(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Jim Balsillie, billionaire and co-CEO of BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion, had the bestselling author of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, as his college roommate. In his new book, Outliers, Gladwell explains the success of elite hockey players, The Beatles, Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates, and various Americans living in New York City.

Maybe he could explain why his buddy Balsillie is a billionaire and why he will win his battle over NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman—eventually.
 
Gladwell's book begins with his research on why a disproportionate number of elite hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year.

The answer, he points out, is that youth hockey leagues determine eligibility by calendar year.

Children born on Jan. 1 play in the same league as those born on Dec. 31 in the same year. Adolescents born earlier in the year are bigger and more developmentally advanced than the others.

They are often identified as better athletes, leading to extra coaching and a higher likelihood of being selected for elite hockey leagues.

Outliers asserts that success depends on the idiosyncrasies of the selection process used to identify talent just as much as it does on the athletes' natural abilities.

Gladwell noted that "the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work." He shows there are a lot more variables involved in an individual's success than society cares to admit. He wants people to "move away from the notion that everything that happens to a person is up to that person."

And then there's Gladwell's theory about ten thousand hours. Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is simply a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of 10,000 hours.

The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule.

Gladwell asserts that all of the time The Beatles spent performing shaped their talent, "so by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, 'they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.'"

Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a high school computer in 1968 at the age of 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming it.

Gladwell says, "It's not enough to ask what successful people are like. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

Balsillie was born in Seathforth, Ontario, Canada, population 2,000.

This tiny town is the birthplace of many famous people, including:
 * author John Melady Canadian
 * Richard Nesbitt (born 1955) current CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange
* Howard Hillen Kerr (1900 - 1984) first principal of what was then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute
* Charlie Mason (1912 - 1971) NHL forward
* Colonel Anthony Van Egmond (1778 - 1838) first farmer in the Huron Tract, participant in Upper Canada Rebellion
* Cooney Weiland (1904 - 1985) NHL forward
* Boyd Devereaux - Professional hockey player, Toronto Marlies, American Hockey League
* Kathy Devereaux - Former hockey player in the NWHL with the Brampton Thunder

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