A) Many social scientists have studied the causes of success. One American study claims that your social network is the key to success. Apparently, every extra friend that you have at school adds two percent to your salary later in life! Perhaps this gives you more self-confidence (自信心) or perhaps you have more people to support you. Another study links height and success: Every extra centimeter is worth another $300 per year. The trouble is that for every person who fits these theories, there is a special case. B) So is success just down to luck? Napoleon was once thinking about giving a general a more important job in his army. After he had heard about all the general's talents (才能), he said "Yes, yes, I realize he's brilliant but is he lucky?" And when you think about it, what use is talent without luck? In 1979, an unknown Australian actor arrived at a film audition (试演) looking black and blue. He had been partying the night before and three drunks had attacked him. The director was looking for a battle-wounded actor to star in his film and immediately offered the actor the part. That actor was Mel Gibson and he went on to become a Hollywood superstar. Talent has kept him famous but it was luck that gave him his first opportunity. C) However, in his book Outliers -- The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell has come up with a theory that he says is true in every case. He thinks that the secret of success is simply many hours of hard work. He has counted exactly how many hours work you need to do in order to become "the best" in your field: 10,000 hours apparently or about four hours a day for ten years. Without this kind of determination and hard work you probably won't reach the top, no matter what your talent is. D) Researchers looked at violin players in a music school to test this theory. Teachers put the average players in group C, good players in group B and excellent players in group A. It turned out that all the players in group A had done around 10,000 hours of practice in their lifetime. The good players had done around 6,000 hours and the average players only 4,000 hours. However, all the players had entered the school with similar levels of ability. E) But surely there are special cases? Mozart, for example, is always considered a "born genius (天才)". He performed in public at the age of four and by six, he had written several pieces. Surely his success was down to natural talent, not hard work? In fact, Gladwell argues, Mozart had a very strict father who made him practice for hours each day from an early age. And the music that Mozart wrote when he was six wasn't great. Mozart produced his first real best work when he was twenty-one. By that time, he'd done at least 10,000 hours of practice and had "become" a genius. F) Researchers' interest in the secret of success has also motivated some of them to look deep into other possible explanations. Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield, authors of the book The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well, were inspired by the theory of Chris Argyris, a theorist at Harvard Business School who studied what happens to organizations and people in the face of obstacles in their paths. They interviewed high achievers, expecting to hear that talent, persistence, dedication and luck played important roles in their success. G) Surprisingly, however, they discovered that self-awareness played an equally strong role. The successful people they spoke with -- in business, entertainment, sports and the arts -- all had similar responses when faced with obstacles: they made themselves go through self-examination that led to change of their goals and the methods by which they tried to achieve them. The tennis champion Martina Navratilova, for example, told them that after a big loss to Chris Evert in 1981, she questioned her belief that she could get by on talent alone. She began a long exploration of every aspect of her game. She chose a challenging cross-training practice (common today but unheard of at the time), changed what she ate and her mental and tactical (战术的) game and eventually changed herself into the most successful women's tennis player of her time. H) Sweeney and Gosfield admitted that no one's idea of a good time is to take a close look at their values and beliefs, and to recognize that those may be the reasons for their failure. Very often it's easy to find ways to explain why the world has not properly rewarded your efforts. But what the two researchers learned from their conversations with high achievers is that challenging their beliefs, at times even their goals, may sometimes push them further than they thought possible. I) Success does not come your way easily. So next time you dream of scoring the winning goal in the World Cup or winning an Oscar, ask yourself these questions: Am I really prepared to put in the hours necessary to achieve my goal? Should I quickly blame someone else for my troubles? Can I honestly reexamine my beliefs and goals and act with courage to make changes? 17. It was a business theorist who inspired Sweeney and Gosfield in their study of high achievers.