Malcolm Gladwell Success Essay

Essay 1

Malcolm Gladwell argues that the “Story of Success” is how a person comes to success. However, contrary to popular belief that someone’s success is determined based on merit and a stunning personality, Gladwell believes that an individual's background and opportunities give them an edge in the pursuit of success. When explaining the common misconceptions of success he says, “We want to know what they’re like....and we assume that it is those personal qualities that explain how the individual reached the top”(Gladwell 18). He then introduces his argument, saying, “We do owe something to parentage and patronage”(Gladwell 19). Throughout the course of the novel he folds many cases in to support his argument that successful people are

carved from their past opportunities. One example of this is the case of Joe Flom, a successful acquisitions lawyer. Gladwell says there are 3 lessons to be learned from Flom, one is the importance of being Jewish as it led him to go into the often unused law field of company takeovers. He ended up in this field because big law firms wanted white, “Nordic” looking people to front their company, and litigations was a field that allowed Jewish Joe Flom to work as a lawyer without being the face of a large firm. This seemingly disadvantageous position resulted in Flom’s success because when company takeover and mergers became the norm, Gladwell says, “the amount of money involved in mergers and acquisitions every year on Wall Street increased 2000 percent….And who was the the expert in these two suddenly critical areas of law?”(Gladwell 128). Joe Flom was an expert. This shows how Joe Flom’s identity led him on a path to success, and how, had Joe Flom been a Nordic looking man, he may have not become the legendary lawyer he was.

Essay 2

Deep in the Appalachian Mountains resided two families, the Howards and the Turners, who were in a ongoing feud which involved many deaths in both families. Gladwell explains their feud saying, “two of the town’s founding families—the Howard’s and the Turners—did not get along”(Gladwell 162). However, around Harlan, in many other towns, existed many other fuels between families, the most well known being the Hatfield and McCoy feud. Gladwell explains this phenomenon saying, “When one family fights with another, it’s a feud. When lots of families fight with one another in identical little towns up and down the same mountain range, it’s a pattern”(Gladwell 166). This pattern can be explained by a single characteristic, a culture of honor. This culture of honor exited in the Appalachians due to where the people there came from. As Scottish-Irish immigrants, their ancestors were herdsman who fought over land, so after moving to America, they followed the same pattern of honor and violence that their ancestors had. This pattern shows how someone’s culture can determine how they behave, and ancestors habits can be transferred onto their descendants. Another example of a culture of honor Gladwell presents is the culture of Korean pilots. After the airline Korean Air had experienced many crashes they decided to hire officials to investigate what was leading to these crashes. One of the factors was determined to be their culture, and how in Korea, people are not supposed to question their superiors. Because of this culture of honor, secondary pilots were not speaking up when a superior primary pilot made a mistake. This inherited culture ended up being the downfall of Korean Air and shows how people’s culture can affect their success. Understanding these cultures can be essential to interacting with people because it can help in the understanding of beliefs and habits. Learning about individuals and countries background can help in politics and diplomatic relations because it can teach politicians how to respect and negotiate with foreign people.

Essay 3

Can attending a specific school determine a students success? No. However, when a student puts in extreme work and follows a strict schedule their probability for success can be raised. This can be seen in the case or Marita, a student at the KIPP Academy in the Bronx. When describing her extremely tight schedule she says, “‘I leave school at five p.m…. I have to get in bed around by eleven p.m.’”(Gladwell 264-265). This shows how success can follow a predictable course because Marita following a strict schedule revolving around school allows her to be a successful student. Because she lives in a poorer area in New York City, this opportunity is very important to her and following a strict course raises her probability for success. The concept of a predictable course for success is also argued elsewhere in the novel. The 10,000 hour rule states that “‘ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert—in anything’(Gladwell 40). This rule is proved in the activities of Bill Gates, who becomes a programming expert due to the fact that he had the access to practice for countless hours. It shows that success follows a predictable course because if one practices enough and dedicates themselves, their probability of success increases greatly. This can be applied to my life because the more I study and work for school, the better my grades will be, and the more I practice volleyball the more I will improve. It shows that the lore experience and practice an individual gets, the better they will become in that area.

Essay 4
“The outlier in the end is not an outlier at all.” How is an outlier not an outlier?

This is because almost all outliers success can be traced back to their roots and the opportunities they were given. By saying this Gladwell is trying to express to the reader that not all outliers have gotten there through incredible smarts or a great personality. He continually mentions this throughout all the examples of success he presents. In every single case, there is an advantage or disadvantage that is the root of why someone was successful. For example, in the first chapter Gladwell discusses hockey players and the effect that their birthday may have on their path to success. Through the use of tables, Gladwell shows that a majority of high level hockey players are born in the first few months of the year. The later born boy is often not on the all-star teams, “so he doesn’t get the extra practice. And without the extra practice, he has no chance of hitting the ten thousand hours by the time the professional hockey teams start looking for players”(Gladwell 41). This shows how the great hockey players who are seemingly above the rest, were given more opportunities when they were young due to their birthday. This shows how those once thought to outliers are not true outliers, their past led them to their later success. This can also be seen in the case of Bill Gates and Bill Joy, two programming pioneers. They were both born in the right years that would allow them to be young teens when programming began to rise in popularity. Due to this opportunity they both had an advantage over the average person who might be interested in programming. On top of that, they both had access to computers, which was extremely rare at the time. Bill Joy spent much of his time at the University of Michigan’s Computer Center, in which there was a bug on the time-sharing accounts which allowed the users unlimited time. Had Bill Joy not encountered this bug, he may not have become

an outlier after all. An accident allowed Bill Joy to reach the 10,000 hours needed to master something and become a programming legend. Bill Gates was also given an opportunity similar to this. The Mothers Club at Gates’ school purchased a time-sharing terminal for the computer club to use. “Most colleges didn’t have computer clubs in the 1960s. Even more remarkable was the kind of computer Lakeside bought”(Gladwell 51). Lakeside bought an advances time-sharing terminal, which was far more efficient than the computers the majority of early programmers were using. Due to these fortunate circumstances both Joy and Gates became two of the most influential programmers to date. Their opportunities also fuel the argument that outliers are not truly outliers, because, given a look at their circumstances, it can be seen that they were truly given more time and experience than the average programmer. In most cases of standout success, there is a situation in their past that allowed them to excel above the rest.