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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Outliers, Tiger and Some Dumb BowlerThose of you who have read my book (the “faithful five” I’m now calling you) know that I
am very interested (some might even say obsessed) with the subject of success. So how excited was I that my favorite non-fiction
writer, Malcolm Gladwell, (whose best-selling book Blink I quoted in my own book) released a new book last week called
Outliers: The Story of Success?
After picking up a copy on the day it was released (kind of like the way
I used to scoop up the SI swimsuit issue back when I was a teenager…boy, how big a nerd am I?), I devoured its contents
like a man downing a bottle of Evian after a three-day walk through the Sahara. Obviously, I found the subject matter utterly
fascinating. The book proposes that society is way too worshipful of the most successful of us (the titular “Outliers”)
and way too dismissive of the least successful. The key ingredient, Gladwell argues, is luck. He copiously and entertainingly
details tiny coincidences that explain why most NHL players are born in the first three months of the year, why Bill Gates
and a gaggle of other software magnates were born in close proximity to the year 1955 and why pilots of certain nationalities
were more likely to crash planes. The argument the book makes (very convincingly I might add) is that there is much more than
hard work, determination and talent that goes into the makeup of a success story, and that there are many things that society
can (and should) do to level the playing field so that as little talent as possible falls through the cracks.
So
what does this have to do with bowling? Everything! As I was reading the book, the thought that kept popping up in my mind
was, “What if I had switched places with Tiger Woods?” Tiger and I are both around the same age. We both grew
up in Southern California. We both started playing our respective sports at a very young age. We both spent countless hours
(in Outliers, Gladwell makes a compelling case that the magic number is 10,000 hours) practicing our chosen sports.
We both won major tournaments in our respective sports as juniors. We both received regular media coverage in local papers
like the L.A. Times and the Daily News. We both attended prestigious Pac-10 schools. But why did Tiger get a $20 million endorsement
deal from Nike after his sophomore year, while I signed an agreement with Lane #1 to get (a limited number) of free bowling
balls?
Malcolm Gladwell’s answer would be, “dumb luck”. Of course, that answer is very frustrating
to someone like me. Someone who spent their entire childhood and teen years trying to become the best bowler in the world,
only to realize after graduating college and deciding that setting off on a career as a struggling pro bowler was a borderline
insane decision considering that it would have taken at least five years (assuming everything went right with my development
as a pro) to earn what I could earn as an entry-level marketer right out of college. Was I just stupid for taking so long
to realize it?
Well, the thought (of money, that is) had crossed my mind growing up. But the PBA actually was on
the rise from the time I started following it (around 1980) to the time I felt like I was on track to become a good pro (around
1987). In fact, that year the PBA had its first $100,000 top prize, and prize money across the board had reached all-time
highs. Come to think of it, the discrepancy between prize money on the PGA Tour and the PBA Tour weren’t really that
far out of whack. Golfers were earning about five times more than bowlers at the time (which sounds like a lot but is a pittance
compared to this year where PGA money-leader Vijay Singh earned 100 TIMES what PBA money-leader Norm Duke earned) but it looked
to the 16-year old me as if the gap might either be closing or that, at least, in the near future the PBA would be playing
for $100K on top every week.
We all know what happened of course. The PBA nearly went bankrupt in 2000 and
prize money is now hovering around mid 1980’s levels and the PGA got Tiger and now has more money than the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation. But what if Tiger had been a bowler? I’d be an arrogant fool not to admit that he is certainly
more talented a golfer than I am a bowler, and that he has certain distinct advantages when it comes to marketing his story.
But what if I’d had the giant carrot of big bucks dangled in front of me, how good would I have become? Who knows? (You
could drive yourself crazy thinking about this…I’ve chosen to let it go.)
Probably the most interesting
thing to think about is what Tiger would have done had he been born a bowling-lover. Would he have gone on to become a great
bowler in the category of a Norm Duke or Walter Ray Williams Jr. or Earl Anthony? Would he have transcended the sport and
had the same positive economic impact on bowling as he’s had on golf? Would he have quit the sport like I did because
of his frustration with the lack of money and his good fortune of having other options? Would he have reentered bowling (as
I did by working for the PBA) on the business side with the hope of fixing the sport so that stories like his and the wasting
of generations of talented bowlers wouldn’t continue to occur in the future? Would he have continued to try to help
the sport even after leaving the PBA and moving on to another career path (once again motivated by the lure of more money)?
It is hard to say. I guess the answer would hinge on the question of how much he loves his sport versus how much he loves
money or was likely to fall in love with some other pursuit (like I have with writing).
The thing I love most
about Tiger Woods, though, is how little he seems to be interested in money and awards. For him, it seems to be all about
the competition and the process of bettering himself as a player. This is obvious when you notice how many times he’s
told reporters, “if I win, everything will take care of itself.” To me, that is a fantastic example for all of
us to follow for, even if we haven’t been blessed with being in just the right place at just the right time, striving
for our best allows us still to have the ability to make an impact on the world…and, I believe, to be rewarded for
that impact in the end. My own life (and the methods for success that I discuss in my book) is an experiment in attempting
to prove the truth of this philosophy. Only time will tell if my theories are correct or if luck (as Outliers predicts)
will truly prevent me from ever achieving any meaningful, conventionally agreed upon level of success.
See you
next week!
Click here to read “Jason’s TV Recap - Uncensored” on PBA.com.
To check out the latest episode of The Bowling
Show >>> Click Here
To check out my book Livin' The Dream: How to Get What You Want, Find True Meaning and Save the World
by Bowling! >>> Click Here
jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
10:35 pm est
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LIVIN' THE DREAM:
How
to get what you want, find true meaning and save the world by bowling!
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Q:
What is the book about?
A: The book is about how the valuable
lessons I learned through my lifelong involvement in bowling saved my life and transformed me from an unhappy cynic into a
blissfully happy optimist.
Q: What made you decide to write it?
A: I had been out of the bowling industry for about two years and I had hit a very low point in my attitude about
life. Through the help of a family member, I was able to rediscover the important lessons about success, spirituality and
connecting with others. I was so excited about this transformation that I decided to write a book that attempts to detail
the metamorphosis while outlining the important lessons I remembered.
Q: How is this
book different from other self-help books?
A: The book is different in a number
of ways. First, I am a very unlikely person to have written a self-help book. If you had known me before I'd written the book,
you'd know precisely what I mean. But that fact alone reveals how strongly I felt about writing it, because I knew that if
I could change for the better, then I felt anyone could do it and that there was a good chance that I could help a lot of
people by describing the process and arranging the pieces in a way that could be easily understood.
The
other key point of difference is the way the book is arranged. The story is structured into three parts, The Method, Some
Cool Tricks and For the Hard-Core Cynics, each of which contain the important lessons I wanted to share. Every chapter is
also broken up with a narrative of my personal story, told for the purpose of detailing my amazing attitude transformation.
It begins with the extremely low point when others felt the need to reach out to help me to remember the important things
in life and goes on to detail the many people that helped me to learn the most important life lessons, including: my childhood
friend Robert Smith, my father (a former President of Disneyland International), PBA Chairman Chris Peters and former PBA
CEO Steve Miller.
Q: Is the book as funny as your blogs?
A: Yes! But there is also a serious side too.
Q: How is your book different from
something like The Secret?
A: My book is similar to The Secret
in that it proposes a method for success, but it is different in a number of ways. First, it is a bit more practical when
it comes to outlining the method for achieving success. The Secret comes very close to describing a similar method
for success in its "Ask, Believe, Receive" mantra. In my book, the first two of these elements ("Ask"
and "Believe") are integral (although I call them "Dream" and "Self-Belief"), but I believe
there has to be some proactive work done to achieve the goal. I call it hard work (which turns a lot of people off, of course)
but to use the model of The Secret, you would simply replace the word "Receive" with "Retrieve."
The best part of all this (and the good news for the folks who don't want to have to work hard) is that once you decide on
what you want and then you begin to believe you can get it, the work is no longer hard, but becomes a fun activity that fills
your days with joy and purpose.
Second, my book spends a significant amount of time discussing
how to deal with your success once you've attained it (and that conducting yourself in this manner before
you reach your goals will actually help you get there even faster). Probably the best way to describe my
book is that it's a cross between The Secret and the late Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture.
But I also quote a number of more research-driven books like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Sam Harris' The
End of Faith and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate to help me make my point.
Q: Do you have to be a bowler to like this book?
A: Absolutely
not! Bowling obviously plays a major role (although it really serves more as the setting rather than as the primary focal
point) because of my involvement with the sport my whole life. But the lessons bowling taught me are lessons I could have
learned if I had chosen to be a golfer or a doctor or a writer (oops, I guess that one's a bad example now). My hope is that
the book will find its way into the hands of people who don't bowl and that these people will come away with a new appreciation
for bowlers and the sport of bowling.
Q: What is your goal with the book?
A: That is a simple one. To help as many people as possible to experience the gift of embracing an optimistic way
of life and to help them reap its many rewards. 
