The outliers I have grown up hearing about include Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. These people, just like any other extremely successful people, work harder than everybody else to be to where they are. Also, they are willing to fail, because they know that in order to succeed they must learn from their failures. Clearly, to become extremely successful a person has to have that burning passion for what he or she does, has to do more than what is required, and has to be talented. Talent alone is not enough to become the world’s next billionaire. Talent, preparation, opportunity, and connections are needed to become an outlier. In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell shows just how equally important luck and opportunity is to having talent.
Gladwell emphasizes throughout the book that one of the keys to being successful is being born at the right time. When Gladwell is talking about the world’s seventy-five richest people of all time he remarks, “Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century” (Gladwell 61). This was a very interesting observation to me. All of those fourteen people were extremely lucky to be born when they did. They were born in the perfect time period, right as America’s economy began to boom and as industrial manufacturing became more important than ever. By being born in that time period, those fourteen people took advantage of the immense opportunities and paths that were available for them. This example is the epitome of how important opportunity and luck is. If opportunities or chances, that could change a person’s life if he or she take advantage of them, are not given then success will be unattainable. Opportuni...
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...so bad that I was thinking that my parents were mistreating me. In reality when compared to the rest of the world, people might think that people like me are spoiled. I am at such a greater advantage to succeed in the world then my pen pal because I have parents there helping me daily and I am given numerous opportunities to learn more and go to the next level.
Usually we think of those anomalies as outliers, but people like many children in East Cobb, we are also considered outliers. We have so many more opportunities to succeed, we were born into the right family in the right place, and we learn many vital skills that many kids never learn. Outliers has given me a new perspective on success and makes me feel thankful for who I am and who surrounds me.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2008.
Print.
In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell calculates success. Through the repeated praxis of shattering the reader’s idea that masters in a particular field achieve their success through individual talent he unravels how their given circumstances was what truly led them to what they became. Example after example he proves how conditions as simple as the year they were born led to their later achievement; the author even demonstrated how a person’s culture can later affect their job performance. CoCo Chanel, arguably the most famed and inspirational fashion
The importance of cultural legacies is very prevalent throughout chapter seven of Outliers. The chapter, “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes”, discusses the history of Korean Air and the unbelievable number of plane crashes the company had throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, then goes on to investigate the causes of the crashes and more specifically the cultural traditions that cause the accidents.
The introduction of Outliers begins with an inspection of Italian American immigrants near the end of the 19th century, the founders of a small town in Pennsylvania, called Roseto. In a study conducted by physician Stewart Wolf, et al. researchers set out to decide how the people of Roseto were able to live longer, healthier lives than that of the people in the towns of the same region, as well as the rest of the nation. The secret of the success for the people of Roseto could be found in a nearly unanimous social integration, which focused on respect for elders, a common set of religious beliefs, and an egalitarian way of thinking. Wolf’s findings introduced the medical community to a new way of researching serious health risks; research without isolation of the subject, by including the environment of the people studied. Gladwell ends the introduction by preparing the reader to use “The Roseto Mystery” analogously with his extended definition of success.
Outliers-The Story of Success is a sociological, and psychological non-fiction book, which discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. Malcolm Gladwell explains this by dividing the book into two parts, opportunity and legacy. Opportunity discusses how select people are fortunate enough to be born between the months of January through March, and also includes the idea that those who are already successful will have more opportunities to improve and become even more successful. The 10,000-hour rule proves the idea that in order to become successful in a certain skill, one must have practiced that skill for at least 10,000 hours. In addition to the 10,000-hour rule, timing is also a major component that implies being in the right place at the right time, which brings the author to discuss Bill Gates who was born during the time where programming and computer technology was emerging, therefore sparking his interest in computers, later bringing him to create Microsoft. Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation.
The definition of success varies around the world, but according to Malcolm Gladwell its achievement can be broken down into a few components. Although Gladwell never truly establishes credibility in his book Outliers, he still backs up his proposed theories with reputable studies and sources which intrigue the audience to keep reading.The purpose of Outliers was to enlighten people about the different elements of success while also informing them of real life situations where seemingly less than likely people beat the odds and became the powerful figures that they are today. The intended audience is anyone who is looking to become successful or who is perhaps interested in the idea of success itself and wishes to learn more about it. Understandably, a secondary audience could be high school students who are about to venture out into the world on their own because with this book they will hopefully start paying attention to different factors of their lives and seizing opportunities that they may have otherwise passed up. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 Hour Rule and also how I.Q. does not amount to much without creativity. He also speaks of how chance opportunity comes into play and that the distant background of a person still reflects how they handle situations in their present day life. Gladwell’s Outliers successfully informs the reader about the different components that add up to success with probable theories and credible studies to make for an interesting and motivational read.
An Outlier is considered to be an individual that stands out in society because they do things out of the ordinary or norm. They are considered to be successful or different in a positive way in society. For example, people with high IQs like Albert Einstein, famous musicians like Mozart, and etc. are considered to be Outliers
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.
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.
Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of get rich quick. However each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economical situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.
Having opportunities and advantages not readily available to others, being born at a time that enables you to take advantage of opportunities unavailable to those born before or after you, having parents engaged and involved in your effort to success, and the endurance to practice day in and day out makes an outlier. Innate talent is the cornerstone of any success story. But to truly understand one’s journey to success, you need to delve deeper to uncover the true aspects of their success. And in the process, maybe make a case for them as an outlier.
Outliers are extraordinary individuals who didn’t need college to be successful in the first place. In the past it was an honor to go to college, and only the wealthy families were able to send their kids. There is a saying by one of our most famous presidents William Jefferson aka Bill Clinton “When we make college more affordable we make the American dream achievable” (Clinton). Most of the American kids are not cut out for college.
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.
Outliers are extraordinary individuals who didn’t need college to be successful in the first place. In the past it was an honor to go to college, and only the wealthy families were able to send their kids. There is a saying by one of our most famous president William Jefferson aka Bill Clinton “When we make college more affordable we make the american dream achievable” (Clinton). Most of the american kids are not cut out for college.
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.
Gatsby’s desire to reach the wrongfully coveted American Dream is brought about with his romantic obsession with Daisy Buchanan, a woman he had relationship with before leaving for World War I. Gatsby correctly knew that he needed money to be able to court with Daisy, who is from a wealthy family, so he put into place his perusal of prosperity. Many Americans today, like Gatsby, believe that money is the key to the door leading to a life full of happiness, love, and wonder. Americans enter careers, jobs, and investments that do not suit them in the slightest in an attempt to reach this goal of the seemingly golden lifestyle of celebrities and entrepreneurs.