99 - Healthy Happy Heart, and Other Summer News

My sister and I are starting a health blog. My other sisters are also invited, and will probably include their input.

You should read it. :)

Click here. Or here. If you REALLY want to read it, CLICK HERE.

In other news, I've been doing a lot of reading this summer. Don't worry, I'm still keeping track of my Reading Riot stuff. I just haven't posted about it in a while. I'll do a catch up with that pretty soon, though.

I've been reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Basically, this journalist discusses successful people and their stories. He also talks about the misconceptions our culture has about said successful people.

Some interesting ideas so far:

• Being an expert at something requires hard work as well as abundant opportunity. 
• Being an expert at something also requires an inordinate amount of practice. 10,000 hours, if I want to be accurate. 
• Being renowned has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time. 
• Your home environment does more to cultivate your intelligence than almost any other environment. 
• There's no such thing as being super smart. Intelligence, like all things, has a threshold. 

That last one I especially find interesting. I mean, obviously, there are innate abilities involving intelligence. However, recent findings have shown that there isn't a perfect correlation between the highest of intelligence and world-renowned success. A person with a high IQ (generally, above 130) is just as likely to succeed as a person with a higher IQ.

This book has been so interesting for me because I have always been placed in gifted programs in school. I had a rant about work and intelligence a few posts ago, so you guys know that this kinda stuff really hits home for me. I'm not, like, super-genius-smart. I do, however, have a large vocabulary. Any guesses as to why? Reading is all I ever did as a kid. I always (and still do, in fact) had a book with me. My step-sister is freakishly good at math and puzzles. Do you know what she always had with her as a child? A Sudoku book. Gifted people don't just stumble upon a talent and become experts. They can stumble upon passion, they can stumble upon opportunity, but one does not stumble upon expertise. Expertise requires work.

Anyway. I'll probably post more about Outliers later. Or maybe not. I don't know.

Good writing, interesting concepts, and personal meaning all wrapped up in one 300 page book. That's my kind of reading material.

-ka