Analysis Of Christopher Gladwell's Outliers : The Story Of Success

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, a novel depicting success, provides different examples of how an individual can achieve success in every chapter of his book to show his audience that success, despite a variety of barriers, is in fact in our control. A very important chapter titled, “Marita's Bargain”, explains the flaws in today’s public school systems. He shows the problems with the solutions to fix them while showing the alternatives to the regular system such as the KIPP Program in New York. The KIPP Program (Knowledge is Power Program) is a new kind of middle school that selects students from less fortunate locations and uses unique teaching strategies to turn them around into fantastic learners. In the chapter, Gladwell is extremely descriptive by using visual words to paint the picture of the South Bronx in New York City. He describes the buildings that were built in the 1960’s as squat and bleak looking. Gladwell had an interest in this subject as it involves success, however he had no prior experiences to produce the piece. Gladwell establishes personal credibility through the use of knowledge, reason, and facts and figures. He comes across very knowledgeable on the subject presenting great data with excellent vocabulary. He is able to do this with no obvious bias as well. Gladwell shows authority because he is well known for writing novels that involve success. His intention is to teach and explain how schools need to change the length of vacation breaks

Prompt: Write an essay that defends or challenges or qualifies Gladwell’s assertion that “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and you use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151).

In Malcolm Gladwell's national bestseller "Outliers", Gladwell makes many intriguing assertions, one of them being "If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your imagination, you can shape the world to your desires." This statement is indeed authentic. When one is privileged with extraordinary talent and yet incorporates time and effort to improve it, that person is destined to succeed.

In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers he argues that outliers, people who have achieved success almost entirely by their own means through perseverance and hard work, are not possible. Gladwell claims instead that people achieve success primarily through the opportunities they are born with or are presented with throughout their life.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his novel entitled, “Outliers,” explores the landscape of success and shows us that success comes from the culture that surrounds the successful , not their intelligence and ambition. Gladwell explains this through a series of situations and studies. In Part One, he discusses success as a result of timing, such as the month or year you were born. In Part Two, he focuses on cultural legacies and how they play a role in helping someone become successful. He unfolds the reasons why hockey players are not born in the latter part of the year, why the Beatles and Bill Gates were able to become so successful, and why Jewish immigrants were able to become successful lawyers and doctors. Gladwell disproves many beliefs by discovering

Malcolm Gladwell makes many debatable claims in his book “The Outliers”. One of these controversial topics is brought up in chapter three when he talks about a person’s IQ and how that relates to one’s success. After reading “Outliers” I believe that this is the most controversial topic. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell because there are a lot of people who are not really smart that are very successful, success can be viewed differently by different people, and by my own experiences on the U-High soccer team.

I believe that the main argument developed in Chapters three and four of Outliers is that life success is not directly related to your own IQ level. Gladwell states, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point” (Gladwell, 2008). “Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn't seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage” (Gladwell, 2008). This is where talent comes into play.

In the number one National Bestselling book, “Outliers- The Story of Success”, by Malcolm Gladwell, he conveys a message to the readers that our societies views of success are flawed. What do you think of when you think about “successful people”? I am sure a few words came to mind- rich, famous, accomplished, smart. An outlier is defined in the book as “something that is situated away from or classified differently from a main or related body” (Gladwell 3). An example would be the red apple we see on the back of this book.

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

In the prevalent view today, a great number of people believe that the building blocks of success are within the personality and quality of the person. Malcolm Gladwell asserts a totally different nature in his bestselling non-fiction book Outliers, he indicates that majority of success comes from external forces in which few people are granted particular opportunities and advantages that not everybody is broken by destiny (i.e. Date of birth, family background, money, etc.). Although he poses strong evidence to back up his arguments, Gladwell, somewhat neglected the value of hard-work, knowledge and determination in his book. Gladwell’s theory of success holds some legitimacy; even so his record is ultimately depressing about the possibility of success. The

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book analyzing the traits and characteristics of the most successful people in human history, hence the title Outliers as it examines those who have stood out dramatically in society. Born in Fareham, Hampshire, England in 1963, Malcolm moved to Ontario, Canada at the age of six and spent his remaining developmental years in the country (Dphiffer). After graduating from Trinity College in Toronto in 1984, Malcolm began work for the Washington Post in 1987 where he stayed until 1996. Since then, Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer for The New Yorker, and in addition to Outliers he has also written two more New York Times best-sellers, and is highly regarded in the field of journalism and writing. He has received numerous accolades for his work including being named one of the top 100 most influential people by Time Magazine, along

Outlier is defined as “something that is situated away from or classified differently from a main or related body” or “a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample”, which is the beginning to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. The meaning of outlier itself in relation to success symbolizes those who stand out with exceptional rates of success. The book does not necessarily cover how to become an outlier (in fact it first deams becoming an outlier is nearly impossible) but more which are the factors that have contributed to certain outliers in history on a broad spectrum of hockey players to the beatles to even the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

On the adverse side of Gladwell’s thesis is the notion that people who are intellectually gifted must go on to accomplish great things. When applied to psychologist Lewis Terman’s lifelong “Termites” experiment, however, this is apparently not the case. Terman searched out the young “pinnacle of the intellectual scale” in hopes that they would evolve into the forefront of mankind solely because of their cleverness. In reality, these people were relatively ordinary; some thrived, some had decent paying jobs, while others (even to “normal” people) were considered failures. In accordance with the “threshold effect”, in a study of admitted Harvard students, it was discovered that the university rejected 93 out of every 100 valedictorians and perfect scorers on the SAT. Once past a certain level of potential, success can be likened to winning the lottery. Terman concluded with, “we have seen… that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated,’” (Gladwell 90). The “Termites” did not all succeed, meaning that not all incredibly smart people do, leaving only the fact that environment and luck are the key factors in successful

Every book as a meaning for being written, and every teacher has a specific purpose for a book to be read by their class. Each book presented to this class provided a multitude of life lessons to take from them. These books are Choosing Powerful Words, Outliers, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. Each book was assigned for a given purpose whether it be to teach the class the eloquence of words, how to use those words to influence others, or just being successful in life. Choosing Powerful Words was written by Ronald Carpenter and is a source for tips about speaking and using your words to better present your message to others. In his book, he states that two ways to do this are emphasis and metaphor. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell provides examples of successful people who’s achievements ‘fall outside normal experience”. In this he explains the ten thousand hour rule as well as the Matthew Effect. The final book for reading is How to Win Friends and Influence People, written by Dale Carnegie. Originally published during the depression, Carnegie gives tips for being a leader as well as techniques in handling people. Two key components of this are to not criticize, condemn, or complain. One aspect of being a leader is to praise every and the slightest of improvements. Each of these components of each book are important and can be related to parts of every person’s life in some manner.

Malcolm Gladwell is a well-known journalist and non-fiction writer. In our assigned reading materials “Outliers”, Gladwell explores different social and psychological phenomena as well as their implications for businesses and individuals. Gladwell proclaims that success is shaped by external entities which certain individuals are granted precise opportunities and advantages that not everybody is given by fate. However, even though Gladwell’s theory at attaining success holds some validity, he completely avoids and excludes the value of hard-work and determination. The core of success is always within the individual which can be achieved by perseverance through difficult times and setbacks as opposed to solely capitalizing on other people’s hard work and effort.