Robert Hollenshead

“The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for for maximum effect.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“general intelligence and practical intelligence are "orthogonal": the presence of one doesn't imply the presence of the other.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“I realize that we are often wary of making these kinds of broad generalizations about different cultural groups--and with good reason. This is the form that racial and ethnic stereotypes take. We want to believe that we are not prisoners of our ethnic histories. But the simple truth is that if you want to understand ... you have to go back to the past ... it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where you great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents grew up and even where your great-great-grandparents grew up. That is a strange and powerful fact.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success