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Analysis Of Outliers : The Story Of Success

Decent Essays

Regardless of location, age, sex, or cultural identity, everyone strives for success. Like most people, I associated success with hard work, intelligence, talent, and a striving for greatness that is present in many but perseveres for few. However, Malcom Gladwell’s novel, Outliers: The Story of Success, compared Canadian hockey players, Silicon Valley geniuses, Korean pilots and Asian mathematicians to propose the concept that success does not inherently form from hard work and skill alone, but comes from everything from time of birth to cultural respect; after seeing the results, Gladwell convinced me. Gladwell was able to convince me that success derives from more than just intelligence and skill, but from everyday life and circumstance as well. Using analysis of the Canadian Hockey League’s best players, Gladwell demonstrated that, “there were an incredible number of January, February, and March birth dates,” which is due to the fact that, “in Canada the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1” (Gladwell 26, 29). Within his novel, Gladwell invited his audience to examine a chart of birth dates of the hockey players, which were frequently within the first three months of the calendar year. He explains that the cutoff date allows hockey players born in January to have potentially a year’s worth of experience over the other athletes. While he does acknowledge that skill and work ethic do have a big role to play after that point, the initial cut allows older players to have a natural advantage over their younger competitors. The huge amount of successful athletes being born in the early months convinced me that Gladwell is correct in his proposal of success’s origin. By comparing the different sports and seeing the constant trend overlapping in hockey, soccer and other sports, I was convinced of his thesis’ accuracy. His casual but serious tone made me take him seriously while also captivating me with his subtle and appropriately timed humor. Gladwell also touches on technical geniuses Bill Joy and Bill Gates, analyzing that their birthdays are also at the perfect time, in a year that makes them, “old enough to be a part of the coming revolution but not so old that you missed it… which is… in

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