Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why Human Potential Is Being Squandered

John C Anderson
Stroke Survivors Tattler

Uploaded on Jan 12, 2012

Pop sociologist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has honed in on a profound new question: what separates extraordinary and average people? Discussing findings from his much like book “Outliers: The Story of Success,” Gladwell details how we’re squandering human potential everywhere from the football field to the classroom – and what we can do to change it.

"When we observe differences in how individuals succeed in the world our initial thought is always to say, to argue that that is the result of some kind of innate difference in ability.

And when we look at the different rates that groups succeed we think that that reflects some underlying innate trait in the characteristics of that group. And that is wrong... what capitalization rates say... is there's another explanation and that has to do with poverty, with stupidity, and with culture." 

"We have a scarcity of achievement... not because we have a scarcity of talent. We have a scarcity of achievement because we're squandering our talent. And that's not bad news that's good news; because it says that this scarcity is not something we have to live with. It's something we can do something about."

As well, watch full talk at PopTech Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why... [19 min.].


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