The Ingredients for Success

In 2008 Malcolm Gladwell published his well acclaimed novel Outliers, which told in his view of “the story of success.” Being a best selling author and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell wrote Outliers in attempt to teach his audience, especially those who are about to start careers, that success is attainable though many factors and that one cannot be successful without the help of others. He theorizes that there are factors in and out of one’s control that would lead to their success, such as the 10,000 rule, luck, hard work, intelligence and where one came from. Gladwell uses stories of various people who have successful lives and provides numerous examples of factors that contribute to one’s success to effectively defend his opinion that success cannot be achieved by oneself alone.

After conveying his thesis that there are many factors that contribute to success, Gladwell talks about actual occurrences of people who have become successful due to numerous factors other than by themselves alone. The author successfully defends his thesis by using many logical appeals. He says, “ And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else, they work much , much harder”(39). Gladwell explains this concept of people working hard as a factor that contributes to becoming successful. Likewise the 10,000 rule can be paired with hard work as the author presents to the reader many statistics of hockey player birth dates and a list of the wealthiest most successful people in history telling of how birthdates affect the amount of experience you can gain over others by being born soon after the end registration date. He talks about Bill Gates practicing computer programing which allowed him to gain ...

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...that contribute to an individual being successful.

Through the use of multiple examples and rhetorical devices Gladwell effectively convinces his audience that there are numerous factors other than oneself that contribute to an individual's success. His use of logical appeals in his stories about successful people along with his use of metaphors, onomatopoeias and other rhetorical devices convince the reader that factors such as the 10,000 hour rule,hard work, and luck contribute to an individual's success. Although Outliers may have some statistical flaws, Gladwell’s novel continually affects his audience in a positive way by encouraging and convincing them that there are many other factors that will help them become successful in their careers and in their future lives.

Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: 2008. Print.