Malcolm Gladwell is a well-known thinker, author, and speaker with four best-selling books from The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make A Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking to Outliers: The Story of Success, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures to David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.

Gladwell spouts ideas that catch the public’s attention in a major way.

“The reason people read books like my own is that they’re searching for…ways of making sense of things. There is this tremendous body of knowledge in the world of academia where extraordinary numbers of incredibly thoughtful people have taken the time to examine on a really profound level the way we live our lives and who we are and where we’ve been. I’m trying to give people access to all of that brilliant thing.”

His perspective of learning and being inspired about others reminds us of the wonderfully encompassing world of open water swimming.

Gladwell explains how he does his research, “I spend a lot of time in libraries. What’s great about a library is everything is all mixed up together. There isn’t a sociology library and a psychology library and a history library; there’s one building with all that stuff in it.”

Similarly, we spend a lot of time in the open water: oceans, lakes, and rivers. What’s great about the open water is that it is like a library – the oceans, lakes, and rivers has all the stuff that interests open water swimmers – cold and warm, rough and calm, salt and fresh, tropical and temperate.

Photo courtesy of Nuala Moore shows a relay swimmer on the Bering Strait Swim this August.

Copyright © 2013 by World Open Water Swimming Association