Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell’s writing style in the book “Outliers: The Story of Success” was based on a series of case studies. He starts out the book with the Roseto example to introduce the thesis of the book, which is that successes and failures can be clarified in unexpected ways. The organization could not have been any more improved. Each study led into the other, and related to each other so he could reflect on past studies in his book when explaining the present study. Gladwell did not use much of an extended vocabulary, for the most part he kept it simple enough for all readers. Part one was about the opportunities and chances given to people and how they choose to seize them. Part two was about a person’s values,
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He explains how success is not achieved through genetics, nor can a person inherit it. Success is attained through the events of life, a person’s cultural upbringing, and the opportunities/advantages given and how many there are. Success is all about time and place, and the impact it has. Gladwell defines an outlier as an extraordinary, accomplished human being, so accomplished that they’re quite confusing. Outliers are the people who break the human normality. They reach above and beyond the average person. “The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think Outliers spring naturally from the earth” (Gladwell 268). There is much more to an Outlier than being “self-made”. What makes an Outlier are factors such as age, residency, values, and upbringing. An Outlier is a person who was brought up in a great environment, and has respected values. A person’s values affects their personality and their behavior. Positive personality and behavior is a major part of being an …show more content…
It’s also not something that you can achieve just by putting in some hard work. My personal views on success is quite similar to Gladwell’s. I feel that he is spot on about how success is conquered. I think success has so much to do with where someone comes from, when they were born, what their values are, and how many resources are available to them. For example, I believe my close relative Kevin is considered to be successful. Kevin played football since he could run. He was one of the best quarterbacks in the state of Pennsylvania, and broke many records at Kutztown University. That is not all, he also received his Master’s Degree in law, and is present day a spectacular, well-respected lawyer. Not only did he work hard to become the person he is today, there is much more to him. Kevin is the perfect height of six foot one inch, and was born on February sixth. He comes from a wealthy, Christian-Catholic family. He lived next to a high school football field, and a couple blocks away from a library. He had plenty of opportunities to work on his football skills, and study at the community library as well. He maintained excellent grades, and he definitely exceeded the ten-thousand hour mark. Kevin was genuinely passionate about football, practicing hard in and out of official practice. Later on in his school career he found a love for law, and I believe the work he put in to get where he is now was truly
Throughout the book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell focuses on using the rhetorical technique of pathos to aid his readers in understanding the formula for success. In one particular part of the book, Gladwell uses experiences and human problems as examples to support his idea that plane crashes and ethnicty are related and the greater idea that success is based on opportunity.
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.
There are many different definitions of success, and many depend on the person defining it. Success can be achieving your goal of running a mile or not failing a math test. It can be independence or not embarrassing yourself in public. To achieve these versions of success, you need to practice and put in effort. After all, Gladwell says if you work hard enough you can do anything and “Achievement is talent plus preparation.” (Gladwell 221). The above definitions of success are similar to my own. I define success as reaching my goals, not being in debt (money wise), and having independence. I also agree with Gladwell that wealth, power, and fame are indicators of success, however, I do not gauge my own success on power or fame. My definition of success has not changed because of the Outliers, but it has changed over time. As I age, my view of the world changes and so does my definition of success.
Although the author, Malcolm Gladwell did not major in sociology or psychology in college, his credibility for Outliers comes from his background in journalism. His career in journalism began after he was rejected from every advertising agency he applied for. He finally ...
In the book “Outliers: The Story of Success” authored by Malcolm Gladwell, he explains what an outlier is and what it means to be “successful”. Throughout the novel, Gladwell provides examples by writing different stories in nine various chapters to support his claim. Gladwell believes that success isn’t gained by natural talent, but by the effects of other circumstances and that these people are called outliers. It’s the argument of nature vs. nurture that Gladwell wants to address in his book. Many people in society would think that a particular person is successful due to the individual’s natural talents, although that can be true to a certain extent, Gladwell wants to disapprove that idea in people’s mind and wants the public to look at
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
Everyone has their own vision of success. For some,it is being rich and famous and for others it is to have a great impact on the world. In the first chapter of outliers Gladwell claims that success is something you need to work for in some ways, he fails to come up with a solution for people that became successful without working for it.
Malcolm Gladwell’s overall purpose of Outliers: The Story of Success is that success is largely determined by an individual’s socioeconomic and sociocultural environment, and individual ambition, effort, or talent, are less significant, contrary to the societal notions associated with success. In other words, success is not something that someone randomly gained; success is earned through opportunities that develop dedication, interest, and skill over time. By doing this, will one become an outlier, or “something that is situated away or classed differently from a main or related body,” (Gladwell 3) that distinguishes great from good and best from great, as exemplified by “The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that the and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals”, musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did.” (Gladwell 39) Gladwell also acknowledges societal norms such that “All of the fourteen men and woman on the list above had vision and talent,” (Gladwell 62-63) to assert hard work, ability, et cetera can lead to success, but a social environment that offers such opportunities immensely increases the likelihood of success.
“Outliers: The Story of Success” is one of the non-fiction books written by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book, the author examines the factors that contribute to the high levels of success. The author adds that success is combined with a number of key factors such as hard work, opportunity and other factors like when and where the person was born. The books gives an insight into various un-answered questions such as why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year or how The Beatles became one of the most successful musical band in the world. According to Gladwell, success is not only about innate talent but depends on various external factors and situations.
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.
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell (2008) tells a series of stories of success and concludes his discoveries of underlying secrets in success. Gladwell divides his book into two parts: opportunity and legacy. For the first part “opportunity,” Gladwell explains that individual talent is necessary but not sufficient to achieve success because accessible opportunities matter a lot to one’s success. As to the second part “legacy,” Gladwell emphasizes the significance of cultural legacy and the historical advantages that can’t be ignored when considering the factors of success. Although some critics argue that Gladwell uses stereotypical examples, Outliers is a convincing book because its merits outweigh the defects.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is an extremely informative read about success and the different aspects that attribute to it. Gladwell is able to use many studies and sources that back up his theories of how success is achieved. Although he is biased towards his theories, the only real argument that can be made in opposition to his theories would be a debate over exceptions to the 10,000 Hour Rule. Outliers ultimately has a positive effect on the audience by making them more aware of their own chances at success and how if they may be lacking in one area (education, opportunity, creativity) all hope is not lost. Gladwell’s piece is essentially timeless and will be able to be applied to future generations because he used examples from a few different eras that still make sense to today.
In “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell organizes his argument for their being a rule for overall success by showing statistics of people who are defined as being successful such as Bill Gates, Billy Joy, and The Beatles. He also uses a Berlin music academy to help prove his rule. He presents an argument that Bill Gates and The Beatles and the violinist attending the music academy may have been born with innate talent but that is not the sole ...
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.