I went to Phoenix to visit my sister over Labor Day weekend. She's very sick. It's a ten hour drive and Malcolm came along and read his book, What The Dog Saw. Hearing him read his breakout book was inspiring. Listened to it straight through. It truly engaged my mind and help the hours fly by. This book was peppered with the seeds of ideas that fully bloomed in his next three books.
He had me at his explanation of the title of the book. I won't ruin it by trying to explain it but I am a dog person and many times I have wondered what my dogs have seen. Tyler especially. He's our rescue. I'm the rescued.
It's a compilation book from his many articles as a New Yorker writer and is a very personal telling of how he became a writer, by default actually. What I remember most is his concept of Minor Genius. He had story after fascinating story of people who where in no way an "Einstein" but rallied what genius they did posses into legendary success. Come to think of it I think there was bit about Einstein not actually being an "Einstein" either.
It's fitting I listened to this on the way to see me sister. She is a Genius. I've spent my whole life trying to live up to the man my big sister sees in me. I would have never survived my childhood without her. None of us would have.
I think what was most helpful in this book was the explanation of choking. The idea of thinking too much and how the brain can get in the way. It reminded me of being a pitcher in baseball. You had to clear your mind, keep your eye on the glove, and just throw strikes. You had to trust your skills and your training and just let 'er rip. You can't think a fastball into the strike zone. You got to throw it!
Let me quote Wikipedia just to cover my basis,
"What the Dog Saw is a compilation of 19 articles by Malcolm Gladwell that were originally published in The New Yorker which are categorized into three parts. The first part, Obsessives, Pioneers, and other varieties of Minor Genius, describes people who are very good at what they do, but are not necessarily well-known. Part two, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, describes the problems of prediction. This section covers problems such as intelligence failure, and the fall of Enron. The third section, Personality, Character, and Intelligence, discusses a wide variety of psychological and sociological topics ranging from the difference between early and late bloomers and criminal profiling.[3]
