Will You Always Succeed if You Are Smart and Hardworking?
Environment Matters More Than You Think Part 2
Maurice Janklow was a smart, hardworking, and educated man. He came from a Jewish family and graduated with a law degree. He started a small law firm in New York, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world at the time.
Maurice was the type of man that is destined to succeed in a typical environment, but he wasn't born in the typical environment. He was born in 1902.
Here are some of the major events that happened during his lifetime:
World War 1 (1914 β 1918)
Great Depression (1929 β 1939)
World War 2 (1939 β 1945)
Basically, the first world war happened in his teenage years. The Great Depression happened in his late twenties. And the second world war happened in his late thirties. The United States was not in a good state during the crucial years of Maurice's life.
Out of the three major events, the Great Depression affected Maurice the worst. The unemployment rate exceeded over 20 percent at its peak.1 Most people couldn't afford a lawyer because they barely had enough money to purchase daily necessities.
The Great Depression lasted for 10 years, and Maurice would do days' worth of legal work for merely $25 just to get by. It was a rough time, and Maurice would count coins every morning to see if he had enough money for transportation and lunch.
Maurice Janklow ended up struggling and floundering the majority of his life.
The interesting thing about Maurice's story is that he had a son who also chose to become a lawyer. The difference is that Maurice's son was able to become extremely successful.
Maurice's son was named Mort Janklow, and he was born in 1930, near the beginning of the Great Depression.
It was horrible to be an adult during the Great Depression due to the lack of jobs, but it's extremely fortunate to be born as a baby during that period.
People were having fewer babies during the Great Depression because they couldn't afford it. If you look at the stats, for every 1000 Americans in 1910, there were 30.1 babies born. For every 1000 Americans in 1930, there were only 21.3 babies born. That's almost a 30 percent decrease in the number of babies born.
As a baby that was born in the Great Depression, Mort Janklow had much easier access to opportunities growing up simply because there were 30 percent fewer people to compete within the same age group.
He was able to attend American public schools when it was the least crowded. He had an easier time applying to his dream college if he worked hard. There was an ample of job positions waiting to be filled from the previous generation.
Having the wind behind his back, Mort built a law firm from scratch, sold a cable business for tens of millions of dollars, and created one of the most prestigious literary agencies in the world.2
The story of Maurice and Mort Janklow is probably my favorite story from the book, "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell, because it's not often you hear of stories about smart hardworking people not succeeding in life.
Major thanks to my friend, Travis, for getting me the book last Christmas.
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Thanks for reading!
-George π
History.com Editors. (2020, February 28). Great Depression History. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history
Gladwell, M. (2011). Outliers: The Story of Success (1st ed.). Back Bay Books.