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Malcolm Gladwell's book David and Goliath talks about that example (among others). It's a pretty interesting read.

John Lee is one of my favorite narrators and his reading of the Count of Monte Cristo is wonderful (even at 47 hours).

Ron Chernow’s biographies of Grant, Hamilton, and Washington.

Candice Millard‘s “Hero’s of the Empire” (about Winston Churchill) and “River of Doubt” (Theodore Roosevelt) are both interesting looks at important historical figures in situations we don’t often prescribe to them. Her first book “Destiny of the Republic” (James Garfield) is also good but the other two are superior.

“David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell.

david and goliath by gladwell is indeed a good motivational/justificational book for underdog or lean startup aiming at big corporate.

Currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath and it's easily one of my favorites of 2013. The introduction - Gladwell explains what actually happened in the epic biblical battle of the same name - is revelatory and an unforgettable piece of literature.

Malcolm Gladwell may be too popular to be 'cool', but he's a master storyteller. Haters gonna hate.

I liked that as well

> And I put that in quotes because "smart" is really just a way of saying "has invested so much time and sweat that you make it look effortless."

When you look up at smart people that have succeeded in their career. It's certainly because they worked so hard to get there.

I've learned a lot about that reading another book of Gladwell, "The Outliers". Which is one of my favorite book. One of the story is about a genius who is still living in his mom's basement because he lacks the social traits of other successful intelligent people. I think I will check your "David and Goliath" book.

Also, from the reddit comment, what I got is that he reached out. He asked for help around. Most things are hard to learn by yourself, and if not a book, people around you are the most likely to help. It helps being humble, when asking for help.

Thanks for reading my article! And thanks for the insight here. I really wasn't trying though to make it part of my thesis that you should have a terrible childhood in order to create a non-anxious state to make yourself more observant, or that you should give your own kids a terrible childhood to make them more successful.

But it was to show how relaxed James was, and it also seemed to stem from how he interpreted the terrible things that happened to him. I thought those stories could help some of us realize that if we could re-interpret some of the bad things that have happened to us the way James has, we could probably become more observant too, and hence spot more opportunities.

Also, Malcolm Gladwell has some interesting bits in his latest book, David and Goliath, about how childhood trouble like dyslexia can turn into opportunities. I'm going to butcher the research if I try and bring it up now, but there's some neat bits there if you haven't read them.

Gladwell's most famous book, 'The Tipping Point', suffered a similar fate. It was largely predicated on the 'broken window theory' [1] which too was proven not to be valid [2].

After his book 'David and Goliath' received numerous bad reviews for oversimplifying things and pinning causes on things that don't make sense, Gladwell lashed out at his critics and basically said that his books are not written for experts. [3]

Almost all of Gladwell's books are written in a style that categorically states that the subjects of his writing have a predetermined cause and effect. He doesn't leave much to chance, uncertainty or some other unknown cause. Everything is certain. His stories and narrations always imply a cause. That's the real secret of his writing.

[1] https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2016/11/14/the-tipping-po...

[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sorry-malcolm-glad...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/malcolm-gladwe...

This is called relative deprivation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_deprivation) and Malcolm Gladwell's book "David and Goliath" has some interesting examples of its destructive power, such as when bright students enroll in STEM courses in top-tier schools, but end up dropping out from STEM because the amount of students smarter than them discourages them.

I second that, thanks for the share ph33r.

The story highlights that 'smartness' is linked more to a learning mentality then actually knowing a lot of things.

Humility.

Similarly to the study shared in the OP, if you tell yourself that you are good at something, you are less likely to try hard, thats when you'll fall behind. I read a book that shared a story like this recently, 'David and Goliath' by Malcolm Gladwell.