A Successful Man As A Self Made Man

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, and the essay Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, interact with each other quite well with many similarities and differences. In Gladwell’s book, he shares many stories of how people become successful, explaining that success is not achieved based on the character traits and work habits of an individual. He says, “We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots…” (Gladwell, 20) Gladwell insists that success counts on where an individual comes from and all aspects of their life. However, in Self-Reliance, Emerson never mentions success. He explains the importance of individualism and free thought. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.” (Emerson, 9) Emerson argues that everyone should go out and seek the life that pleases them, whether that is success, or not. Despite the differences in the two texts, in their writings, both authors show how individuals can step away from the rest of society and become outliers.

According to Gladwell, “The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all” (Gladwell 285). Successful people such as Bill Gates, the Beatles, and Joe Flom are considered Outliers because they have achieved outstanding prosperity and fame. According to the traditional concept of success, they rose to the top against all odds because they were more talented than their competitors. The notion that innate talent is the root of success, however, is a fallacy. All outliers have had help getting to the top.

An Outlier is someone who stands out in a group due to their mastery of a certain skill and because of that they are successful. According to Gladwell not anyone can become successful; it takes the right circumstances and opportunities. Human’s capability seems limitless, and if we put in the time and hard work we can achieve our goals. We as a society love to think that a person may become successful and that we all have the same opportunities and chance of succeeding if we just work hard enough. According to Malcom Gladwell, the author of the book Outlier’s these common beliefs are incorrect and are not the means of a person becoming successful. The main theme throughout Gladwell’s Outlier’s is that successful

Malcolm Gladwell insists throughout his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that the recipe for achievement is not simply based on personal talents or innate abilities alone. Gladwell offers the uncommon idea that outliers largely depend upon “extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” (Gladwell19). According to Gladwell, successful men and women are beneficiaries of relationships, occasions, places, and cultures. The author draws on a different case study in each chapter to support a particular argument concerning success. Despite his indifference and suppression in regards to counterarguments, Gladwell’s claims are effective for many reasons, including through the accounts of experts, tone and style of writing, and the

“There is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell is trying to convince his audience that they misunderstand how people become successful. Many believe one only needs hard work and determination in order to achieve success. However, Gladwell complicates this idea by explaining that hard work and determination is not how people become successful and instead, it is all about the opportunities one is given that decides if he or she is successful or not. Gladwell uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in order to persuade his audience to accept his idea of the process of becoming successful.

In many instances, those who are successful are made out to be some sort of separate breed, those who were innately able to perform remarkable feats that others, no matter how hard they tried, simply could not. Through this exhibition, many people view success as an elusive feature that only a select few can obtain. This theory is the main inspiration for Malcolm Gladwell’s exploration of success in Outliers: The Story of Success. In the book, Gladwell analyzes not only those who are successful, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, J.R. Oppenheimer, and Joe Flom, but what path led them towards becoming exceptionally skilled. This extremely in-depth analysis of successfulness forms Gladwell’s layered theory of what creates success, and his attempt

Is it coincidental that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Joy and many other multi-millionaires were all born within a span of 3 years? Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, suspects that there is something more behind this occurrence than just a simple coincidence. He asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man and success does not come from natural talent, rather it comes from extraordinary opportunities and hidden advantages. In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to debunk the myth that people are successful because of themselves, and not because of other factors. Even Malcolm Gladwell acknowledges that passion and hard work are required to succeed. However, he believes that this passion and time to put in the work would not be possible without the aid of extraordinary opportunities. Gladwell prepares a firm set of logical arguments, including the advantages of birth dates, cultural legacy and family backgrounds, to guarantee that his audience will be convinced of his conviction.

Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell 's examination of what makes some people excessively more successful than others. These "outliers," as he calls them, are commonly thought to possess talent and intelligence far above that of the average person, but he challenges this popular belief by looking at the background of some notable outliers.

Success is measured differently by every person and each and every culture. The journey to success in most cultures, however, is generally idealized in the same way: one person working harder than everyone else to achieve his or her goal with their own merits as their only advantage. In Outliers: The Story of Success, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, argues about how wrong that ideology is and the truth behind successful people. Throughout his guide, Gladwell employs the help of many argumentative techniques to convince the reader of his message.

Becoming successful is what most people aspire to be. Most people fantasize the dream house, car, and having the dream job. Even though success is viewed so highly, not everyone can be successful. Malcolm Gladwell explains that idea throughout his book Outliers. Gladwell’s chapters contain endless amounts of evidence that support his claims exceptionally well. But, Michiko Kakutani, a critic for New York Times, exposes Gladwell’s evidence as unreliable and unconvincing, and upon further research, Gladwell’s faults grew deeper. Even though Gladwell provides an extensive amount of evidence, that evidence is one-sided and relies on suggestion.

Vince Lombardi, a great American football coach, and player, once stated that the “dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success”. According to Lombardi, hard work will get you to where you want to go, and many people would agree. In Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” secrets and misconceptions about success are exposed and explained. Gladwell was right in saying that “if you work hard enough and assert yourself...you can shape the world to your desires”, as evidenced by examples from the book itself, the successful career of Serena Williams, and my own personal story (Gladwell 151).

Success has several definitions and differs for each person. However, In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”, Gladwell prattles about Lewis Terman, a young professor at Stanford University during the First World War who conducted a special experiment that who charted some people from childhood into adulthood. After scanning through the results, Gladwell concludes that socioeconomic status and class as a good indicator whether an individual was destined for the higher or lower group. However, Gladwell’s findings are not truly correct due to the fact that socioeconomic class and status are only some of the factors that determine whether a person belongs to the higher or lower group.

While the author, Malcolm Gladwell, does not dispute that hard work in a necessary component, we learn that many factors, lucky breaks, and some coincidences all occur in making high achievers into true outliers. We also learn that many of the richest, most famous, and most successful people in

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

In the general perspective, a majority of people have come to believe that success derives within the personality and motives of the individual. In contrast, Malcolm Gladwell alleges in his bestselling non-fiction book Outliers that success is spawn by their god-given advantages that may not be welcomed to others by fate.