9,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
The brand new book from the international bestselling self-help author
Robert Kelsey's internationally bestselling self-help books have helped tens of thousands of people overcome fear of failure and under confidence. Now Robert is back and is here to debunk the ever pervasive myths around the trail-blazing rebel outsider....
Our culture celebrates outsiders while – in reality – slamming the door in their face. The modern world craves innovation while alienating original thinkers. It encourages creativity while shutting-out all but a privileged few from individualistic expression. What a waste!
Yet achieving great things as a genuine outsider is possible. Outsiders can find their own way – succeeding without compromising their individuality. They just need to forge an edge.
The Outside Edge is all about learning to harness the unique vantage point you possess in order to give yourself the edge required to succeed. It will show you when to embrace your outsider status and go against convention, and when to play the game, do as the insiders do and make sure you can get progress. Think of The Outside Edge as a manual for positively directing your insecurity, awkwardness and role-confusion – towards a meaningful future, shaped and pursued on your own terms.
By getting The Outside Edge you can:
- Identity and understand the causes of feeling like an "outsider"
- Accept yourself while focusing on "finding meaning" for your life
- Motivate yourself using strong goals, often harnessing creativity
- Acquire the skills needed to succeed on your own terms
- Avoid pitfalls such as poor judgement, negativity and extremism.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 300
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Ähnliche
CONTENTS
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction: Debunking The Outsider Myth
Part One: The Making of an Outsider
Chapter 1: The Misfits
The Lost Tribe
Divorced from Our Surroundings
Are You An Outsider?
Are We More Intelligent, or Less?
Chapter 2: The Crisis of Identity
The Rejected Changeling
The Battles of Identity
Role Confusion
The Identity Journey
The One in the ABC1 Demographic
Highly-Structured Youth Movements
Chapter 3: Adolescence, Family and Opportunity
The Timing of Puberty
The Disadvantaged Outsider
The Impact of Self-Esteem
Girls Change Friends, Boys Retreat
Family Scripts
The Dilemma of Choice
Rousseau's Discourse of the Vanities
Chapter 4: Existentialism and the Need For A Purpose
Hegel's Contradictions
Kierkegaard Adds A Moral Dimension
‘We Are All Too Human,’ Says Nietzsche
Rise of the Superman
We Must Define Ourselves
Condemned To Be Free
Indifference and Meaninglessness
10 Things Existentialists Teach Outsiders
Part Two: The Rebel with a Cause
Chapter 5: Finding Meaning
Fearing Failure within Conformity
The Danger of Downward Mobility
The Personal Notion of Suffering
Finding Our Unique Insight
Believing We're Gifted for Something
Setting the Compass
Overly Critical Parents, Siblings and Teachers
10 Signposts Towards Finding Meaning
Chapter 6: The Pursuit of Excellence
That One Thing
Required: A Growth Mindset
Aristotle's Pursuit of the ‘Good Life’
Excellence within A Community
What Should We do with Our Lives?
The Key Need: Be Incremental
From Little Acorns
Chapter 7: The Entrepreneurial Spirit
What Is An Entrepreneur?
A Selfish Enterprise
What Entrepreneurs Are Not
Excellence Doesn't Mean Expertise
Not So Youthful
Timing Matters? Probably Not
Positives to Entrepreneurship
Distilling the Spirit
Part Three: Edge Ahead
Chapter 8: Developing Our Creativity
An Outsider Looking Out
The creative edge
Being Open to Uncertainty
The Art of Thought
A Technique for Producing Ideas
Drowning Creativity: Our Education System
A Hopeful Message for Outsiders
Make Your Creativity Profitable
Chapter 9: Learning to Pitch
Life's A Pitch
The Principles of Pitching
Chapter 10: Getting Strategic
The False Breakthrough
What Is A Strategy?
Good Strategy
The War Analogy
Developing The Right Strategy
Desperate Self-Defeating Behaviour
Helping You ‘Think Different’
Chapter 11: Using Judgement
The Emotional Handicap
Making Better Judgements
The Relevance of De Bono
Decision-Making Mistakes
Depersonalization – A Key Aspect of Judgement
Part Four: The Wrong Voices
Chapter 12: Avoiding Negativity
Self-Deprecation as a Defence
Countering Negativity Using CBT
Two Outsiders Clash
Maslow and Motivation
The Positivity of Negativity
Could Stoicism be the Answer?
A Riposte to Gladwell
A 10-Point Plan for Adopting Stoicism
Chapter 13: The Danger of Extremism
Radicalism and the Outsider
Terrorism's Infantile and Narcissistic Roots
A Seductive Proposition
Blind to Realities
An Enabling Romanticism
Dealing with Prejudice
Chapter 14: Utilizing (Constructive) Sociopathy
An Exercise in Sociopathy
Sociopathic Roots
Constructive Sociopathy
Hare's Psychopath Checklist
The Psychopath's Advantage?
Thatcher: the Psychopath?
Generating Enmity – the Psychopath's Fate
The Power of Synergizing
Conclusion: An Extraordinary Vantage Point
10 Rules For Outsiders to Obey
Bibliography
About Robert Kelsey
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Part 1
Chapter 1
Pages
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
‘This is not another quaint book about how outsiders have an edge. This is a subversive manual for how outsiders can carve an edge for themselves with hard work, creativity and the right mental framework.’
Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle Is the Way
‘This stopped me in my tracks. Robert has articulated and explained something which to many of us is just a feeling of outsider-ness. More than that he has explained what to do about it.’
Richard Newton, bestselling author of The Little Book of Thinking Big
‘Ignore trendy commentators telling you being an outsider's advantageous: it's actually highly disabling. Kelsey gets on top of the issues to find a practical (and uncompromising) way through. With Kelsey's help – being an outsider won't f*** you up.’
Oliver James, author of They F*** You Up and Affluenza
‘The Outside Edge is a terrific book for anyone who ever felt they didn't belong. The author has written a highly personal analysis of how outsiders can succeed in work and in life. He has drawn upon a vast range of references across psychology, self-help, literature, philosophy and business to provide advice and encouragement to readers who feel they are not a member of the club. Kelsey has found fulfilment in middle age by building his own company and becoming a husband and father, and describes his journey – trying to be cool but feeling constantly alienated – brilliantly. I found The Outside Edge to be both pragmatic and uplifting. If you are looking for an enjoyable guide to both meaning and purpose in the 21st century, then I strongly recommend this title.’
Luke Johnson, The Sunday Times columnist, author of Start It Up and Chairman of the Centre for Entrepreneurs
‘This is a thorough investigation into a neglected and often misunderstood area. Empathising with outsiders isn't always easy – they are the (often self-declared) ‘misfits’ after all. And, as Kelsey points out, outsiders themselves are prone to ‘distorted empathy’ (i.e. identifying with the bad guy). Yet this makes Kelsey's highly readable text and positive methodology all the more noteworthy.’
Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy: Why it Matters, and How to Get it, and The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live
‘Robert's book is a brilliant resource for anyone who feels stuck in the ‘grey zone’ or is working in the area of people development. It helps to explain why people behave in the way that they do, and provides many practical ideas and tips to help them and/or others make the changes they need to find meaning and purpose.’
Lindsey Agness, founder and managing director of The Change Corporation and author of Change Your Life with NLP
‘This is a book that totally resonates. Outsiders tend not to be positive thinkers and pessimists can find themselves feeling shut out. Kelsey not only understands this, but finds a way through. The Outside Edge is defensive pessimism in action. Bravo!’
Julie K. Norem PhD, author of The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
‘This is an excellent read packed with both cautionary tales and optimistic insight, for anyone who's ever felt on the periphery. It's revealing, compelling and highly practical – not least in offering life-skills to those without the innate advantages of the insider.’
Helena Pozniak, life-skills writer for the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent and elsewhere
‘As Kelsey so eloquently demonstrates, outsiders are often highly creative, and are usually best placed pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions – something that certainly chimes with my own outlook. What's unique about this book, however, is Kelsey's explanation of the sometimes discomforting reasons why people become estranged from their tribe. Its message is uncompromisingly positive, although it also deals well with the genuine struggles outsiders face.’
Michael Jacobsen, serial entrepreneur and author of The Business of Creativity
‘I can't believe how many excellent insights Kelsey has drawn from such diverse and wise sources. With his characteristic honesty and ability to reflect on personal experience, he has created an inspiring and practical guide for outsiders. Kelsey's books have the rare quality of encouraging the reader to reach beyond current limitations without over-promising, denying our vulnerability, or pretending that life isn't sometimes (often) unpredictable, random, and difficult. The Outside Edge is a book outsiders will certainly appreciate if we want to increase our chances of success and well-being, however we define them, in a world made, and dominated, by insiders.’
Ian Aspin, author of How to Be a Super Human: Using the Amazing Power of Social Networks
‘Having helped generate 60 start-ups in six years, I've seen many outsiders succeed – on their own terms – as entrepreneurs. To make the most of their unique perspective, however, outsiders must acquire a degree of self-awareness as well as certain specific skills: knowledge that's expressed brilliantly in this book, which I heartily recommend.’
Martin Bjergegaard, co-founder of Rainmaking and Startupbootcamp and best-selling author of Winning without Losing
The Outside Edge
How Outsiders Can Succeed in a World Made By Insiders
Robert Kelsey
This edition first published 2015
© 2015 What’s Stopping You Ltd
What’s Stopping You? is a trademark of What’s Stopping You Ltd?
Registered office
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademark or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelsey, Robert
The outside edge : how outsiders can succeed in a world made by insiders / Robert Kelsey.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-857-08575-7 (paperback)
1. Self-esteem. 2. Identity (Psychology) 3. Creative ability. I. Title.
BF697.5.S46K455 2015
158.1—dc23
2014047585
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-857-08575-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-857-08573-3 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-857-08574-0 (ebk)
Cover design: Wiley
Cover image: ©Rawpixel/shutterstock
Dedication
To Lucy, George and Eddie
Introduction Debunking The Outsider Myth
‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you really want to know the truth.’
Holden Caulfield's sleep-deprived meanderings around 1940s New York provide the narrative for probably the most enduring treatise to adolescent alienation ever written. J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is an exploration of the contradictions, shallowness and fakery of adult life – as seen through the eyes of a 16-year-old outsider. According to Caulfield, everyone he encounters is a ‘phony’ – pursuing thinly-disguised self-interest via artificial conventions and a veneer of amiability. It's a world he despises for its hypocrisy and materialistic insincerity. Seeking depth and purity, Cauflield clings to uncorrupted icons such as his kid sister or the ducks in Central Park.
It's a private and lonely rebellion: insightful yet naïve, sensitive yet hateful, individualistic yet aching to be understood. Defiant and insolent despite his inner confusion, Caulfield's inarticulate musings express both the hopes and despair of youth so authentically they've made Salinger's anti-hero the torchbearer for generations of tortured souls, me included. Like millions before and since, I identified with Caulfield's mix of cynicism and angst – even mimicking his train journey into Manhattan through adolescent forays down the Essex commuter line into London's Liverpool Street Station.
Clutching a day-return ticket, I'd wander the backstreets of the East End: collar up, cigarette in mouth, hands in pocket – the sheer misery of the streets around Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields markets (then, when shut, full of rubbish and winos) reflecting my lonely discomfort at the straightened adulthood I saw ahead of me.
Oh, how I loved Salinger for giving voice to my lonely disaffection.
Salinger's False Promise
Yet there's a problem with this vision. While Manhattan and central London are obvious comparatives – and Caulfield and I suffered the same mix or angst and alienation – we had little in common. Unbeknown to me, Caulfield had an edge. He was being thrown out of Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school that had equipped him well despite his inability to complete a history paper or enjoy the college football games.
The tutors knew him and even cared for his welfare, and he was captain of the school fencing team. Meanwhile, I was one more mass-produced nobody from a ‘bog standard’ state education system that expected, and planned for, low attainment. No one looked out for me and I was captain of nothing. So while Caulfield's alienation came from his fear and rejection of the expectations driven by his expensive education, mine came from an altogether different source: exclusion.
In fact, Caulfield was no outsider. He was an insider with attitude. It's a crucial divide, and one giving him an edge over the likes of me, who was simply on the edge: as denoted by our behaviour once in the big city. Caulfield confidently bluffed his way into expensive Midtown hotels – blagging alcoholic drinks and dancing with 30-something female tourists – while I kicked around closed markets, maybe engaging a homeless bum in a doorway or nursing a mug of tea in an East End ‘caff’.
Of course, The Catcher in the Rye is fiction, although Salinger's early adulthood somewhat mirrors that of Caulfield, with the added guilt of benefiting from self-made immigrant parents. Yet this theme of the romantic outsider being – in reality – an elite rejectionist, and therefore someone with an edge over less advantaged outsiders, is repeated time and again. A British literary hero of the rebellious classes is George Orwell (1903–50), a man disavowing imperial conformity to chronicle the poor and downtrodden of the interwar years. As social commentary Orwell's writing is explosive – not least his ability to experience the life of an alienated down-and-out or itinerant salesman.
And, like Salinger, Orwell's work has survived through decades of change by tapping into social exclusion via his own alienation. An alienation, what's more, that ran deep enough to reject the affected-revolutionary rhetoric of his fellow bohemians. Indeed, Orwell is a hero of intellectual heretics from both ends of the political spectrum – surely the mark of a true outsider?
Except that Orwell was no outsider. An Old Etonian – and part of the imperial governing class – Orwell, like Caulfield, had an edge over his fellow rejectionists. And he also had the indulgence of choice. Tired of roughing it, Orwell would return to his parents' seaside residence in the smart Suffolk resort of Southwold. Here, he could eat well, pursue love interests and perhaps be fitted for a new suit – all while damning the bourgeoisie for their selfish mores, petty snobberies and hypocritical values.
America's outsider here is Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961). A rugged and individualistic ‘man's man’, Hemingway repudiated societal boundaries by seeking novelty through adventure. His writing is legendary although, again, Hemingway was no outsider. He was the well-educated son of a doctor and musician. And those masculine survivor skills were learnt from his father at the family's second home in rural Michigan: a weekend retreat away from the smart gatherings of upper middle-class suburban Chicago.
As with Orwell, Hemingway pursued extreme individualism out of choice. Again, his expensively-honed skills and family connections gave him the edge required for him to profitably pursue macho dreams that indulged his love of European sophistication, hardcore naturalism and the adrenalin of war.
Gladwell's Myth Exposed
As outsiders, Orwell and Hemingway make poor role models. They renounced conventional attitudes not despite their privileges but because of them – relying on the edge their advantages gave them in order to succeed as outsiders. Meanwhile, anybody forsaking such norms without such an edge will find such individualism a far harder slog. In fact, they'll likely find it impossible.
Of course, to the observer, such rejection looks and acts outwardly the same. Orwell the tramp looks much like the next guy sleeping under Waterloo Bridge. Yet they couldn't be further apart. Given Orwell's privileges, he had an incentive to sleep rough – not so the outcast beside him, for whom a good Suffolk breakfast, a fitting at Denny's and a mild disagreement with one's publisher are the pursuits of someone from another planet.
Such is the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged outsider – such is the edge some have and others lack. Not that you'd know it from reading Malcolm Gladwell. In his book – David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants (2013) – that modern-day sage explores the art of success for those without the advantages of the insider. And as the book's title suggests, Gladwell uses that famous biblical battle as his exemplar.
History perceives the underdog to be the shepherd-boy misfit David. Yet, according to Gladwell, David possessed hidden advantages over the warrior-giant Goliath due to his ability to generate new solutions by breaking the rules. Goliath prepared for a straight fight based on his traditional assumptions and military knowledge, and expected to win based on his size. Meanwhile, the outsider David – by refusing armour – ignored convention: instead employing his shepherd's slingshot to fell the colossus.
Life's full of such examples, opines Gladwell – proving that the disadvantaged or excluded can break convention simply by turning it on its head. Dyslexics succeed due to their highly-developed listening skills, he says, while those educated in larger class sizes – something most educationalists think detrimental – benefit from shared learning and collaboration. From the American Revolution to Vietnam, from the Civil Rights movement to Northern Ireland, Gladwell finds history littered with underdogs that were expected to lose due to their disadvantages, yet who overcame obstacles through guile, guts and creativity. Most often – like David and his agile slingshooting – they won because their perceived disadvantages were in fact advantages, giving them an edge over their rivals.
Great news. If only it were true.
Unfortunately, it's a myth: the outsider myth – a modern day fallacy that says, to succeed, you have to go against the tide. Be different. In reality, however, it's an option open only to a well-educated elite pursuing their expensively-acquired advantages over the rest of us. Of course, underdogs can succeed, just as outsiders can change the world. Yet any ‘misfit’ thinking success is assured simply because they're ‘not like other people’ is likely to find themselves on the wrong side of history. From 5,000 years of records, Gladwell picks the winners while ignoring the countless occasions outsiders were crushed and forgotten by those utilizing their inherent advantages – their edge – over the rest of us.
For Gladwell, disadvantages – such as low educational attainment and social exclusion – are not disadvantages at all. They encourage cooperation, flair and imagination. Yet I think this a cruel trick to play on the millions of people feeling alienated from conventional pursuits while lacking the gilded opportunities of an Orwell or Hemingway, or even a Caulfield. Society's changed since Salinger wrote of Caulfield's bleary-eyed New York wanderings, and even since I kicked around the East End. But it hasn't changed enough to accommodate all those encouraged to think their outsider angst and misfit rage a sure sign their ‘gift’ is bankable.
The Soundtrack of Working-Class Rebellion
Not so, shout the optimists. The world's full of disadvantaged outsiders that made it due to their unique outlook. Take rock ‘n’ roll. Isn't that the soundtrack to working class rebellion going right back to white kids playing black rhythms to shock their parents in 1950s America? On this side of the pond, pop-music (at least until the 1990s) was virtually defined by alienation: not least in the spawning of multiple musical tribes such as punks, mods, casuals, rude boys or new romantics. Surely, each of these cultural insurgencies contained significant elements of working class rebellion, didn't they? And their revolutionary leaders – whether Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Weller, Johnny Rotten, Terry Hall or Steve Strange – were all authentic working class heroes, weren't they?
Indeed they were. Yet look closely and those preaching anarchy were just as often recoiling from middle-class expectations – from ‘making plans for Nigel’ – than the limits of working-class aspiration. Sure, the odd back-street band won a deal from the moneymen – producing dancehall fodder for the masses. But nearly all those 1970s superbands – the likes of Genesis, Pink Floyd, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, and even The Clash – can trace their heritage back to Britain's fee-paying ‘public’ schools, again proving that rebellion is facilitated by, not despite, the advantages of privilege.
A peculiarly-British twist? Not at all. While researching this book news came of Lou Reed's death. A sad loss, not least because, along with his band (The Velvet Underground), he was emblematic of the rebellion pop-music engendered for so many. Reed was billed as an outsider – a label confirmed by his obituaries: The New York Times even running the headline ‘Outsider Whose Dark Lyrical Vision Helped Shape Rock ‘n' Roll'.
Yet Lou Reed's rejection of society owes more to his advantages than any sense of working class rebellion. The son of an accountant, Reed – as the child of successful New York Jewry – led a rather similar, well-educated, adolescence to Salinger. In other words, he was an idiosyncratic member of an elitist club. And this made Reed's rebellion towards the drug-addled dens of New York's underworld a choice, although his sense of rejection was compounded by his parent's ham-fisted efforts to ‘cure' his bisexual ‘urges'.
In fact, just about everywhere you look for rebellion you find highly-educated people with expensively-honed talents pursuing ‘exclusion' as a means of self-expression – something true of music, the arts and literature. And it's even true in business. After all, revolutionary techies Bill Gates (of Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook) had wealthy parents and a good college education – seemingly necessary requisites for breaking the mould via entrepreneurial success. Even Richard Branson, the UK's best-known entrepreneurial rebel – and one of the moneymen supporting British pop – is the privately-educated son of a barrister.
Can Disadvantaged Outsiders Prosper?
Stop me if I'm ranting, because the message here isn't one of class envy or ‘chippiness'. At least not deliberately. My concern is for the outsider and the fact there's a gulf – despite appearances – between the tools available, and therefore the outcomes, for advantaged against disadvantaged outsiders: for those with or without the edge of privilege.
Yet the central premise of this book is not the bemoaning of this reality. It's to establish how disadvantaged outsiders can develop that edge. While disagreeing with Gladwell's claim that our disadvantages and/or alienation can work in our favour, my aim here is to help make that very prospect a reality: to give genuine outsiders (not just eccentric elitists) the edge required to help them succeed.
Indeed, for every Salinger there's a D.H. Lawrence or Alan Sillitoe: both born to semi-literate Nottinghamshire fathers – one a miner, the other a bicycle factory worker. Yet both became era-defining writers. In fact, Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959) stands alongside The Catcher in the Rye as a treatise to, this time working class, alienation and rebellion.
For every Lou Reed there's a David Bowie (the Brixton-born son of a waitress and charity worker); or Andy Warhol (Reed's mentor and patron, and the son of an immigrant Pennsylvanian miner); or Tracey Emin (a teenage rape victim from the wrong part of Kent with cross-Romany/Turk-Cypriot parentage).
And for every Richard Branson there's Apple's Steve Jobs (the adopted son of a garage mechanic); or omni-inventor Thomas Edison (the near-deaf youngest child of a political refugee); or Starbucks' Howard Schultz (the son of a Brooklyn truck driver).
Yet don't be fooled. The Edisons and the Emins – as well as the Bowies and Warhols – are far from the norm. Insiders are the norm. It's their world, with advantaged outsiders no more than insiders with an attitude – though still utilizing the edge gained from their inherent advantages in pursuit of their (usually creative) self-expression. Disadvantaged outsiders have to make it despite their sometimes highly-disabling attributes, not because of them. Gladwell's wrong on this one, though that's where this book comes in.
Making Rebellion Count
Being a disadvantaged outsider is usually a one-way ticket to economic and social exclusion: a message as true of race, gender, age and sexuality as it is for class. Forget the noise that anything's possible – rebellion's end for those without the edge of inherited or acquired privilege (in whatever form) more usually involves confusion, isolation, failure and surrender. More outsiders commit suicide than conquer the world using their original perspective: a depressing conclusion that every word in this book is aimed at preventing.
If we're to avoid such a fate, we must forge an edge for ourselves: one that helps us cut through the discrimination and barriers we face (both seen and unseen). As stated, those that feel alienated – not by their guilty advantages but due to the lack of them – can break conventions. And this can, if successful, lead to revolutionary change. Many advances in all human fields have been brought about by those ‘thinking outside the box' – most often due to their exclusion from those ‘inside the box'. We look at the world as if watching a play unfold, allowing us to observe and understand it in ways not available to the players themselves.
This is a unique vantage point. It's also one offering genuine outsiders an even sharper edge than all those eccentric insiders utilizing their inherent social booty: as long as we can calculate a singular direction and hone the skills required to progress. If we can develop that unique perspective and – importantly – find a way of getting others to listen, then rebellion's end could well bring about revolutionary change. And that sure beats kicking around the East End with the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Despite the myth peddled by Gladwell (and others), the attributes of genuine outsiders are usually highly disabling – with most successful outsiders no more than insiders with an attitude. Yet that shouldn't prevent us from developing an advantageous edge. To do so, however, we must first understand how we came to feel so estranged: our task for Part One.
Part OneThe Making of an Outsider
1The Misfits
First let's recognize the outsider. We're all born to a tribe, and of a landscape. It's inescapable. But we don't all fit in. Some of us – for reasons we'll explore later – become alienated from the others. We're the misfits: rejecting or rejected by the colony. Over time, we develop an outlook that emphasizes the disconnect we feel with our peers. And, soon enough, we're on the edge, looking in – or just as often looking away.
There's nothing inherently enabling about this situation, no matter what the view of fashionable commentators. There are no advantages. There's no edge to being on the edge. In fact, over millennia it's a predicament costing misfits dear. Ostracism, bullying, assault – even rape and murder – are the usual results; as is anxiety, loneliness, depression and even suicide for those not a central part of the clan. When the food runs out or the gods need pacifying, it's the outsider that's sacrificed. Hence the anxiety.
Children and animals instinctively know this, and spend their lives jockeying for position. They're vying for centrality, and detest any imposition that hinders the quest. As a child, I rejected school lifts from my father because he drove a Rover 3800 – preferring instead to trudge miles across muddy fields and spend the day with my flares rimmed with the Essex mud that denoted my membership of the clan.
Yet the terror of rejection follows us into adulthood. Even our love of fashion is little more than tribal signalling that we're in with the in-crowd: central rather than peripheral. It says that we're keen to follow our tribal leaders and be part of their ‘set’ (with flamboyant clothes little more than a bid for leadership). Fortunes are made on the assumption we'll cough up to be on the right side of the velvet rope – touching the nucleus. Nick Jones founded Soho House in London on that very premise, with his East London outpost – Shoreditch House – a constant reminder of my own inability to integrate with this human core. To forever be the man at street level, peering through frosted glass at a world out of reach.
So where are the advantages? How can rejection and isolation offer anyone an edge over their brethren? The truth is they cannot, at least not on their own. Left to its own trajectory, being an outsider involves frustration, anger, rage and – ultimately – surrender. It's totally disabling, especially when the disadvantages are hidden. Claim race, gender, disability or sexuality as encumbrances to your advance, and western society's high-liberalism throws you the law's protection and the media's adulation (though the barriers remain). Claim it's something more personal – your position in the family hierarchy, say, or your sensitivity compared to your peers, or even your poor education – and you're, quite literally, alone: condemned as pathetic and ostracized all the more.
Gaining an edge here is much harder, and lonelier, work.
The Lost Tribe
My claim's certainly pathetic, though it starts with a very modern phenomenon: dislocation. Like everyone, I came from a tribe. And I'm of a landscape. Yet the two didn't marry. We were townies marooned in the countryside. Part of the post-war East London Diaspora, my childhood outlook over a flat Essex mudscape tweaked not the slightest curiosity about the land's use or ownership. It's what writer and ‘psycho-geographer’ Iain Sinclair labels Empty Quarter Essex – ‘a floating landscape…there to be seen from passing cars, not to be experienced at first hand,’ he writes in London Orbital (2002). ‘Essex is better remembered than known.’
And I knew it in the 1970s – long before Essex Man became the ambassadors for the ‘white trash with cash’ tribe that came to dominate millennial tastes in the UK. Then, we were a lost tribe: uprooted from our urban homelands and deposited on the arable steppes beyond Abercrombie's greenbelt.
The indigenous gentry – in their flat caps and Range Rovers – viewed us disdainfully, though we'd return the contempt by vandalizing their tractors or damming their irrigation ditches. Yet we were also despised by the genuinely-poor rural natives. The offspring of farmhands and pea-pickers, they lived in shambolic enclaves with overgrown gardens and barking Rottweilers. That said, their untended plots were integral to the surrounding countryside – as were they – while our presence in the raw, jagged, sapling-dappled housing estates jarred.
Of course, colonists facing hostile natives should tighten as a group. Yet I was an outsider even within my displaced ‘white flight’ colony. My peers – all tribal warriors in the making – were no more like me than the kids we called ‘Garys’ from the ragged end of the village. I wanted to integrate but couldn't. Again, this was partly geographic. My cul-de-sac was on a different side of the ‘village’ from the neat housing estates of my clan. They played happily together – in and out of each other's gardens and bedrooms (as were their parents) – while I languished a million miles (in fact around half-a-mile) from the action.
