Outlier

In statistics, an outlier is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data.

"Outliers: The Story of Success" is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success.

In part one, he examines opportunity.
1) Looking at why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year.
2) "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.
3) How Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, partly due to the year he was born.
4) How two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with vastly different fortunes.

In part two, he looks at legacy.
How culture and upbringing actually affects to a great extent our decision making process in response to different circumstances. Examples include the reasons for plane crashes and why Asians can do math better.

Well, basically, he shared some fascinating reasons and examples for success and failure. Some there is no control over like birth month/year/location and in addition, the minimum of 10,000 hours hard work.