introduces the theory of “thin slicing” – using the first two seconds of any encounter to determine intuitively your response or the likely outcome
• He demonstrates that this “little bit of knowledge” can go a long way, and is accurate in over 80% of instances.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• There are scores of vivid examples in which peoples’ first instincts have been right, but they cannot explain why. These include an art dealer identifying a fake statue that the Getty museum believes to be genuine, a tennis coach being able to predict every time when players are about to serve a double fault, and a psychologist accurately guessing years in advance if married couples will stay together or not
• The thinking is a welcome counterpoint to a world in which too much reliance on proof and data has replaced hunch and instinct
• The value of spontaneity is highlighted by the example of a forces commander who comprehensively beats better-equipped opposition in a US military exercise because he consistently does the opposite of what the computers predict
• He goes on to show that, strangely, it is possible to give “structure” to spontaneity, by consciously going against the grain in order to generate an outcome that is surprising to the other party, but not to you.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• Although the subject matter is fascinating, there are so many experts interviewed that the average reader would not be able to enact any of the skills necessary to take advantage of the findings, other than the basic point that you should trust your first instincts more.

The one-sentence summary

Context is absolutely crucial: what appears to be a reason for something rarely is.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• When we try to understand success, we normally start with the wrong question. We ask What is the person like? when we should really ask Where are they from?
• The real secret of success turns out to be surprisingly simple, and it hinges on a few crucial twists in people’s life stories – on the culture they grow up in and the way they spend their time.
• An outlier is a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others in the sample – tiny influences have made certain people ‘special’.
• Opportunity is the first crucial element of being successful at anything. Legacy is the second – behaviour handed down over many generations that dictates the way people react to circumstances.
• Countries with subservient cultures have pilots involved in more plane crashes because the co-pilots do not impose on their superiors – sometimes not even making emergencies evident to air traffic control.
• Easterners have a stronger work ethic and so are better at maths because they are used to taking a lot of time to solve problems.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• Top sportsmen are born at the beginning of the year. As youngsters they start a little bigger, and then they are given the best training and the most practice.
• The 10,000-hour rule shows that the best in any field have exceeded this amount of practice –which means that those who start late at something do not usually achieve the very best.
• Studies show that social class has nothing to do with intelligence –until the ability to study, revise, or practice starts to disadvantage those less privileged.
• Fans of determinism will approve of this book, since it verifies that your success is determined by where you come from and what happens on the way.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• This is not an academic book. It is more a series of interesting anecdotes that make a general point.
• Although it challenges you to make the most of your own potential, in practice the reader cannot change their circumstances, time of birth, where they come from, or any other major factors other than pure hard work.
• The first half of the book (Opportunity) explains the origin of outliers. The second half (Legacy) seems barely related to it – it is more an explanation of cultural differences.