Literary Works about Success

The book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, examines the nature of success. He challenges the commonly held misconceptions about why people succeed and fail. Gladwell states that success results from a mix of factors such as opportunity, time, luck, heritage, and many others. Gladwell builds his argument by examining many “success stories” throughout the book. Gladwell’s overall message in the Outliers is that no one is self-made, no one can take one hundred percent credit for their own success because they had so form of help. After reading the book, I could not help but to agree with Gladwell. He helped me to better understand the steps it takes for a person to become successful.

Even though it's Paul's free will to die at the end of the story ,but his death is very much determined by the three contradicting aspects in his character. He longs to be rich, and strongly believes that wealth is the simple solution to all

Loretta Wasserman points out, “...this is the ‘epiphanous moment’ of the story, confirming his vision as authentic and his fidelity is to is justified” (Wasserman 206). Paul’s journey is heavily focused on escaping Cordelia Street, and Paul’s ultimate mistake was realizing he couldn’t escape to “Adriatic water” or “Algerian sands”. Paul’s epiphany is essentially realizing that without money, his dreams are useless, and the only way he could ever get what he wanted is by lying and deceiving. This elemental realization is what causes him to kill himself, and why his quest is considered a

Success comes from self-determination, motivation, and hard work – that was the message I received from reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell helped me understand that the outliers mentioned in the book didn’t gain their success easily. Some may have had lucky opportunities and where born in the right year, but they had to work hard, they were smart, and out of their achievements, they made an impact on society. Prior to reading Outliers, I was lost among the success of others because I thought these people came from wealthy families, which meant they had a head start, but I was wrong. Success has a different meaning to everyone, but the commonalities of success are the advantages and opportunities given to us.

After Paul had given his mother five thousand pounds for her birthday the echoes in the house grew. His mother’s expression did not change when she saw she had been given money. At this point, Paul realized he would forever be in debt to his mother and her nonexistent love for him. With each race he won, the echoes only continued to grow. Paul had created his own downfall because he fed into the house’s haunting words. He was easily manipulated into believing that having money was the only way to be happy. Paul’s mother viewed him as a burden and could not find a way to love him. As a result, he could not keep up with the lavish lifestyle and took his own life by surging madly to find more money. This short story indicates that adults heavily influence the thoughts and feelings children acquire at a young age.

The Roman Empire permitted all types of faiths and worshiped numerous Gods, this was allowed as long as it was what the empire worshiped. Christians where not sentenced to death for being a Christian but harassed. They where executed for not placing Caesar first. “Christians refused to sacrifice to the gods, proclaiming instead that there was only one God.” Christians that refused to worship the Roman Gods where killed by animals or even burned alive.

The author’s use of personification reveals further issues to greed. That is, once greed reaches a certain level, money cannot satisfy it. Due to the combination of the parents’ expensive lifestyle and their inferior income, their children would hear the house whispering “there must be more money” (Lawrence 377). Simply put, the parents’ income cannot satisfy their expensive demands. Therefore, no matter how much money they earn, their greed always outpaces that amount. In another instance, when Paul earns five-thousand dollars from a horse-race bet, he decides to give his parents one-thousand that year. After that, “the house had been ‘whispering’ worse than ever lately” (383). This use of personification shows that Paul’s financial aid does

The first message we are told in Rocking Horse Winner is one of detachment from many events in the story. D.H. Lawrence “establishes its tone of detached irony--a fairy.”

But the boy died in the night.” D.H. Lawrence, The Rocking Horse Winner, Page 13 & 14. In the end the mother lost her son because she was an extremely greedy

At the very beginning, I would like to shed light on what is successful, and how we can be success. In Chinese’s traditional perspective, when you become pretty wealthy, when you have a big house, luxury car, then you are a successful person. However, as we learned in the book “Catching Up or Leading the Way”, the true education

Even John Wooden definition of success is refreshing and unique: Wooden states that success is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self- satisfaction knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable. This paper will seek to describe Wooden’s Pyramid of Success and how it fits the business environment at my work place. Also, this paper will identify similarities and differences within the Pyramid of Success by comparing it to leadership styles of the X Theory and the Y Theory. Throughout the Pyramid of Success John Wooden identifies different rationales for each aspect, we will provide our understanding of all his aspects. Lastly, we will attempt to create a new pyramid of success and develop a step by step

Paul is obsessed with money, and his belief that money will solve all his problems leads to unrelenting disappointment in his life. He thinks almost constantly about the humiliation of those who have little money and the power wielded by those who possess lots of it. He keenly analyzes his own slightly impoverished existence and hates every detail: cramped houses, grubby bathrooms, simple clothes, women’s inelegant conversations, and men’s worshipful attitude toward their bosses. He believes that money is the one way out of the existence he loathes. But it becomes clear that Paul will never become one of the prosperous men he idealizes because he has no understanding of the relationship between work and money.

He believes in order to obtain money, one must posses luck. This brings forth the next example of irony present which is shown on pg.77. In a dialogue with his mother, Paul asks “Is luck money, mother?”, and his mother replies “No, Paul. Not quite. It’s what causes you to have money.” Paul then responds “Oh! I thought when Uncle Oscar said filthy lucker it meant money.” This is ironic because Paul interprets filthy lucre as filthy lucker which he believes means luck but really meant money. It shows that Paul does not understand that luck is not money and that statement further shows his misunderstanding between the two concepts.

You must often read the title of a book or a seminar, ‘How to be successful?’, ‘The secret of success?’, ‘Story of a successful entrepreneur’…man, too mainstream!

Success Built to Last builds on over 200 interviews with highly successful people to discern patterns on how they define success and how they achieved it. The authors spoke to remarkable people that were trimmed down from initial thousand lists to hundreds who were able to sustain success for over a 20 year period. The interviewees were Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer, Grammy, Peabody and Grammy award winners as well as CEOs from small and big companies. The group was comprised of people from diverse industries, interests and gender, and majority was over the age of 40 with 95 being the oldest.