He explores the question of why is it that sometimes the person we perceive to be the underdog is fully capable of defeating the giant? In this interview, Gladwell offers a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, cope with a disability, lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school. On the role of adversity in our lives : In his book David and Goliath, Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages in our lives. “I thought I could make my case much more cleanly if I stepped away from the gun part of it and focused on the social dynamics.” “I wrote an entire piece about school shooters and never really mentioned guns,” he says. In this interview, he explains how he once took a sociological theory about riots and used it to explain the rash of school shootings. On how he generates unconventional ideas: Gladwell’s writing doesn’t begin with characters or a plot or an event. Here’s the big lesson that the food industry discovered about human nature: People simply don't know what makes them happy. Very few would say they like it “extra chunky.” Yet! One third of the population loves extra chunky spaghetti sauce. If someone asks you what you want in a spaghetti sauce, you’d likely say you like it spicy or plain or cheesy. On choice and happiness : In this TED Talk, Gladwell explains what spaghetti sauce can teach us about happiness. However, in this podcast, Gladwell explains why we often overlook a successful person’s culture, family, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. On challenging the idea of the lone genius : What makes an individual successful? In the United States, people tend to adhere to the idea that achievement is a largely individual act. “I’m just putting down on the page what has already been kind of figured out in my head.” In this wide-ranging Tim Ferriss episode, Gladwell delves deep into his nuanced storytelling process, how he generates ideas, and what subjects qualify as interesting. “For every hour I spend writing, I spend three hours thinking about writing,” he says. On the elements of storytelling : Gladwell has what he calls “creative recipes” for storytelling. Here’s why it’s important to understand that a person’s inner feelings don’t always match the way they behave. “Turns out, that’s not true at all,” Gladwell says. When Ross is perplexed, he looks perplexed.” Similarly, we assume that people’s emotions are reliably being broadcast to the world. “Everything that happens is expressed on the characters’ faces,” he says. ” He took an episode of the 1990s TV sitcom FRIENDS, and experimented with muting the show to see if he could follow the plot. On the disparity between inner feelings and outward behavior : Gladwell has a theory he calls the “FRIENDS Fallacy. Below is a deep dive on some of his most interesting ideas including why talent is a myth, how we often misjudge the character of strangers, and what we can do to fall into intellectual rabbit holes. Over the last 20 years, Gladwell’s theories have served as conversation starters around the world. “The unexpected turns that ideas can make is, to my mind, one of the greatest pleasures of being alive.” “What I’m really interested in is joy in intellectual play,” Gladwell says. Gladwell’s strength lies in his ability to take disparate ideas across disciplines - sociology, psychology, medicine, and economics - and link them in a way that enables the reader see reality from a different perspective. Gladwell, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, has authored several books including, Blink, Outliers, The Tipping Point, David and Goliath, and Talking To Strangers. Malcolm Gladwell has been called “the best storyteller on the planet” and “the most spellbinding nonfiction writer of our time.” But it’s not his prose that’s striking - it’s the ideas he stitches together that pique our interest so profoundly.
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