In that book, Gladwell’s principal point — the one he wants us to take away, which he very carefully examines, is the relationship between effort and reward.

For most of us, that relationship waxes and wanes. Sometimes it’s good sometimes it’s bad — but most importantly, it’s not that good most of the time for most of us. For “outliers” in their environment though, there is a very direct relationship between effort and reward.

Think of the gymnasts in the last chapter of his book — they firstly thank their parents and their coaches at the local gym, not because they are somehow being modest, but because they are being truthful.

The reason these people spend so much time reverse engineering and slow motion practising their sport is because they (and their coaches) know it will bring rewards, and this is logical.

After all, there’s no point reverse engineering a bad piece of prose or slow motion practising a bad stroke. And how did people learn to distinguish that good from bad? Environment and opportunity. Which leads us straight back to the core argument of Gladwell’s book.