Christopher Langan In Gladwell's Outliers: The Story Of Success

367 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: The relationship between intelligence and success

A genius is a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative. One of the most famous geniuses of all time,Albert Einstein, had an IQ of 160. An individual who is considered a genius, has an IQ of 160 and up. Also mentioned in Gladwell’s book,Outliers:The Story of Success,is Christopher Langan. With an IQ of 195,Christopher Langan, is considered the smartest man in America.With such an exorbitant IQ, you would be under the impression that he attended the most prestigious university and is now exceedingly successful.However, that is not the case and in fact he is entirely the opposite. How did this happen? Well, the answer is uncomplicated and straightforward. The trouble with geniuses is not their intelligence,but

Show More
Related

  • What Defines Success in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    Malcolm Gladwell is a canadian-english journalist, speaker, and bestselling author. In his bestselling book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell discusses success and what patterns correlate with it. He states that how much time you put into a certain activity, specifically 10,000 hours, can put you in a elite level of proficiency. This in turn can give someone the tools to allow them the ability to be successful. Using historical citations, patterns, and real life examples, Gladwell forms his 10,000 hour rule. Due to his knowledgeable yet calm tone Gladwell seems to show credibility. His intended audience could be people who enjoy statistics or people who want to be successful and find possible ways to do so. Gladwell uses a logical appeal to show the patterns he has found through his studies of success. He supports his claim with overwhelming statistics which back it. He also uses similes to help better understand how he can relate the patterns he has found for the elite in a certain activity to other things. Foil is probably Gladwell's best means of convincing the reader to his thesis of the 10,000 hour rule. He uses Foil to compare success and we define to legends such as Bill Gates The Beatles and Bill Joy. Overall Gladwell uses Logos, similes, and foils to support his claim of the 10,000 hour rule.

    Read More

  • What Matters Most in Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    People may argue that Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is all about family background and family legacies. Others may say that what mattered most is the way someone are brought up and how much time and dedication they put into a skill or goal. People may also say that all of these factors are what the book focuses on in order to be successful. The book is not about family background, the “10,000 Hour-Rule”, or “Rice Paddies”. All of those encompass something very important, opportunity to actually apply those theories. The most important theory Gladwell presents is that opportunities are the key to become successful more so than the other theories.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Outliers By George Gladwell

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    I think Gladwell’s book is an interesting science. I am not sure I know enough to say it is good science yet, but the Medicine Hat Tigers example he used is surely a convincing argument for good science. Gladwell cleverly redirected the reader’s attention to the birthdays of the Tigers rosters, something a Psychologist (Roger Barnsley) had done some time ago also pointed out by Gladwell in his book. But what Gladwell did that could be construed as good science is replace the players’ names with their birthdays to highlight when the more successful players on the team were born, January, February, March and April to be exact. This is good science if the discovery’s technique was used to draft players in all sports going forward as seems to be the indication in Gladwell’s book.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Success In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers?

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    1. Malcolm Gladwell’s primary objective in Outliers is to examine achievement and failure as cultural phenomena in order to determine the factors that typically promote success. His main argument that success results from a complicated mix of factors, requires taking a closer look at why certain people, and even entire groups of people, thrive while others fail. In the chapter “The Three lessons of Joe Flom” it describes another success story for the reader to inspect. The chapter is mostly about success and failure as we look into the life of a man who, against everyone he knew, succeeded in an occupation in which he had not been accepted in so he decide that he was going to make a name for himself anyway. Gladwell begins to describe Joe Flom's origins by revealing to the reader that his family was in poverty, “His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Isadore, was a union organizer in the garment industry

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Malcom Gladwell's Outliers: The Story Of Success

    1477 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell investigates the paradigm of success by taking the reader on a journey into the lives of several extremely successful people – outliers. Paradigm is a term used to explain a pattern of something, and in Outliers, Gladwell uses the term to describe different changes in peoples’ mind-sets throughout history. In the carefully chosen case studies, Gladwell breaks down the typical understanding of success by not just looking at factors like innate talents, characteristics, and habits but by digging deeper into social classes, cultures, communities, and generational effects of the successfully elite. Outliers is a true story of success that motivates readers to ponder their world

    Read More

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne: No Ordinary Author

    3149 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Romantic Period served as a breeding ground for some of America's most extraordinary authors.  Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson are just some of the names that graced this Golden Era of American literature.  Great as they were, these men still lacked a significant amount of originality.  Relating their themes and structures results in little to no variation.  One author, though born into the era of Romanticism dared to expand the possibilities nineteenth - century literature had to offer.  Through works such as "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "The Birthmark," Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporated Romanticism into his own style.  Including ordinary men, such as Mr. Hooper, Goodman Brown, and Aylmer helped to classify Hawthorne as a semi-Romantic author.  Other Romantic characteristics were found in his stories as well.  Symbolism, man's connection to nature, and the supernatural are all also present in most of his tales.  But, most importantly, Hawthorne was remembered for breaking the rules and adding his own touch.  He told allegories and parables concerned about his concept of the "unpardonable sin," always including the character's trials from obsession to alienation to finally a loss of soul.  Careful review of his work probes the fact that fitting into a dictating society is not only boring but dangerously ordinary.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    “People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).

    Read More

  • The Outliers Gladwell Analysis

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Malcolm Gladwell makes many debatable claims in his book “The Outliers”. One of these controversial topics is brought up in chapter three when he talks about a person’s IQ and how that relates to one’s success. Gladwell says, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.”After reading “Outliers” I believe that this is the greatest controversial topic. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell because there are a high amount of people who are not incredibly smart that are very successful, success can be viewed differently by different people, and from my own experiences on the U-High

    Read More

  • Creation Vs Creation Myths

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    Genius is still a poplar creation myth that is being followed and taught in the current culture of today. The Genius myth begins like this; in the beginning God a spirit who is neither male nor female created the universe. At this time Earth was a void and was formless, covered in total darkness. Earth was also covered in a raging ocean and

    Read More

  • The Foolish Christopher McCandless of Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1990, when he was 22 years old, Christopher McCandless ventured out into the Alaska wilderness in search for true happiness, and 2 years later he suffered a tragic death. An aspiring writer, Jon Krakauer, found McCandless’ story fascinating and chose to dedicate 3 years of his life to write a novel about him. The book entitled “Into the Wild” tells the tale of Christopher McCandless, an ill prepared transcendentalist longing for philosophical enrichment, who naïvely, failed to consider the dangers of isolating himself from human society for such a long period of time. Though Christopher McCandless made a courageous attempt to separate himself from society, in order to achieve self-fulfillment, the stubborn nature of this reckless greenhorn led him to his unfortunate demise.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell analyzes numerous success stories in an attempt to understand the circumstances that make certain individuals particularly exceptional. Through his analysis, Gladwell strives to find an explanation for why some people succeed, while others, despite their persistent efforts, do not. He questions the validity of conventional attitudes towards accomplished figures—that these figures simply rise to fame as a result of sheer talent and ambition—and points out that the superficial summaries leave out crucial details. As Gladwell studies the lives of these “outliers,” from piano virtuosos to software moguls, he indicates that their success stemmed from a variety of components, including fortunate

    Read More

  • Poetry by Keats, Genius is Loving Your Mistakes

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, re: Keats: his letter addresses something that I've been wondering about "genius." I'm reminded of this popular quotation from Ulysses: "A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." If Genius (I love that it's capitalized) is some sort of spectral or seraphic presence independent of mind, then it seems to visit or attach itself to only a few people every generation. Why is it so selective? This is a superstitious explanation for "genius," of course, and we know statistically that genius IQs really are rare. But I've been seeing this wonderful psychyoga instructor who is also a clairvoyant, and she insists that "everyone has genius inside them." This could be New Age, kumbaya claptrap, but I think she's right; therefore, Joyce (perhaps unwittingly) is talking about everyone (my professor used to say, "Love your mistakes!" at the end of every class). But how do people access genius so quickly (precocity/child prodigies) and so easily (the daily, random assemblage of great poems)?

    Read More

  • What Does It Mean To Be Smart Essay

    1900 Words  | 4 Pages

    In a school environment a student may use the term to describe academic excellence, in other occupational environments it may be used to describe someone’s knowledge in that area of expertise either from past experiences or an education. ‘Smart’ is a reference to one’s intelligence. Intelligence is defined as “the ability to learn or understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations” or a person’s ability to reason. Upon first reading the claim, it may seem fitting to make

    Read More

  • Intelligence: Nature or Nurture?

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    Intelligence by definition is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills” (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). However, many psychologists argue that there is no standard definition of ‘intelligence’, and there have been many different theories over time as psychologists try to find better ways to define this concept (Boundless 2013). While some believe in a single, general intelligence, others believe that intelligence involves multiple abilities and skills. Another largely debated concept is whether intelligence is genetically determined and fixed, or whether is it open to change, through learning and environmental influence. This is commonly known as the nature vs. nurture debate.

    Read More

  • The Gifted and Talented

    1981 Words  | 4 Pages

    The term “gifted” can mean many things. Up until recently it was the word used to describe people with profoundly high intelligence. Now, adding the words “creative” and “talented”, the category of giftedness has been extended to include not only exceptionally intelligent people, but also people with extraordinary ability in other areas, not just with IQ tests (Drew, Egan, & Hardman, 2002).

    Read More

More about Christopher Langan In Gladwell's Outliers: The Story Of Success

Open Document