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Malcolm Gladwell

Author

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. His newest book, Talking to Strangers (2019), is a darker-than-usual look at the miscommunications and assumptions that occur when we interact with people we don't know, told through historical case studies like Sandra Bland, Bernie Madoff, and Adolf Hitler. Gladwell is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers.


As Malcolm Gladwell – author of numerous New York Times bestselling books – points out, mastery and popularity are sometimes linked, but often they are not. If your goal is to become masterful at what you do, the formula is really quite simple: stay focused and do your time. This is the theory behind the 10,000 Hours Rule that Gladwell made famous. Worrying about whether you’re being recognized for your efforts, i.e. popularity, is a product of the ego, not to mention a distraction. . . . So get over yourself and get to work! In this lesson, Gladwell teaches you how.
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Embracing messiness and understanding that it is a contribution to the creative process is something that writers and creative types have got to cultivate.