Timing: The Importance Of Time and Information

Imagine buying a house the day before the market went bust. Imagine being a Senior in university and having spent the last 3 years studying finance. Imagine changing jobs just to learn a week later that the company that hired you is filing bankruptcy. Imagine someone starting a family at the exact time that the economy takes a dive. Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers I’ve been constantly thinking about the theory that timing is essential to success. You know, ‘timing is everything’, ‘time is of the essence’, ‘just give it a little time’, ‘time heals’, ‘right on time’, ‘just in time’, …. you know what I mean by timing.

I agree timing is undoubtedly important. However, I can’t help but think that it is the role of information that really guides us to fortune or misfortune.

You can be sure that a few months ago there was a Wall Street suit sitting in his office covered in cold sweat and suffering from the shakes after seeing his bank’s forecasts. Actually, I’m sure that there were a number of men and women in this exact same situation (I bet they had fat wallets too).

So what makes them different from you and me? It wasn’t their salary, race, upbringing, lifestyle, gender, or any number of personal characteristics that distinguished them. Nor do I think that timing played a role of any importance here either. It was simply the fact that they were able to obtain information that we weren’t privy to.

I guess you could say that one’s ability to achieve success is dependent on their ability or mere fortune to gain scarce information.

Tagged as: Economy, Information, Inspiration, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Success