Malcolm Gladwell on Finding Freedom in Abandoning Expectations

Malcolm Gladwell may be one of the most widely read—and, with his Revisionist History podcast, listened to—journalists of our time. A New Yorker magazine staff writer and the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008), he has myriad awards and honors to his name. But this impressive trajectory has never been some planned-out or preordained journey; in fact, as Gladwell says on this episode of Time Sensitive, he has never been one to try to overly plan for or divine the future—of his career, of his life, or of anything, really. “Expectations are a burden and wherever possible should be abandoned,” he says. Gladwell’s radical receptiveness is perhaps what has led him to become one of today’s most prolific and eclectic writers, reporting on topics ranging from office design and french fries, to dog fighting and Steve Jobs, to automobile engineers and marijuana. Across all of his writing, Gladwell exhibits a rare sleight-of-hand ability to take certain intellectual or academic subjects and leap-frog them into popular culture, and, in doing so, make seemingly esoteric phenomena entertaining and widely accessible.

On the episode—recorded in the Pushkin Industries outpost in Hudson, New York—Gladwell talks about the disappearance of what he calls “the critical enterprise in America”; and how A.I. is complicating his famous “10,000-Hour Rule.”

Special thanks to our Season 10 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

Malcolm Gladwell

[4:36] Revenge of the Tipping Point

[5:06] The Tipping Point

[13:43] Unsafe at Any Speed

[22:52] Anand Giridharadas

[24:00] Revisionist History

[25:39] Blink

[31:07] The Holocaust in American Life

[43:16] “10,000-Hour Rule”

[43:16] Outliers

[56:06] The Bomber Mafia (Podcast Mini Series)

[56:06] Pushkin Industries

[59:56] John Grisham

[1:06:56] The Bomber Mafia  (Book)