Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story Of Success

Success has a different meaning for every person on Earth. The majority of people define success as an individual’s “attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence” (Success). In accordance with the rest of society, Malcolm Gladwell defines success as an individual’s accumulation of “a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities” given by the environment to help a person succeed in the business world (Gladwell 155). Advantages come in the forms of birth dates, learning styles, work ethics, demographic luck, and job needs. Similarly, opportunities given by the environment circulate around a person’s ability to complete “ten thousand hours… of greatness” (41). Before reading Gladwell’s book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, I would have complied with society’s and Gladwell’s

Both Gladwell and I agree that success does not originate from one aspect of life, but multiple aspects of life that overlap and contest one another. In many ways, success is similar to Jambalaya. Like Jambalaya needs meat, vegetables, spices, and rice, “the ingredients of success… [are] passion, talent, and hard work” (34). An excellent example of this from “Outliers: The Story of Success” can be found in the chapter entitled Rice Paddies and Math Tests. In the Chinese culture, many families have successful rice paddies. Over many generations, this culture has built up a drive for hard work and dedication to plant crops of rice. The work requires people to work long days in knee-high mud, dedication to maintaining the paddies, taking opportunities to choose which kind of rice to grow, and community involvement when it comes time to harvest the rice. “No one… ever makes it alone” when success is the topic (115). Success is also like Jambalaya because similar to how each Jambalaya recipe is unique, success is personalized for each