It’s All About the Drive in Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell examines the reason why some people are anomalously more successful than others. One would normally think that success is achieved through intelligence, however Gladwell squashes that notion. Throughout his book, one sees that relying on only intelligence can sometimes be detrimental to one’s success, especially in chapters three and four, where one man (who possessed an extremely high IQ) was forced to drop out of college due to a lack of money and social skills. Gladwell argues that, while these outliers can seem to be more successful due to mere intelligence and skill, in reality, they have achieved it through a highly interlinked mix of background, practice habits, and legacy.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, talks about the different ways to obtain success and what to attribute it to. In his 10,000 hour rule chapter he argues that a person must but in at least 10,000 hours of work with their interest in order to be successful. In the chapter, Marita’s Bargain he argues that there has to be opportunities and one has to work hard to take advantage of them. Gladwell uses the example of Bill Gates to exemplify his 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell uses the example of a girl in a rigorous charter school

In the story, Outliers: The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour rule, and how you will become a master at something after practicing it for 10,000-hours. Some of the primary findings are Gladwell giving examples of successful people who did 10,000 hours of something. And those people are successful at it now, and masters of it. Gladwell says that, “The professionals, on the other hand, steadily increased their practice time every year, until the age of about twenty” (Gladwell 39). Implying that, individuals who practice something consistently master it and become professionals at it.

How many hours of someone’s life are necessary to perfect a skill? 300? 5000? Perhaps try 10,000 hours. In this chapter from Outliers, “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that talent isn’t innate, but takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill based on opportunity, talent, and practice. Throughout the chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell effectively relies on logos--evidence from well-known figures and charts that show age similarities--to support his theory that it takes a particular window of time to offer someone the opportunity to practice for 10,000 hours to succeed at a skill. However, Gladwell ineffectively relies on repetition of evidence and failure to

To work until reaching the level of mastery of anything is a massive achievement in a person’s life. What if someone told that person that if they haven’t had reached the level of mastery if they haven’t practiced a certain amount of hours. How would that make them feel? Enraged. Depressed. Speechless. Talentless. In the Chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule” by Malcolm Gladwell, he argues that the amount of practice required for the mastery of anything is 10,000 hours. He uses examples of famous people or groups of people that the audience might know to try and dispel the myth that to be able to master something, it takes more than innate talent. Malcolm Gladwell's use of logos and imagery fail to prove his point to the author due to the statistics he uses, and the sentences he uses to prove his point that the amount of hours required for mastery is 10,000 hours.

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).

While I definitely agree with this claim, I was disappointed by Gladwell's exceedingly fallacious reasoning. In Outliers Gladwell often cherry-picks only information that reinforces his thesis, uses generalization, and is very narrow-minded when it comes to his idea of what “success” is.

“How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” said John Proctor, actor in The Crucible. John Proctor is a very passionate man when it comes to his name. He doesn't want his kids and future generations of his name have to have a bad reputation because of the name Proctor. John and I have trait similarities such as being sinners, hard-working human beings, and being proud of the things we do.

Time or Talent: Can someone be born gifted or do they have to ‘earn’ their talent? In order to be successful, 10,000 hours is required to become professional; however, in order to be successful one must be born in the right time and place. Malcolm Gladwell makes this argument by providing evidence that Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs were all born from 1952 and 1958 and now became some of the most successful people in the world by their twenties. In the chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell uses tables and anecdotes of famous people in order to create a logical argument and effectively boost his reliability (ethos). However, in the process of using charts and anecdotal evidence, Gladwell creates many logical fallacies, which makes both his logos- and ethos-based arguments ineffective.

Essentially, the topics Gladwell covered in this book include are, being at the right place at the right time, the 10,000-hour rule, timing, upbringing, and pursuing a meaningful career. Although all of these have been proven by Gladwell to be a major component of success, I do not agree with the idea of a particular upbringing will determine success. With this idea, Malcolm also includes that

The author explains exactly what the professional asserts and how particular pieces of evidence relate to Gladwell’s unconventional idea of success.

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

However, luck plays a much larger role than he claims. There are plenty of stories of homeless individuals with master’s degrees. One example is of Maurice Johnson, a 55 year old man who had two separate master’s degrees, and lives homeless in the streets of Boston. Johnson had the time and dedication to obtain those degrees, but even after all that work he ended up in one of the worst positions possible in America. Many of Gladwell’s examples about luck emphasize the point that luck was needed to obtain the 10,000 hours for their level of mastery, but the fact exists that the overall success of a person is also dependent on luck as well. Maurice Johnson’s father died earlier in his life, and Johnson spent many of his resources helping his ill, bed-ridden mother. Even though Johnson had the luck to become a master at multiple subjects, luck was still needed to put those skills into use, which didn’t happen for

Outliers is a book that studies the factors that contribute to high levels of success. Gladwell examines several success stories ranging from Bill Gates to the Beatles. The book also looks at how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule." This rules claimes that the key to achieving world class expertise in any skill is a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000

Lastly, Gladwell incorporates the audience’s interests to appeal to them in an emotional and engaging method in the subject of the argument, success. The goal for many is to be successful in their specific craft, and even from the title Outliers: The Story of Success Gladwell advertises his own story of success, and the audience believes if they follow the methods that successful people use then they will be successful too. Gladwell gives testimonies of people that would be predictably successful but never made it far due to not having a community to support them to open opportunities. He describes Chris Langan’s lack of credibility and success despite having a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and before he lets Langan describe a typical day