We all understand what success is, but what allows for a person to become successful? Malcolm Gladwell wrote his book Outliers to study this topic and settle once and for all why some people are more successful than others. Gladwell uses the success stories of people throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to discover just exactly what it is that allows for one to be successful. He explains that there is much more to becoming successful than just natural talent and skill. Gladwell states in Outliers that success is the product of the time we were born, our dedication, and most of all where we come from.
To begin, I will be talking about how the time you were born results in success. Throughout history, there have been many examples
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When were the majority of these great players born? January, February, and March. These players had a few months over other players at their age, but those few months were enough to make them stronger, bigger, and more skilled thus resulting in talent scouts being more attracted to these players. Because of this, the majority of the players found in the NHL have birthdays during the first three months of the year. Next, we’ll discuss Joe Flom and his success as a lawyer in New York City. When was Joe Flom born? Right at the end of the Great Depression and as he matured the beginnings of the corporate buyouts began. Joe Flom had much more opportunities to become successful due to being born at this time. Flom was able to get into Harvard Law without any college experience, something that’s impossible today. So how did he do it? Because of the Great Depression school attendance was down so it was much easier to get in. Even without having a college degree Flom defied the odds and came out at the top of his class come graduation. This proved that Flom obviously had the talent to be successful and due to the time he was born he was given the opportunity to. After Flom graduated …show more content…
Some people that are excellent examples of this include Bill Joy, Bills Gates, and The Beatles. All of these people were successful because of their hard work and dedication to what they do. How much dedication does it take? Gladwell states that to become an expert one must spend at least ten thousand hours on the skill. Prior to this milestone, these three were all nothing, no one knew who they were. Starting out I’ll discuss Bill Joy, a computer scientist who made vast improvements to the way we use technology today. Joy went to the University of Michigan looking to become a mathematician or a biologist, but he came out an expert in computer science. The world of programming was still a very new field at this time, so one would think that Joy succeeded due to his dedication and raw talents alone right? Gladwell disagrees, Joy just so happened to have gone to a school where instead of coding with punch cards students were using time-sharing, a much more efficient way to code. Joy was just so fortunate to go to one of the few schools in the entire nation that was using this method of coding. After Michigan, Joy moved on to the University of California Berkley whereby his second year he hit his ten thousand hour milestone. Prior to hitting this milestone, Joy wasn’t widely known in the coding world, but that would all change. Joy would go on to rewrite UNIX and Java, two
I found Gladwell’s first chapter of Outliers entitled “The Matthew Effect” to be both interesting, confusing, and perhaps somewhat lopsided. Based on Matthew 25:2, Gladwell simply explains, “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given to the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.” (Gladwell 2008, pg. 30) The Matthew Effect seems to extend special advantages and opportunities to some simply based on their date of birth.
Malcolm Gladwell, in the nonfiction book Outliers, claims that success stems from where you come from, and to find that you must look beyond the individual. Malcolm Gladwell develops and supports his claim by defining an outlier, then providing an example of how Stewart Wolf looked beyond the individual, and finally by giving the purpose of the book Outliers as a whole. Gladwell’s purpose is to explain the extenuating circumstances that allowed one group of people to become outliers in order to inform readers on how to be successful. The author writes in a serious and factual tone for the average person in society of both genders and all ethnicities who wants to become successful in life.
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is no such thing as a self-made man, and that success is only the result of a person’s circumstances. However, throughout the novel Gladwell points out that your circumstances and opportunities only help you become successful if you are willing to take advantage of them and work hard. From a twelve year old living in the Bronx, to those who were born at just the right time to become millionaires, one thing is the same throughout; these people because successful because they seized the opportunities they were given. The advantages and opportunities that came from their circumstances would not be important if they had not grasped them. Every successful man is self made, because he has seized the
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, Malcolm attempts to explain the “Matthew effect” by way of allegory about the Canadian Hockey league. The Matthew effect as stated is derived from the religious writings of the gospel of Matthew. In the gospel, Jesus speaks about the parables of the talents, saying “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath”.
Success is dependent on both luck and factors people control. Although people are born into different circumstances, they are responsible for their own actions and decisions. In The Other Wes Moore, both Wes Moore and Wes Moore faced similar obstacles throughout their life, but they lived in two opposite households that affected their road to success.
Outliers: The Story of Success is a nonfiction written by Malcolm Gladwell, The book proposes and examines the factors contributed to great success. Some of which are uncommon and unexpected, but are said to be essential to high achievements. Ever since we were young, we are often told that talent and hard work are the most crucial factors leading to success. Yet, just as the lyrics from the theme song of the cartoon Powerpuff Girls had mentioned “Sugar, spice, and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls.”, that is other than sugar and spice – talent and hard work, our “professor” suggested various significant factors that we may have overlooked. The book is separated into 2 parts, opportunities
The popular saying “practice makes perfect” has been used for many years encouraging younger generations to strive for success in whatever area they wish to excel in. Success is something everybody in society strides for but some do not know how it is achieved. However, there are many people throughout history who are known for achieving success in many areas. Malcolm Gladwell, a best selling author and speaker, identifies these people as being outliers. Gladwell identifies the word “outlier” in his story Outliers as “a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.” Although Malcolm Gladwell does not establish credibility for himself in his novel, his targeted audience of a younger inexperienced generation feel the need to be informed by his detailed theories about becoming successful and eventually becoming an outlier. Although the reality of becoming successful can depend on instances one can not control, Gladwell tells his readers there is a great portion they can control through his theory, the 10,000 hour rule. He does this by using well presented logical persuasive appeals and interesting rhetorical devices such as: onomatopeias, exposition, and argumentation.
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
What would happen if our world today was monotonous, sorrowful, and grey? What if no one was here to form new creations, and think of bold ideas? Would triumph have a definition? Would there be outliers in our world today? We are constantly thinking, always generating new ideas and forming new thoughts. People even proceed by creating inventions, and building objects no one would of thought would be made today. But, what we don’t perceive is how they became successful and how they took advantage of the moment that was given to them. In the novel, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, the author explains that an outlier is one who is given an opportunity and knows how to take advantage. He believes that in order for a person to be successful they need at least ten thousand hours of hard work and effort in order to succeed at a skill. It is clear to me that like Malcolm Gladwell, I believe
To become successful you need to earn and work for it. According to Malcolm Gladwell the book outliers “Canadian hockey is a meritocracy… You can’t buy your way into Major Junior A hockey. It doesn’t matter who your father or mother is, or who your grandfather was, or what business your family is in. Nor does it matter if your live in the most remote corner in Canada. If you have ability, the vast network of hockey scouts and talent spotters will find you, and if you are willing to work to develop that ability, the system will reward you. Success in hockey is based on individual merit—and both of those words are important. Players are judged on their own performance… and on the basis of their ability…” He emphasizes that to get to success you need to work for things. If amateurs accumulate to not work for things then they will never be successful
The definition of success varies around the world, but according to Malcolm Gladwell its achievement can be broken down into a few components. Although Gladwell never truly establishes credibility in his book Outliers, he still backs up his proposed theories with reputable studies and sources which intrigue the audience to keep reading.The purpose of Outliers was to enlighten people about the different elements of success while also informing them of real life situations where seemingly less than likely people beat the odds and became the powerful figures that they are today. The intended audience is anyone who is looking to become successful or who is perhaps interested in the idea of success itself and wishes to learn more about it. Understandably, a secondary audience could be high school students who are about to venture out into the world on their own because with this book they will hopefully start paying attention to different factors of their lives and seizing opportunities that they may have otherwise passed up. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 Hour Rule and also how I.Q. does not amount to much without creativity. He also speaks of how chance opportunity comes into play and that the distant background of a person still reflects how they handle situations in their present day life. Gladwell’s Outliers successfully informs the reader about the different components that add up to success with probable theories and credible studies to make for an interesting and motivational read.
Once in a while, it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. Gladwell believes that cultural legacies are powerful forces. Cultural legacies are the customs of a family or a group of people, that is inherited through the generations. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, Cultural legacies is something that’s been passed down for generations to generations. It depends on what type of legacies was passed that will affect a person. If a good legacy was passed down, someone can keep that legacy going by trying hard at keeping the legacies going. If a bad legacy was passed down; I believe that cultural legacies can be altered or changed, by good working habits, determination, and a positive mindset to succeed. Culture can affect either positively or negatively, but we have the power to turn our cultural
Outliers-The Story of Success is a sociological, and psychological non-fiction book, which discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. Malcolm Gladwell explains this by dividing the book into two parts, opportunity and legacy. Opportunity discusses how select people are fortunate enough to be born between the months of January through March, and also includes the idea that those who are already successful will have more opportunities to improve and become even more successful. The 10,000-hour rule proves the idea that in order to become successful in a certain skill, one must have practiced that skill for at least 10,000 hours. In addition to the 10,000-hour rule, timing is also a major component that implies being in the right place at the right time, which brings the author to discuss Bill Gates who was born during the time where programming and computer technology was emerging, therefore sparking his interest in computers, later bringing him to create Microsoft. Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation.
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.
In Chapter 8 and 9 of Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell exams some of the ways that Asian and American students learn math, arguing that some of the principles in the US education system should be reconsidered. I generally agree with Gladwell’s point of view. I believe in two ways, students ' principal spirit and the length of students’ studying, the US education system leaves much to be desired, though an overhaul is in progress.