Mohammed Bukhalaf
Professor Averill
English 113B
17 April 2014
Success Is Not As Simple As You Think
Who doesn’t want to be successful? It is what every person in this world wants. There are certain things that make a person successful. You just can’t say you will be successful without working on it. You have to do whatever it takes to achieve it. The definition of success varies from one person to another. Some people measure it by having so much money. Others measure it by achieving and doing what they wanted their entire life. Achieving it might not look as easy as it is. There are factors that play a big role in being successful such as talent, opportunity, environment and hard work.
We always admire people who rise from nothing. We want to be just like them and start from the beginning. What we don’t know is that no body starts from the bottom and ends up being the most successful person in the world. What appears to us might not be what they went through. Being successful needs a preparation from the beginning. A person should be raised in an environment that allows him to be successful. He should also has a growing mindset that allows him to adapt to the changes through different periods of times, and learn as much as he can throughout his life. Another important factor in becoming is education. If you were not well educated, you would not be successful. In outliers, Malcolm Gladwell stated, “The people stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extra-ordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” (19). This supports the claim that people’s succe...
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...n in this world dreams of being successful. There is no one born into success. It depends on many factors like the chances you get, how hard you work on your talent, and what environment are you raised in. Depending on your talent alone wouldn’t get you anywhere. You should practice and improve in order to be successful at whatever you are talented in. You might not get as many opportunities as another person, but you should be ready and make sure you use is in the best way you can. You should also know what being successful requires hard work. Success might be a small word, but a successful person knows how valuable this word is.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
Steffen, Amie. “Childhood Education is Key to Life Success.” McClatchy - Tribune Business
News. Jun 23 2008. ProQuest.
Examples of this are people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who were the perfect age during the computer revolution in 1975, when the personal computer was invented and made widely available. However, not every person born in the same year as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates became a multimillionaire. Why? The ones who became successful were those who took a risk, and were willing to work hard to make something out of the computer revolution. When looking at people who gained their success from the invention of personal computers, Gladwell points out that “These are stories… about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it” (67). One of Bill Gates’ advantages was that he went to Lakeside High School, which had a computer lab in a time when most schools did not. Everyone at Lakeside had access to that computer lab, but only a few students grew up to be the creators of the world’s best computer companies. Those who became successful were the students like Bill Gates, who worked hard in that computer lab and grew up to be world-class programmers. If someone is given unique opportunities but is not willing to seize them, they will not gain any success from those opportunities. Success is self made because in order to be successful, one must take advantage of the unique chances they are
Gladwell narrates along biographical sections in the chapter and leads you through the lives of his “successful” subjects. He explains a cause of success and the effect it has on the outliers and their lives. He effectively asks rhetorical questions to spark readers’ interest in a phenomenon and then he explains the phenomenon using r...
...ew of success, readers can believe that his ten thousand hour rule works but is not something everyone must have to be successful. Even with the few lacking details of his novel, Outliers is still an enjoyable experience that everybody can learn from. It is a novel that shows the audience a new point of view on success and can help people discover what is truly takes, sometimes, to be successful. The knowledge contained in the book is universally sound, offering excellent advice for all those who are willing to take the time and listen. In today’s current atmosphere of doubt, stemming from the Recession and events in the Middle East, the world could use a few more outliers to take the lead. By reading Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, maybe we could spur the creation of a few more.
Zengerle, Jason. "Why Malcolm Gladwell Thinks We Have Little Control Over Our Own Success." NYMag.com. New York Magazine, 9 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Success has a different meaning for every person on Earth. The majority of people define success as an individual’s “attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence” (Success). In accordance with the rest of society, Malcolm Gladwell defines success as an individual’s accumulation of “a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities” given by the environment to help a person succeed in the business world (Gladwell 155). Advantages come in the forms of birth dates, learning styles, work ethics, demographic luck, and job needs. Similarly, opportunities given by the environment circulate around a person’s ability to complete “ten thousand hours… of greatness” (41). Before reading Gladwell’s book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, I would have complied with society’s and Gladwell’s
Gladwell begins his examination of an outlier’s success by clarifying that his purpose of the text is to convince his readers that the successful did not become successful on their own. Intertwined with his purpose,
In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell calculates success. Through the repeated praxis of shattering the reader’s idea that masters in a particular field achieve their success through individual talent he unravels how their given circumstances was what truly led them to what they became. Example after example he proves how conditions as simple as the year they were born led to their later achievement; the author even demonstrated how a person’s culture can later affect their job performance. CoCo Chanel, arguably the most famed and inspirational fashion
Some people may be born into a family with wealth, and that is acceptable. Some people on the other hand, are not born into a family with wealth, and that is acceptable too. The work that families have done to get to the level they are in, are just a cushion. People should try to build their own reputation or success. Even if people work toward their goals of success, it could take years to reach, it isn’t something that happens over night usually. The way they act or present themselves in certain circumstances will determine if they succeed or fail. As much as people want to control every step toward that, there are things that are out of everyone's control. Every action they do, every decision they make, they can not control everything. There are certain things that can put a halt toward success, things many do not see coming till it happens. Oedipus had no idea that he was the one causing the sickness that was spreading through his kingdom. He was doing well as a king, but certain things can change that. His curse put on him when he was younger, was out of his control. The priest reminds Oedipus of his success depict the sickness surrounding them, “You saved us from Sphinx…”(40). Success may be the one thing you can control, but at the same time have no idea what could come
In the book, groups of successful people are broken down and Gladwell compares their individual characteristics to see if there are any abnormal trends. He starts with talking about how the chance birthdates of a large number of professiona...
...cies for which Gladwell argue are strongly represented and undeniably convincing. Even without an acknowledgement of the rebuttals to his arguments, the author presents compelling claims that are successfully strengthened through the inclusion of specialist information, an appealing conversational tone and style of writing, and the initial attractions that begin each chapter. Just as Gladwell’s recipe for success does not adhere to conventional conceptions, Outliers does not remain within the typical expectations of academic writing. Not acknowledging a rebuttal, for instance, is ordinarily considered a lack of credibility; however, as Gladwell points out in Outliers, “This is a book about outliers … who do things that are out of the ordinary” (17).
If people work hard, focus, and are disciplined, they will succeed in the future. This has become a universal idea taught by parents, teachers, and peers. People have passed down this idea to the younger generations and they chose to live by this moral that makes sense. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell debunks the universal idea that working hard will allow people to play hard and get further in life. Gladwell eliminates the traditional ideas of success by showing that opportunities, family background, and being born at the “right” time are actually what lead to success.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the story of success. 1st ed. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. 1-91. Print.
Accomplishing your aim or purpose can be the true definition of success. You must want to achieve your goals at hand. You must want to earn everything. You really should put in the effort needed to become a successful person. Becoming a successful person requires you to be an extraordinary character. This means you have to be a very self-disciplined, competent, and trustworthy person. That allows you to become more trusted within the community and earn more respect. Learning from your mistakes is essential to your success. Every time you fail you become more knowledgeable on a subject. You can fail as many times as you want but eventually you will learn what is right from wrong. This will lead to you to become open minded and achieve success. You will have to put in the time and effort. Planning ahead allows you to have a schedule so you won’t be behind. If you have a plethora of skills, you will have a higher chance of success than other people. Skills allow you to qualify for certain positions and allow you to excel in what you need to. You can have time to achieve your goals and predict what else you need to do. Success can come in many ways including family, money, fame, respect, and achieving your goals. There are many ways to achieve success but these are only a few ways. Only you can decide who you want to be and determine your own goals. You’re the only person who can judge your
A person needs to achieve certain goals in one's life before you can call them successful. Success is to achieve goals, you have set. I have set certain goals I would like to achieve in my lifetime. Some of these goals are personal while others are professional. My professional goals in life are to find a good job that makes me happy, get a good education, find a job that makes enough money for me to support my family, and help people. Goals it is very important for me to receive a good education. Most job fields require a descent education. If I don't have an education I would not be able to function properly at the work place and I would not understand what to do. To maintain a good job that will make good money will require me to go thorough schooling or training and maybe even both. Education is the first and foremost way to become successful, because the job I will choose will need me go to school and maybe even beyond college. My happiness in what I do is also a goal for me I my life. There is no way someone can become successful if they are not happy with what they are doing. ...
All successful people are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be ideal or bad. Generally, everybody in this world dreams, but everybody has not aggressiveness to work out on the ideas that they got in their dream.