Outliers

Why am I not more successful? Why haven't things gone as planned? Why are things tougher than I thought they would be at this point in my life?  I am willing to work hard and smart.  I will put in the time.  I have a high I.Q.  I have had success throughout my career. But not life-changing, continued success.  Why not?

I read a book last year that I found very interesting.  The book was titled Outliers and was written by a man named Malcolm Gladwell. The main theme of Outliers is that there is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ or desire.   He simply makes the point that people like Gates and Jobs encountered the kind of "right place at the right time" opportunity that allowed them to capitalize on their talent, a factor that often separates moderate from extraordinary success. Think of it this way: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other computer masterminds would likely not have distinguished themselves were they born 10 years earlier (as they would not have been exposed to computers in high-school/college, and would have been in their mid-thirties by the time computers really took hold, likely already in other careers by that point in their lives.)
Gladwell also looks at "demographic luck," the effect of one's birth date. He demonstrates how being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s proved an enormous advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic troughs, meaning that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were looking to enroll and companies were looking for employees.  In short, outlier-type success comes "from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with."

So I am resigned to the fact that I most likely will not make it big.  But I do find solace in the fact that if I give my best everyday and rely on God, that I will have the kind of success that God intended for me.  And that will be good enough.