Visit to Stanford back in March 2017 pretty much changed my life. I took my daughter to visit Stanford and afterwards we stopped at shopping center in Palo Alto to eat. There was Tesla showroom there so we spent some time in the store checking out the Model S and X. That was my first experience with Tesla vehicles and what I saw and experienced that day really impressed me. I still remember the nice sales associate lady who helped me in the store and showed me the features of the vehicles. That Tesla showroom visit in Palo Alto left a lasting impression on me and a year later, I bought my first shares of Tesla stock and the rest is history.
This is a good story that reminds me of a piece I heard on Radiolab on NPR about how a lot of success in many cases has a lot to do with a lot of luck - be at the right place at the right time type of stuff. Had to have a daughter, had Stanford as an option, chose it as a place to visit, happened to go to a Tesla showroom, a showroom that was apparently very well run, with a memorable salesperson. All those factors not there=no life changing event.
A lot of it is discussed in the context of this book called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, which was quite well received. The podcast got into a couple things I remember, from the cutoff age for hockey players in Canada having a distinct relationship to success in the hockey leagues - all the way to Bill Gates himself. And Bill Gates has pretty much verified the author's take on his success. Gladwell opines that Gates was in the right place at the right time at an elite private school in the Seattle area that had a special computer program at a very early stage in their introduction into classrooms for kids of that age. And Gates has talked about this - no Lakeside School would mean no Microsoft - he said not only did that school get especially early access to computers, but the faculty there was keen on letting students tinker on their own and did not tie them down with lots of rules and regulations, really letting their minds roam with computers. He also met Paul Allen there, the co-founder of Microsoft. Now this is not to say that without the school Gates would not be successful in something else, but it was fundamental to his success. And the author of this book in no way does not take into account hard work - in fact he says a key fundamental to success in many endeavors is the 10,000 hour rule, put in that many hours so it becomes so instinctive to you can really help equate into success.
Radiolab podcast link:
Robert and Malcolm Gladwell duke it out over questions of luck, talent, passion and success.
www.wnycstudios.org
Wiki page on Outliers:
en.wikipedia.org
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