An outlier is someone or something that is situated away from a main body and is statistically different in value from others in a sample. Outliers are all around us. We just don’t realize it. I know I didn’t even think about how other people are successful before I read Outliers. Many people find things that they have had all their lives to benefit them in ways they couldn’t even think about. They might have even thought about them as being a hindrance, like being Jewish or having ADHD. Sometimes the things that cast us out of a group can make us successful, people just don’t realize it until they actually look for them. After reading Outliers, it caused me to look at people in my life who are successful. I first thought of my Mom’s brother. My uncle Matt is a major in the U.S. Air Force who flies F-22 Raptors. Though everyone one in my Mom’s family has been very successful (my aunt is a disaster relief worker in charge of aid going into Southeast Asia and my uncle is a successful engineer at Toyota) and are outliers in their own way, my Uncle Matt went way …show more content…
farther than all of them to get where he was today. My uncle Matt had very bad ADHD as a child and never did very well in school compared to his siblings.
He was the problem child who was usually the cause of most of their arguments as children. After college, he went into the Air Force. As a pilot, he first started flying F-15s and then moved up into the F-22s, the U.S Air Force’s top fighter jet, and is now a Major in his squadron. As I read Outliers, I kept thinking of how he got to be where he is now. When we see him at Christmas, he always does games and problems fast. Usually he is the first to think of a solution to my grandma’s and grandpa’s problems. His ADHD as a child must have helped him climb the ranks in the Air Force, eventually getting into the top fighter jet into the world. His brain runs very fast. To fly a fighter jet in general you have to be able to make life or death decisions very fast, faster than the speed of
sound. He most likely stood out from the rest of his class all the way through school. In grade school, he was the student who the teachers kept telling to be quiet and sit down, especially when he forgot to take his medicine. In high school he had good grades compared to everyone else in his class. He stopped taking medicine for ADHD then too. In college, his grades weren’t the best. When he went to flight school, though, he probably stood out from the class in the cockpit and simulators. He was able to think much faster than his other classmates. This propelled him through flight school. After he graduated, he started flying F-15 Eagles. This was, and still is, a top of the line fighter jet to almost every other country in the world but the U.S. The question Outliers made me ask is how did he get into the cockpit of the premier fighter jet in the world? The answer to this is his ADHD. The F-22 is a stealth fighter and flies a lot faster than the speed of sound. You have to know what you are doing and be able to make decisions that mean life or death very quickly, especially when you are in a combat situation. Sure he went back to school in order to fly the F-22. Everyone did, it is completely different than every other airplane the Air Force has. Another big outlier in my life is the GCL. The thing that sets other leagues apart from the GCL is it is made up of all private schools. It is also one of the best and most competitive high school sports leagues in the nation. In general private schools are more successful than public schools in the classroom. Why is the GCL so good at sports also? The biggest difference about private schools are they cost money. A lot of money. Most parents opt for their children to go to public school because of this factor. That is the way my Dad’s family went. My Mom’s family sent their kids to private schools all the way through high school. My Dad and his siblings have been every bit as successful in their own lives as my Mom and her siblings have. So then why is there any difference in the performance of private schools and public schools on the sports field? Public schools can also have very good sports teams too, like Colerain’s football team this year. They are not just limited to private schools. However, private schools are more likely to have better sports teams for a few reasons. Since it costs a lot of money to go to private schools, it puts pressure on students and student athlete to do well. Their parent’s hold over them tuition payments, if they are not going to try, then they will have to go to a public school. Each athlete is pushed to go to every practice and work hard, do his best on homework, and be active at school by his parents. Another big difference is the brotherhood that is felt by the members of every team. Let’s take football as an example. Before every game, they attend mass as a team together. Something that they cannot do at a public school. I know for a fact that each coach at La Salle cares for each of his athletes and pushes them to develop their prayer life along with their athletic ability. They push family along with ability. That you have to care for your teammates and work hard to succeed. When you combine the family’s push for success along with the coach’s push for family and brotherhood, you can see why the GCL is so competitive in sporting events. Not only are their academic standards that students have to meet. They also have to meet discipline and athletic standards set by their coaches and develop their faith lives. In Mark 10:27, Jesus sums up the advantage of GCL schools by saying, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Outliers changed how I viewed every success story and how I look at every successful person. Success is not just about personal merit, but involves those around you. It involves how well you can exploit the benefits hidden to others. Anyone can be successful, you just have to be able to navigate the straits successfully.
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.
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 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 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
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.
In my opinion somebody that is considered an “outlier” according to Gladwell is Oprah Winfrey because even with all the heartbreaking things that have happened to her she still managed to go forward with her life and become very successful. One example why I think Oprah is an outlier is because her story inspires most and even through the most tragic times she managed to get through it and become one of the most successful women on the planet. One of the many reasons why Oprah is recognized as such an amazing woman is because she managed to move forward with her career and with her life after all the things that happened in her life like being sexually abused at such a young age and getting pregnant at 14 though after giving birth
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.
Margaret Mead once said that "For many Americans, the concept of success is a source of confusion. As a people, we Americans greatly prize success. We are taught to celebrate and admire the one who gets the highest grades, the one voted most attractive or most likely to succeed. But while we often rejoice in the success of people far removed from ourselves-people who work in another profession, live in another community, or are endowed with a talent that we do not especially want for ourselves-we tend to regard the success of people close at hand, within our own small group, as a threat." Personally i believe that this is not true for many reasons. It makes the world run smoother although I wont be talking about that personally it really does.
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.
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.
Have you ever wondered why certain people are more successful than others? Why some people may be given opportunities in life that you may not have gotten? Malcolm Gladwell explains this type of success in his book Outliers as accumulative advantage, meaning certain individuals achieve success based on the opportunities they are granted due to the abilities or qualities they may possess. Gladwell relates this notion to children being presented with more opportunities in hockey the earlier their birthdays are. For example, a child born in the early months of the year may be presented with more coaching opportunities because they develop more quickly than someone born in the later months of the year. At Seneca, we can create our own advantages by using the services and supports that the school offers. Three of the services I would use for an
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.
As talked about in Outliers, there are many factors that go into creating and building someone out of the norm of society. As Gladwell fraises it, ““Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all” (Gladwell 285.) Oprah is an outlier in the sense that she worked for what she’s accomplished but had unforeseen forces working in her favor that even she didn’t realize until she looked back on her journey to success.
Outlier. An outlier is someone who is not considered to be a normal person within society. They have qualities that most people do not obtain. They are the most successful of individuals and many aspire to be them. Michael Jackson is the epitome of what I believe is a true outlier. In his best-selling novel, Malcolm Gladwell stated that we tend to spend more time looking at individuals success rather than looking at things that ultimately contributed to that success, such as their family, birthplace, and even birth date.
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.