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People Who Bring Transformative Change Have Courage, Know How To Re-frame The Problem And Have A Sense Of Urgency.
-Malcolm Gladwell
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People Who Bring Transformative

Malcolm Gladwell
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People Who Bring Transformative Change Have Courage, Know How To Re-frame The Problem And Have A Sense Of Urgency.

Understanding the Quote: "people who bring transformative change have courage, know how to re-frame the..."

This quote by Malcolm Gladwell reflects deeply on the theme of people. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under People, Growth, Problem, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Malcolm Gladwell interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is celebrated for insightful thoughts on people and growth. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
People
Growth
Problem
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[norden] Said, With The Mark 15 Norden Bombsight, He Could Drop A Bomb Into A Pickle Barrel At 20,000 Feet.
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So The First Task Of A Police Force Is Not To Fight Crime And Enforce The Law. It Is To Establish Legitimacy With The Law-abiding Citizenry And Then Fight Crime And Enforce The Law.
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There Are Lots Of Issues More Important Than Where Billionaires Donate Their Money.
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The Trick To Finding Ideas Is To Convince Yourself That Everyone And Everything Has A Story.
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We Prematurely Write Off People As Failures. We Are Too Much In Awe Of Those Who Succeed And Far Too Dismissive Of Those Who Fail.
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There Are Exceptional People Out There Who Are Capable Of Starting Epidemics. All You Have To Do Is Find Them.
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I Want To Convince You That These Kinds Of Personal Explanations Of Success Don't Work. People Don't Rise From Nothing....it Is Only By Asking Where They Are From That We Can Unravel The Logic Behind Who Succeeds And Who Doesn't.
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Growing Up
Neighbor
If You Think Success Is About So Many More Things And Is So Much More Arbitrary, Then You Can Be Much More Open To The Idea That You Can Be Ben Fountain And Publish Your Great Book At Forty-nine.
Book
Thinking
Ideas
We Have The Kind Of Self-made-man Myth, Which Says That Super-successful People Did It Themselves.
Successful
Men
Self
The World Is Not A Meritocracy, As Much As We May Like To Pretend That It Is. And We Have A Long Way To Go Before We Really Reward People Based On Their Own Merit.
Long
People
World
To Become A Chess Grandmaster Also Seems To Take About Ten Years. (only The Legendary Bobby Fisher Got To That Elite Level In Less Than That Amount Of Time: It Took Him Nine Years.) And What's Ten Years? Well, It's Roughly How Long It Takes To Put In Ten Thousand Hours Of Hard Practice. Ten Thousand Hours Is The Magic Number Of Greatness.
Greatness
Years
Practice
The Sad Thing About Doping Is How Much It Obscures Our Appreciation Of Greatness.
Appreciation
Greatness
Doping
Consistency Is The Most Overrated Of All Human Virtues... I'm Someone Who Changes His Mind All The Time.
Consistency
Mind
Virtue
A Book, I Was Taught Long Ago In English Class, Is A Living And Breathing Document That Grows Richer With Each New Reading.
Book
Reading
Long Ago
A Fan Is Always An Outsider. Most Sportswriters Are Not, By This Definition, Fans. They Capitalize On Access To Athletes. They Spoke To Kobe Last Night, And Kobe Says His Finger Is Going To Be Fine. They Spent Three Days Fly-fishing With Brett Favre In March, And Brett Says He's Definitely Coming Back For Another Season.
Athlete
Night
Fishing
Superstar Lawyers And Math Whizzes And Software Entrepreneurs Appear At First Blush To Lie Outside Ordinary Experience. But They Don't. They Are Products Of History And Community, Of Opportunity And Legacy. Their Success Is Not Exceptional Or Mysterious. It Is Grounded In A Web Of Advantages And Inheritances, Some Deserved, Some Not, Some Earned, Some Just Plain Lucky - But All Critical To Making Them Who They Are. The Outlier, In The End, Is Not An Outlier At All.
Lying
Math
Opportunity
Lands' End Has Undergone Three Major Changes Over The Past Couple Of Decades. The First Was The Introduction Of An 800 Number, In 1978; The Second Was Express Delivery, In 1994; And The Third Was The Introduction Of A Web Site, In 1995. The First Two Innovations Cut The Average Transaction Time-the Time Between The Moment Of Ordering And The Moment The Goods Are Received-from Three Weeks To Four Days. The Third Innovation Has Cut The Transaction Time From Four Days To, Well, Four Days.
Couple
Cutting
Past
You Can Learn As Much - Or More - From One Glance At A Private Space As You Can From Hours Of Exposure To A Public Face.
Space
Faces
New Girlfriend
Extreme Visual Clarity, Tunnel Vision, Diminished Sound, And The Sense That Time Is Slowing Down. This Is How The Human Body Reacts To Extreme Stress.
Stress
Tunnels
Vision
We Sometimes Think Of Being Good At Mathematics As An Innate Ability. You Either Have "it" Or You Don't. But To Schoenfeld, It's Not So Much Ability As Attitude. You Master Mathematics If You Are Willing To Try.
Inspirational
Motivational
Attitude
That Was It! The Whole Redwood City Philosophy Was Based On A Willingness To Try Harder Than Anyone Else.
Philosophy
Cities
Trying
Courage Is What You Earn When You've Been Through The Tough Times And You Discover They Aren't So Tough After All.
Tough Times
Tough
Goliath
Being Able To Act Intelligently And Instinctively In The Moment Is Possible Only After A Long And Rigorous Of Education And Experience
Long
Able
Moments
The Face Is Not A Secondary Billboard For Our Internal Feelings. It Is An Equal Partner In The Emotional Process.
Emotional
Feelings
Faces
That Fundamentally Undermines Your Ability To Access The Best Part Of Your Instincts. So My Advice To Those People Would Be Stop Thinking And Introspecting So Much And Do A Little More Acting.
Thinking
People
Advice
When You're An Underdog, You're Forced To Try Things You Would Never Otherwise Have Attempted.
Trying
Underdog
Jenny Simpson Loses Her Shoe In The Women's Fifteen Hundred, With A Lap And A Half To Go, Destroying Her Chances To Repeat As World Champion, And She Gives The Most Gracious Interview Afterward About How She's Had A Wonderful Career Already. Great For Jenny Simpson. Bad For The Sport! We Need Drama!
Sports
Drama
Careers
...mediocre People Find Their Way Into Positions Of Authority...because When It Comes To Even The Most Important Positions, Our Selection Decisions Are A Good Deal Less Rational Than We Think.
Thinking
People
Decision
I Don't Really Collect Books. I Tend To Lose Interest In Them The Minute I've Read Them, So Most Of The Books I've Read Are Left In Airplanes And Hotel Rooms.
Book
Airplane
Rooms
There's No Idea That Can't Be Explained To A Thoughtful 14-year-old. If The Thoughtful 14-year-old Doesn't Get It, It Is Your Fault, Not The 14-year-old's.
Thoughtful
Years
Ideas
It Is Quite Possible For People Who Have Never Met Us And Who Have Spent Only Twenty Minutes Thinking About Us To Come To A Better Understanding Of Who We Are Than People Who Have Known Us For Years.
Thinking
Years
People
Success Is Not A Function Of Individual Talent. It's The Steady Accumulation Of Advantages. It's Bound Up In So Many Other Broader Circumstantial, Environmental, Historical, And Cultural Factors.
Historical
Environmental
Individual Talent
Look At The World Around You. It May Seem Like An Immovable, Implacable Place. It Is Not. With The Slightest Push - In Just The Right Place - It Can Be Tipped.
Looks
Tipping
World
It Takes Ten Thousand Hours To Truly Master Anything. Time Spent Leads To Experience; Experience Leads To Proficiency; And The More Proficient You Are The More Valuable You'll Be.
Hours
Masters
Valuable
I'm Totally Engaging In Cultural Stereotyping, No Question About It. But I Think It's Ok Because I'm Doing It For A Reason, For A Good Reason.
Thinking
Stereotype
Reason
When Crime Drops Dramatically In New York For No Apparent Reason, Or When A Movie Made On A Shoestring Budget Ends Up Making Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars - We're Surprised. I'm Saying, Don't Be Surprised. This Is The Way Social Epidemics Work.
New York
Epidemics
Dollars
If A Window Is Broken And Left Unrepaired, People Walking By Will Conclude That No One Cares And No One Is In Charge. Soon, More Windows Will Be Broken, And The Sense Of Anarchy Will Spread From The Building To The Street On Which It Faces, Sending A Signal That Anything Goes.
People
Broken
Anything Goes
People At Cdc [centers For Disease Control] Who Cut Their Teeth On Diseases Over The Last 10 Years Have Started To Think Of Crime As Another Disease, And Using Some Of These Same Concepts. It Was Something That Was In The Air In That World, But It Was Time To Bust It Out And Apply It To Any Number Of Different Social Epidemics.
Cutting
Thinking
Years
We Need To Look At The Subtle, The Hidden, And The Unspoken.
Needs
Looks
Subtle
People Are In One Of Two States In A Relationship,” Gottman Went On. “the First Is What I Call Positive Sentiment Override, Where Positive Emotion Overrides Irritability. It’s Like A Buffer. Their Spouse Will Do Something Bad, And They’ll Say, ‘oh, He’s Just In A Crummy Mood.’ Or They Can Be In Negative Sentiment Override, So That Even A Relatively Neutral Thing That A Partner Says Gets Perceived As Negative.
Two
People
Negative
A Radical And Transformative Thought Goes Nowhere Without The Willingness To Challenge Convention.
Challenges
Conventions
Radical
Flom Had The Same Experience...he Didn't Triumph Over Adversity. Instead, What Started Out As Adversity Ended Up Being An Opportunity.
Adversity
Opportunity
Triumph
When Writing, You Can't Break Physical Rules. You Can't Have People Come Back From The Dead. That's Cheating. I Am A Kind Of Narrative Fundamentalist In Many Ways.
Cheating
Writing
People
If Your Parents Are Billionaires, That Might Actually Be An Obstacle To Your Own Happiness And Self-development. If You Go To Oxford Or Harvard, That Might Actually Thwart Your Desire To Graduate With A Science Or Math Degree.
Math
Oxford
Self
Our Unconscious Is Really Good At Quick Decision-making - It Often Delivers A Better Answer Than More Deliberate And Exhaustive Ways Of Thinking.
Thinking
Decision
Answers
If We Think About Emotion This Way - As Outside-in, Not Inside Out - It Is Possible To Understand How Some People Can Have An Enormous Amount Of Influence Over Others. Some Of Us, After All, Are Very Good At Expressiing Emotions And Feelings, Which Means That We Are Far More Emotionally Contagious Than The Rest Of Us.
Mean
Thinking
People
What Interests Me About Fiction Is Plot. And What Interests Me About Plot Is Whether Someone Tells A Story That Moves Me Within The Constraints Of Storytelling. And I Have Narrowly Defined Storytelling.
Moving
Fiction
Stories
We Tell Ourselves That Skill Is The Precious Resource And Effort Is The Commodity. It's The Other Way Around. Effort Can Trump Ability-relentl Ess Effort Is In Fact Something Rarer Than The Ability To Engage In Some Finely Tuned Act Of Motor Coordination.
Skills
Effort
Way
If You Look At The Careers Of Great Entrepreneurs And You Look At The Moment They Took Their Plunge, The Plunge Is Rarely A Great Financial Or Material Risk, It’s A Social Risk. At The Moment They Started Their New Businesses, Everyone Around Them Said ‘you’re An Idiot’.
Careers
Entrepreneur
Risk
Do I Think That American Democracy Ends If Trump Is President? No! I Think, There Are Plenty Of Checks And Balances In Place. I Think He Would Do Some Damage To The Country But We Would Recover. The Office Of The Presidency And American Democratic Institutions Are A Lot Stronger Than One Person. So If He Wins, Our Job Is Just To Keep The Office Strong, Right? And Hope He'll Be Replaced By Something Better!
Country
Strong
Winning
The Band-aid Solution Is Actually The Best Kind Of Solution Because It Involves Solving A Problem With The Minimum Amount Of Effort And Time And Cost.
Leadership
Effort
Cost
The Tipping Point Is The Biography Of An Idea, And The Idea Is Very Simple. It Is That The Best Way To Understand The Emergence Of Fashion Trends, The Ebb And Flow Of Crime Waves, Or, For That Matter, The Transformation Of Unknown Books Into Bestsellers, Or The Rise Of Teenage Smoking, Or The Phenomena Of Word Of Mouth, Or Any Number Of The Other Mysterious Changes That Mark Everyday Life Is To Think Of Them As Epidemics. Ideas And Products And Messages And Behaviors Spread Just Like Viruses Do.
Fashion
Teenage
Book
Science Fiction Annoyed Me Because It Was Like, "why Is The World As It Is Not Enough For You?"
Annoyed
World
Fiction
In A Country That Never Wins Anything: In Canada, If One Of Our Athletes So Much As Makes The Final In A World Championship, We Declare A National Holiday.
Country
Athlete
Holiday
Why Are Man Hole Covers Around?" If You Don't Knwo The Answer To The Questions, You're Not Smart Enough To Work At Microsoft
Smart
Men
Microsoft
In Fact, Researchers Have Settled On What They Believe Is The Magic Number For True Expertise: Ten Thousand Hours.
Success
Believe
Numbers
Cultural Legacies Are Powerful Forces. They Have Deep Roots And Long Lives. They Persist, Generation After Generation, Virtually Intact, Even As The Economic And Social And Demographic Conditions That Spawned Them Have Vanished, And They Play Such A Role In Directing Attitudes And Behavior That We Cannot Make Sense Of Our World Without Them.
Powerful
Attitude
Our World
The 10,000hr Rule Is A Definite Key In Success
Keys
Definite
Father: 'anything But Journalism.' I Rebelled.
Father
Journalism
If We Are To Learn To Improve The Quality Of The Decisions We Make, We Need To Accept The Mysterious Nature Of Our Snap Judgments.
Decisions We Make
Quality
Needs
Shortly After The Birth Control Pill Was Approved For Public Distribution, One Woman Wrote To John Rock, Its Inventor, "you Should Be Afraid To Meet Your Maker." Rock, Despite Being Catholic Replied, "my Dear Madam, In My Faith, We Are Taught That The Lord Is With Us Always. When My Time Comes, There Will Be No Need For Introductions."
Rocks
Catholic
Taught
In Order To Get One Of The Greatest Inventions Of The Modern Age, In Other Words, We Thought We Needed The Solitary Genius. But If Alexander Graham Bell Had Fallen Into The Grand River And Drowned That Day Back In Brantford, The World Would Still Have Had The Telephone, The Only Difference Being That The Telephone Company Would Have Been Nicknamed Ma Gray, Not Ma Bell.
Order
Ideas
Rivers
If You Don't Contradict Yourself On A Regular Basis, Then You're Not Thinking.
Thinking
Bases
Ifs
There Can Be As Much Value In The Blink Of An Eye As In Months Of Rational Analysis.
Eye
Analysis
Months
For Every Romantic Possiblity, No Matter How Robust, There Exists At Least One Equal And Opposite Sentence, Phrase, Or Word Capable Of Extinguishing It.
Love
Opposites
Phrases
Success Has To Do With Deliberate Practice. Practice Must Be Focused, Determined, And In An Environment Where There's Feedback.
Practice
Determined
Environment
You Can't Concentrate On Doing Anything If You Are Thinking, “what's Gonna Happen If It Doesn't Go Right?
Thinking
Happens
Ifs
No One Who Can Rise Before Dawn Three Hundred Sixty Days A Year Fails To Make His Family Rich.
Success
Business
Years
The Key To Good Decision Making Is Not Knowledge... It's Whether Our Work Fulfills Us.
Leadership
Keys
Decision
Sometimes [genius] Is Just The Thing That Emerges After Twenty Years Of Working At Your Kitchen Table.
Years
Kitchen
Genius
I Know It Sounds Hard To Believe, But Habits Laid Down By Our Ancestors Persist Even After The Conditions That Created Those Habits Have Gone Away.
Believe
Gone Away
Sound
Good Writing Does Not Succeed Or Fail On The Strength Of Its Ability To Persuade. It Succeeds Or Fails On The Strength Of Its Ability To Engage You, To Make You Think, To Give You A Glimpse Into Someone Else's Head.
Success
Communication
Writing
What Does It Say About A Society That It Devotes More Care And Patience To The Selection Of Those Who Handle Its Money Than Of Those Who Handle Its Children?
Children
Doe
Care
A Lot Of What Is Most Beautiful About The World Arises From Struggle.
Beautiful
Struggle
World
Economists Often Talk About The 80/20 Principle, Which Is The Idea That In Any Situation Roughly 80 Percent Of The “work” Will Be Done By 20 Percent Of The Participants. In Most Societies, 20 Percent Of Criminals Commit 80 Percent Of Crimes. Twenty Percent Of Motorists Cause 80 Percent Of All Accidents. Twenty Percent Of Beer Drinkers Drink 80 Percent Of All Beer. When It Comes To Epidemics, Though, This Disproportionality Becomes Even More Extreme: A Tiny Percentage Of People Do The Majority Of The Work.
Beer
Epidemics
Ideas
Anyone Who Knows The Marketing World Knows That Ideas Come And Go, And People Latch Onto Things And Think Of Them As A Kind Of Solution.
Thinking
Ideas
People
Trending Author
Alice Cooper
Angie Dickinson
Sean William Scott
Avicenna
Jerome Corsi
Murray Gell-Mann
Category
Information