Life is unfair, as even the Bible acknowledges ("Unto everyone that hath shall be given ... "). We can't all hit a baseball like DiMaggio or sing like the Beatles. But how much do we understand about those who can? Not enough, says Malcolm Gladwell, in his new book, "Outliers: The Story of Success." We attribute the Beatles' fabulous success to being, well, the Beatles, four cute boys who happened to possess amazing musical talents. Gladwell has a different explanation. The Beatles, he says, lucked into a gig at a strip club in Germany where they had to play as long as eight hours a night, in styles ranging from bubblegum pop to hard-driving blues-making them possibly the best-rehearsed band in the world when they answered the call of the Ed Sullivan show.
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