So I’m in a very packed Room 909 with one of my favorite writers, Malcolm Gladwell. He’s a pretty influential man with a bevy of idea about the human mind and our social patterns in his head. The talk covers his most recent book, Outliers, which, if you haven’t heard of it or picked it up yet, is absolutely worth a look-see for the summer.

The last speaking event done by the The Master Speaker Series hosted by the Applied Psychology Department was with Charles Murray, the slightly racist psychologist who famously wrote the bell curve and doesn’t think you should be going to college.

Now, Gladwell took the stage and began explaining his approach to the book “Outliers” and the ways in which he feels we as human beings and Americans can begin to fully capitalize on the amazing skills and talents we have inside of us that are rarely is ever taken advantage of.

Now, I was about to write out a description of what Gladwell said during the lecture. He brought up interesting facts about football players, hockey, horoscopes, math questionnaires, and Ethiopians, and overall gave a truly wondrous look into the mind of a social and developmental psychologist.

But Gladwell is a great lecturer and writer not for the anecdotes he tells or the jokes he makes (of reading Charles Murray’s most recent book, he said, “There’s three hours I’ll never get back.”), but for the way in which he directs the headlights of society towards its most mundane laws and practices. This illuminating helps to point out issues with how we think and how we process the information presented to us.

The greatest moment in his lecture came when he pointed out that when an American fails at math, we as a collective say to that individual: you must not be good at math. In Singapore, however, the collective will say to an individual: you need to try harder and work longer, then you’ll get it. That simple rule, that in America we classify people as being good or bad at something, is a revolutionary idea that is not utilized enough in our classrooms, our workplaces, and in our homes.

So go out and buy one of his awesome books so you can share in the greatness of Gladwell.