“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves” (William Shakespeare). The fate of one’s life is determined by the actions and decisions they make over time. Success is not predetermined from the moment an individual is born. The choices in life can determine if an individual will rise to the top or fall to the bottom. “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell is an non-fiction story that reveals how much time and effort is required to achieve mastery at anything. David Epstein explains that success depends on the fortunate genetics in a person in the non-fiction excerpt “The Sports Gene.” The text from the “Outliers” supplies credible sources and evidence to support the idea that hard work and preparation results in success while the sports …show more content…
David Epstein suggests that innate talent plays a huge role in the way to fame. He showcases the rare story of Donald Thomas a man that immediately “mastered” the art of high jumping. Epstein explains that Thomas had no prior e=training or passion for the sport. However, he states, “ On January 19, 2006, [Donald] Thomas was sitting in the cafeteria at Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri, boasting about his slam dunking prowess with a few guys from the track team” (Epstein). Thomas’ words indicate that he was already an athlete prior to his first high jumping experience. He had to have the skill of jumping especially if he was able to slam dunk. Basketball and high jumping have a link between the skill needed to perform both of these sports. There was no evidence provided in “The Sports Gene” to suggest that a person without an athletic background grew to be a champion within a short amount of time. The author states, “ Thomas has not improved one centimeter in the six years since he entered the professional sport” (Epstein). Thomas made it only so far before he plateaued in his career. This statement coincides with Gladwell’s claim that it takes year of endurance and practice to improve upon one’s ability. Donald Thomas only trained for eight months before his championship win, but his past with basketball gave him the ability to
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.
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
We see that in the reading “Mundanity of Excellence,” by Daniel F Chambliss, the focus is on nature of excellence as it pertains to Olympic swimming. Mr. Chambliss supplies the reader with his experience and sociological approach to his theory that “talent is useless.” I will now provide you with a brief commentary on how sociology relates to developing human talent. It is perceived that one’s natural goal is to accomplish perfection in a “talent” or gift. This ranges from numerous types of talents whether it is sports, entertainment, acting, or even a technical skill. In a sociologist way of thinking we realize that excellence is not only achieved by quantitative or qualitative improvements, it encompasses several factors. I want to
History has it that the underdogs of our society are ought to win due to their disadvantages. In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell (the author of Blink and Outliers) explores why the disadvantaged misfits were able to win their greatest opposing giants. Gladwell initiates his discovery with the Biblical story of David, an Israeli shepherd boy, who killed Goliath with a slingshot. He explains how the chances of the underdogs increase when they fight unconventionally. In our society, our advantages can limit us to do the average rather than find a new way to battle challenges ; so theoretically,disadvantages play to our side .He starts with the first example, “In Rosewood High school, Ranadive coached a team of girls who had no talent in a sport he knew nothing about. He was an underdog and a misfit, and that gave him the freedom to try things no one else even dreamt of” (Gladwell 67) . This work of literature is not a theory but rather a fact-based research on abnormal neurological behavior of ‘disadvantaged’ people. Gladwell writes about the art of battling giants to prove that misfits and underdogs are bound to win due to their limited material resources and many disadvantages.
In the book Outliers: The Story of Success Malcom Gladwell defines an outlier as something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body and as a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample. Gladwell introduces the readers to the idea of outliers using Roseto Valfortore, a town one hundred miles south east of Rome. Gladwell considers Roseto an outlier because people there were simply just dying of old age, nothing else. Gladwell says “…Roseto--- a place that lay outside everyday experience, where the normal rules did not apply”(Gladwell 7).
Everyone wants to get better at something, but some want it more than others. In “How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium”, the narrator wants to get better at basketball, so he wakes up everyday at 4:30 to go with his dad to his work. Everyday, the narrator would wait 3 hours in his dad’s car until the gym opened, only to sit on the bench and watch the other men play basketball. Finally, one of the best players, Dante, tells the narrator he can play but he’ll get “smoked”. However, the narrator proved him wrong. The narrator learns that if you persevere, work hard, and have confidence, your dreams may come true. In How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place
“We cannot predict with accuracy who will become élite in a given field, but we know that genes and environment matter and that we all have different natural peaks that we can reach through application and training.” To lead her readers to this conclusion, she took her readers through the research process and the different sides of the debate. She skillfully write in an orderly fashion making it easy to follow and to understand what her intent was. Her intended audience would be athletes, musicians, and anyone interested in achieving their highest potential. Also, anyone interested in the old debate of nature vs nurture would also be interested in reading this article since she uses it in order to discover if practice makes perfect. Instead of it being one or the other, the conclusion came to be, that both nature and nurture plays a role in a person’s ability to reach his greatest
The book “The Sports Gene” was not only a very good read but also it was also extremely intriguing. While reading, some of the main points were clearly stated in the form of “theories” or studies that scientists or students conducted to clearly determine if there is a “sports gene” in humans. Some of the questions you ask yourself is how can that person run so fast or how can that person jump so high. How the book was laid out was in short somewhat stories of a pro athlete or someone that conducted an experiment to determine how that person became a pro. An example of this is when the book talks about the 10000 hour rule. Its crazy to think that if someone practices any sport for 10000 hours that they may possibly become a pro and there is no specific gene that ties pros and non-pros together. The book also talks many times on how there is a significant difference between pros and non pros just
“People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).
As the Washington Post notes, “nature or nurture? … one is useless without the other” (Fard). If someone is identified to be talented in athletics, coaches are needed make them perform the best they can perform. There are aspects of sports and athleticism that are not related to raw performance. In sports there are tactics that one needs to learn to succeed and in athletics one needs to have the mental mindset and experience to deal with the pressure. Although our psychological mindset may be linked to our genes, tactics and experience can only be developed through practice and training. One may point to the fact that certain countries such as Jamaica and Kenya consistently produce short and long distance runners as proof of genes playing a part in their success, but there are reasons for this not being the case. Jamaica is so successful at short distance running “because almost everyone on the island tries the sport” (Aschwanden). While in other countries such as the US, sports such as football, baseball and basketball have a much higher priority over track events. Training is needed to develop both the physical and mental aspects of athleticism to their full
Sports specialization among young people is when a child or teenager trains for and competes in only one sport. They work extremely hard year-round in order to become well-rounded in every aspect of the game. They make sacrifices and put their health in jeopardy in order to become the ultimate participant in their sport. One of the many young athletes who is only participating in and focusing on one sport is fifteen-year-old OJ Mayo from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the young talented athlete who is predicted to be the next LeBron James in the National Basketball Association (NBA). This young athlete provides evidence of striving for perfection in this single sport when reviewing his daily schedule versus that of his siblings. He says, “The other kids go home and sleep. I come back to the gym” (Thompson, 2004). He is obviously putting forth a lot of effort in his sport to become successful at an early age.
“A Feckless Quest for the Basketball Gene” is an article regarding the often argued subjects of sports, race, and genetics. It refers to the book “Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It” and how it is a crude approach to the subjects. With the article, we learn that race has nothing to do with our talents and mere observation of differences is not considered a genetic argument. We are drawing conclusions from a mass of poorly controlled data, giving poor evidence and end results. The article also discusses the relationship between patterns of human genetic variations and groups of people.
“African Americans have just as amount of chance of becoming a professional athlete as he or she winning the lottery”. This so called goal of theirs is unrealistic and is highly impossible. There are so many sports athletes but majority of them are of a different c...
As Miller and Wilson revealed, athleticism is not always analogous with success. Willy regarded Biff highly because he observed Biff’s presence and athleticism, and he believed these qualities would result in immediate success. Today many parents associate sports with success and therefore pressure their children to excel in sports. In today’s society it is very rare that fears of discrimination would cause children to not pursue a lucrative career in sports. Both Miller and Wilson knew the impact of sports on family dynamics, and how sports have evolved from a leisure time activity to a full-time commitment. Clearly, many of the qualitative aspects of sports--competition, teamwork and physical dexterity can contribute to being a success in almost any career.
It is said, that talent in sport leads competitors to attain the high level of success and to become highly skilled athletes (Bush, and Salmela, 2001). It is also believed that, there are two kinds of talents. First, the nature or innate talent, that has been genetically transmitted. For instance, in basket-ball, being tall could be beneficial to score easier; this is a natural physical ability. On the other hand, there is the nurture talent which depends on environmental factors. Accordingly, performers might become highly successful due to environmental features such as high-quality practice and intense training for years and years. This is why the physical talent is considered as relevant to develop performance in sports. Blumenstein (2007)