I really enjoyed this book by Gladwell. What might be the best part, which is expressed throughout the book, is the way he de-romanticizes the rags to riches stories our culture has come to love so much. Gladwell through telling excellent stories, reveals how so many of the successes in our cultures history are through what we like to call “happy accidents.” For example Gladwell shows how the majority of professional hockey players are born between January and May, showing how the development of skills depends on birth date. Those born earlier in the year have a head start on those born later in their development leading to making the better teams, getting better coaching and thus ending up with a better future.

He also shares stories of Bill Gates and how he happened accross being around computers by accident and ended up having so much experience with them before they ever became mainstream. This is also the case for Bill Joy and Steve Jobs.

This book helped me understand my own successes and failures in life and how they have shaped who I am today. I think it is an important read for those of us who are interested in understanding who we are today. Especially when many of us believe we have been handed the short end of the stick. Sometimes we have, but if we looked deep enough we may see some happy accidents that we may or may not have taken hold of.

So I give this book a 3.75/5 in the CP rating; it is a short read (stories tend to move me fast through a book), but it will get your mind going.

I have found this trip to be quite productive as I have not only made my way to countless site, but have finished 4 books. (It should be noted that 2 of them I had already started before arriving).

The most recent book is that of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book Malcolm builds a case for a persons intuition and ability to make good and/or right decisions during the first instances of making a judgment. He shares about 10 stories of different people in their fields of expertise and how they make choices, and then brings in some science on the brain and a few practical studies that have revealed similar results.

What I love about this book are two things. 1) Gladwell never suggests that making decisions in themselves apart from any sort of practice is ideal. Every situation in this book shared involved the decision makers to be well developed in that field. Meaning basically that only those that have extensive understanding of their occupation can make good/right decisions on first glance without too much thought. This is important because I am sure Malcolm doesn’t want to suggest that any one at any time can make a quality decision in any type of discipline. But by knowing your field extensively one can make critical choices (if they indeed are) in intense situations.

2) Malcolm gives me reason for faith. Sometimes we “just know.” There isn’t necessarily a reason why we know something, it just is, and we should be okay with that. The overlying assumption is that people need a reason for faith in the church, some might call it truth, but at the end of the day there are things that I just know are for sure and proving it would be counter productive. There is something powerful in unquestioning faith, and as a very “reasonable” thinker I found this really important.

I would recommend this book for church planting, and I give it a 3.5/5 on the CP scale. I wouldn’t count this book as critical, but I recommend it as a good read and a thought provoker.

Let me know if you have any thoughts from your reading of this book, or if you have any questions.