I Love A Man In Uniform review

Lily Burana, author of Strip City, is back with I Love a Man in Uniform, a book about her marriage to a West Point officer. Not the most likely candidate for my blog, but that is the wonder of reading beyond your horizons! I picked this book up to pass along to my friend Ryan, an officer in the U.S. Navy, and his wife, when I had the unexpected chance to meet Burana at the author reception at Winter Institute, where she was seated next to Brandon Sanderson. That odd couple may not be as book-worthy as Burana and her husband, an officer in the U.S. Army, but it did illustrate the point (and counterpoint) of the book. Burana was all poise and no punk at the reception, but her book recounts the psychological gauntlet she had to battle through to reach that level of self-assurance. This memoir is as candid as they come, coming from a woman who’s not afraid to bare it all. Burana is a former stripper but unlike Tila Tequila she is also a capable writer, as evidenced by her work for The Washington Post and her multiple books. In today’s world of armed conflicts and PTSD, this is a book that is both pertinent and poignant.

The Last Lecture review

If you have internet access and you’re familiar with the video of Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University, you may not get much out of this review.  The book is an extension of the lecture itself however, so it is certainly worth reading!  For anyone not familiar with the impetus of the book, it stems from a tradition at Carnegie Mellon of inviting professors to deliver a message of ultimate importance in a series called “Journeys.”  Pausch had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when he was invited to give his last lecture, so it took on more meaning than the series intended.  Pausch delivered an inspiring lecture on achieving childhood dreams that has gone on to touch innumerably more lives than those that packed the hall that day.  A computer science professor, he must have been delighted by the way the video has been propagated online.  As a father of three young children, Pausch directed his comments to leave a legacy for his kids, and that legacy has become something of a phenomenon.

I can’t really say that I took away any new life lessons from reading the book, but that isn’t saying it didn’t resonate with me.  His mentality of overcoming obstacles was similar to my own (“Brick walls are there to keep out those who don’t want it enough”), and I was impressed by how far that mindset took him.  I could also identify with his experience playing football and his “recovering jerk” status.  Like Pausch I have two sons and a daughter, and this book has prompted me to ponder the legacy I am leaving for them, which is one of the primary services of reading.  This happens to be a terrific New Year’s Eve read!

Outliers review

Michael Phelps won an unprecedented 8 gold medals at the Olympic Games in Beijing this past summer.  In addition to the determination and years of training required to compete at an Olympic level, Phelps has an unusual physique that is ideally suited to swimming.  He could be considered a “natural born swimmer,” but what if he had not been introduced to swimming at all?  Phelps followed his older sisters into the pool; what if they had been softball players instead?  Would his extraordinary wingspan have helped him excel as a pitcher as much as it contributed to his multiple world records?  Was his success determined by his abilities, or by the opportunities he was given to exercise those abilities?

An outlier is a statistical anomaly, a figure that is literally off the charts.  A human outlier is not merely successful, but so accomplished that they no longer compare to the rest of a successful field.  Very few individuals are capable of qualifying for the Olympics in a single event – they form the control group for defining success.  Fewer still will win a gold medal in an event, rising to the pinnacle of success.  How then can one account for the phenomenal Phelps?

Phelps is not one of the examples Malcolm Gladwell cites in his new book Outliers, although he does examine all-star hockey players in the Canadian Major Junior A League.  Gladwell asserts that the players born closest to the arbitrary cut off date have an advantage in physical development over the other players in their year group.  Those players are selected as more promising and receive more training and time on the ice, resulting in advanced skill levels.  They do become all-star caliber players, but it was simply the timing of their birth that opened the gate into the rink.  According to Gladwell these same unseen opportunities apply to software designers in Silicon Valley and lawyers in New York.  Being born in the right time and place to the right ethnicity allows some members of society to pass through a window of opportunity that is otherwise bolted shut.  Gladwell debunks both the self-made man and the prodigy.  His formula for success consists of four parts, in order of importance: an opportunity provided by society, being born in the right time and place to capitalize on the opportunity, the IQ/talent/aptitude for the particular field, and 10,000 hours of practice to master the skill.

Let’s apply this formula to Michael Phelps.  He was given the opportunity – not only to swim competitively, but also a schedule of heats at the 2008 Olympic Games that made it possible to compete in eight events.  He was born in the right time and place to be at the peak of his abilities in 2008.  His ability and his physique are unquestionable, and it’s safe to assume he has logged 10,000 hours in the water.  Is that really all there is to it?  Michael Phelps just happened to be the greatest Olympic athlete in history?  Doesn’t that reduce the significance of his accomplishments?

Gladwell advocates more opportunities provided by society in order to generate more success, a worthy cause.  However, if elite training was open and accessible to all, would we have 10 record setters like Michael Phelps instead of one?  It would be less likely, actually, because each event still has a limited field of qualifiers and only one gold medal to award.  Fill a heat with swimmers like Michael Phelps and only one of them will be victorious.  In fact, only one of them was victorious.  Gladwell’s formula discounts the resolve of Phelps, a key factor in his success.  Some resolve is implicit in amassing 10,000 hours practicing a skill, but the drive to succeed is ultimately an individual trait and cannot be fostered by society.