What defines success? Have you ever wondered what does it take to become successful? After reading and researching through many resources, I have concluded that success is defined as being able to achieve your goals and what you aim for. In other words success is being able to accomplish what you aim for through extreme hard work and dedication. Not everybody has the ability and skills to become successful in life. It really takes a person with courage and will to reach out and work hard enough for what they want. Throughout my paper I will be talking about 3 major successful people that I chose to research about and how they somehow relate to the book named Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. The three successful people I will be discussing about are Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Sigmund Freud, and last but not least Howard Schultz. There is one major reason that I chose to write about these three people in particular and that is because I personally admire all of their personal accomplishments throughout their lives, despite the challenges they have had to face. Williams, Freud, and Schultz might have three totally …show more content…
different careers but there is one thing that they all do have in common and that is the fact that all three have had the opportunity to become outstanding successful people in their career of choice. It is amazing to discover that all three of these people have had to really fight and work extremely hard for what they now have. As mentioned in Outliers not everybody has the luck to have been born in a place where the tools to become successful are provided to them without having to actually go through the struggle of obtaining them. This unfortunately happened to be the case for all the three people mentioned above. Furthermore, I will discuss more in depth on how Dr. Daniel, Sigmund, and Howard were able to accomplish what they now have. After having completed reading the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell I can say that overall it was a very knowledgeable book in many interesting subjects. Mainly, this book talked about outliers, people who one way or another were able to become successful in something. For example, at the beginning of the book it talked about how children and sports players had certain advantages or disadvantages because of their date of birth. Apparently, demographic luck plays a major role in success according to chapter 5. Gladwell stated that those who were born in the first few months of the year were categorized as intelligent smart people who were capable of becoming more successful and doing much more in life than those who were born towards the end of the year. One clear example that Gladwell mentioned was that hockey players for example were chosen among people whose birthdays fell in the beginning of the year. One year’s difference in adolescence makes a considerable difference in a person’s ability and strength on the sports field. According to the book, 40% of the hockey players were born between January and March, 30% between April and June, 20% between July and September, and lastly only 10% between October and December. It is sad to know that some don’t have the same equal opportunities as others just because of their date of birth. Something similar happened with test scores in the school system. Apparently, older students in the classroom seemed to test higher in their exams. One of the most interesting chapters in the Outliers book was definitely chapter 2 which mentioned about the 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell mentioned that according to sociologist and studies that have been done through history that it takes 10,000 hours of practice or experience for an individual to become an expert on any area. Overwhelmingly some statistics have proved that it really does take at least 10,000 hours for successful people to become experts in their field. Bill Joy for example, he became a successful computer programmer who achieved success by making a computer center his home. Bill Joy programmed every time he w’s given the opportunity to. He was able to work for a science professor where he was able to program computers during the summer. He certainly took every chance he had to program a computer. Bill has the wonderful chance to rewrite UNIX which was a software developed primarily by AT&T. His hard work and dedication are what drove Joy to become what he aimed for. Throughout the book, Gladwell also talked about how culture had a big major influence in success and becoming successful in life.
Culture and how people re being raised plays a significant role in the outcome of becoming successful or not. Malcolm mentioned in the book a story about a mother who because of her ignorance she did not take the necessary time to fill out and complete school related paper work for her child to continue his education and because of this matter the child ended up not being able to continue his education. Sometimes we do become victims of our own culture. Because of the lack of information among cultures parents tend to be less encouraging to their kids and don’t motivate them enough to obtain a further education and become successful persons. Instead they decide not to take an initiative and comfort themselves with what they
have. The plane crashes in 1990’s of the Korean Air also showed us an example of culture having an influence in our lives. If language and our points of views were not as distinct as others we would avoid having many cultural issues among our world around us and those who surround us. It is known that the PDI which is defined as the measure of distribution of wealth and power among people in a nation, business or culture had a lot to do with plane incident. In this particular case the copilot was very passive and used mitigating speech to patterns to downplay his own opinions which resulted in a plane crash killing total of 228 innocent people who were not at all responsible of someone else’s ignorance and negligence. This incident is one perfect example that having one’s culture to ingrained can sometimes end up being very dangerous. Overall “Outliers” provides its readers with a good well described and complex explanation of what success is and what it takes to become successful. Mainly it discusses the culture, family, generations, and experiences of specific chosen outliers. It also discusses success from different points of views and aspects. It in depth Outliers reveals the lives of outliers which are those whose achievements fall outside normal experiences. Lastly, it provides many different examples of success and how successful people were able to achieve successful careers. In conclusion, I had an outstanding experience reading Outliers and researching more in depth about Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Sigmund Freud, and Howard Schultz. It is amazing to discover the strong connection among the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell and my three successful people that I choose. Even though all three have totally different careers paths they all share some sort of correlation among them. In one way or another Williams, Howard, and Freud fall into the category of being outliers. Throughout this matter I was able to demonstrate how many examples from the book could be applied and connected to my three chosen people. As well, I was able to take a variety of characteristics of what an outlier can be and be able to apply and relate it to those characteristics that my three people I chose possess. The first person that I chose is Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. Dr. Williams became very successful in the medical field. Daniel Hale Williams was a physician who performed the first known open-heart surgery in the United States. Born on January 18, 1856, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, Daniel Hale Williams pursued a pioneering career in medicine. An African-American doctor, in 1893, Williams opened Provident Hospital, the first medical facility to have an interracial staff. He was also the first physician to successfully complete open-heart surgery on a patient. Williams later became chief surgeon of the Freedmen’s Hospital.
“A statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample” (Gladwell 3) or in other words an outlier. In the novel Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell holds one of the many secrets to life, the secret to success. Gladwell takes one’s thoughts on an astonishing journey to reveal the keys to success, their patterns, and how to achieve it.
Success can be an extremely broad subject. There is an abounding amount of different views on what the “true” definition of success is. Personally, I believe that success is finding happiness. Success is waking up in the morning and not having to worry about whether or not the bills are going to be paid this month. Success is having a job that you enjoy going to every day. Success is having friends and family who love and support you. Success does not mean that one has to be exceedingly rich or have a lakeside mansion. As long as they are happy, they have succeeded in life.
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.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers includes a section based on the Bible's “Matthew Effect” and a self-fulfilling prophecy. This chapter elaborates on“the Matthew Effect” and how if anyone gives certain opportunities at the right time, their experiences will be furthered than others through training and more opportunities being opened to them. Gladwell touches on this using the example of hockey players given the advancement of only being born in the early months of the year and then those kids get trained exceptionally better than others for this simple reason of them being born in these months. It shows how society is simple-minded and always set to have an outcome, it’s not only random at this point, it’s always decided upon and furthered. Kids
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
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
For generations, only certain people have achieved success - they are known as geniuses or outliers; however, they did not obtain it on high IQs and innate talents alone. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell, #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, reveals the transparent secret of success behind every genius that made it big. Intertwined with that, Gladwell builds a convincing implication that the story behind the success of all geniuses is that they were born at the right place, at the right time and took advantage of it. To convey the importance of the outlier’s fortunate circumstances to his readers, he expresses a respective, colloquial tone when examining their lives. Gladwell begins his examination of an outlier’s
Gladwell further supports that both genes and upbringing create success through his example of IQ scores. In the example of Nobel Prize winners, Gladwell states that “Intelligence has a threshold,” (p. 80) past which environmental variables are more important. People with low intelligence are not likely to win a Nobel Prize, despite the opportunities their life may provide. However, people with high intelligence have a much greater chance than someone of similar intelligence if they are provided the right upbringing and opportunities compared to their compatriots. Simply having the genes or the upbringing does not result
In the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, he answers the question: what makes high-achievers different? Gladwell is a world renown author for the New Yorker and he believes there is an answer to why people become famous and successful. The extremely successful people that Gladwell talks about in his book are called outliers, people who stand out from others as being extraordinary for what they have accomplished in society. This book was written very well, yet as a personal fan of malcolm gladwell’s books, which makes me partial to his style of writing. I thought it was very educational and intriguing to read because of the real life examples Gladwell brings to the table and
Many people that came from a poor family are successful now. For example, Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty. Her mother was a single mother as well. Today she is worth $2.9 billion. Although Oprah Winfrey succeeded, that does not mean that other people will be able to persevere through hardships. There are people that will give up during those obstacles. Another way that this is proven is when people choose who will work for them. What this means is that if two people apply for the same job, the person who’s family is more known is more likely to be hired even if they are less qualified for the
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.
Talent is overrated, no one who is successful did it overnight, that is fact, however, the discrepancies begin on the why. Many claims were made and thoroughly supported by Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers: The Story Of Success” and “The Struggle to Be First: First-Gen Students May Be Torn Between College and Home” by Alina Tugend. The factors that are believed to be attribute to success are social class standards, the educational level of a family, and practical intelligence.
“Success is a function of persistence and determination and the willingness to work hard to make sense of something others may give up on” (Malcolm Gladwell Outliers). In the book of Outliers, The Stories of Success Malcolm Gladwell presents an idea of what is success and how it can be achieved. The book poses interesting view on how success is granted by opportunity, skills, social responsibility and creativity. The term outliers stand for something that is “1. Situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body, 2. A statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample” (Gladwell, p. 6). The books represent an idea that, opportunity comes to those that are looking for it. So, what set
Success is within the mind of the individual. A large portion of ones life is spent working to become successful. People are told throughout childhood to work hard so they can grow up and make lots of money. But success takes many different forms. Different people have different interpretations of what success means to them. For some, success is measured by social status and wealth; for others success is determined only by the amount of happiness one feels.
The true definition of success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Although, many people have different perceptions of success. Success is judged by the individuals themselves. Success can be defined in many ways including: wealth, happiness, fame, etc. Success can be anything from material goods to concepts. It all depends on your concept and how you achieve your goals. You have to have persistence within yourself. Varying on your profession, you will need a certain skill level. Your definition of success can be suitable best for you, but not for others. It is about truly not giving up, reaching your full potential, and self-fulfillment.