Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Path To 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.

What exactly is an Outlier? Malcolm Gladwell explains to his readers in "Outliers" that an Outlier are "men and women who do things out of the ordinary." Gladwell explains to us that an in order to become successful, there are many factors that can lead to it including birth dates, community and culture, and legacy. He doesn't entirely believe that you can achieve success just from individual merit and hard work but that it takes the environment around you and opportunity to become successful. In the contrary, Gladwell writes a whole chapter titled, "The 10,000-Hour Rule" which he explains that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to become successful in something. Then he mentions that it opportunity plays a part in this success, when speaking about The Beetles, and how they were giving an opportunity to play at a club for about ten thousand hours. If it wasn't for this opportunity that was given to The Beetles, Gladwell believes that they wouldn't be as who they are now and would have never been as successful and wealthy as they are now. Gladwell claims that social and economic background can determine whether or not a individual will succeed. This claim is false becaus a person who is wealthy can not be as successful as one who is not wealthy.

In the novel Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, he explores the idea of of misunderstandment of relationships among individual talent and opportunities. Gladwell argues this statement by showing that talent is necessary but not the reason to achieve success. I agree with Gladwells statement: The opportunities that are offered creates a straight path to success.

Like no other before it, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers gives insight into a world of success only a select few are able to view firsthand. Gladwell portrays date of birth, economic status, and obstacles that are overcome by luck rather than perseverance as the key ingredients for a recipe of triumph. Time and education seem to be the underlying factors while socio-economic status also plays a sizable role in determining who succeeds and who does not. While I do not consider myself an outlier currently, as so many of my peers and schoolmates enjoy what I enjoy, it is very clear that, given the opportunities afforded to me, it may not be long before I am considered an outlier and achieve success, both on a monetary and mental level.

The novel Outliers, aims to investigate the very thing we want for our family, our students, and ourselves. For most of our lives we have believed that with hard work, anyone can achieve success. That had to be the reason that poor immigrants like Andrew Carnegie and college dropouts like Bill Gates achieved unimaginable wealth. Most of us were taught that working harder than anyone else would lead to ultimate success.

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.

In Outliers, focusing on outliers, defined by Gladwell as people who do not fit into our normal understanding of achievement, Outliers deals with exceptional people, especially those who are smart, rich, and successful, and those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically possible. Malcolm Gladwell interviews Bill Gates and focuses on the opportunities given to him throughout his lifetime that have led to his success. A common theme that appears throughout Outliers is the "10,000-Hour Rule", based on a study by Anders Ericsson. If you become clearer about what you focused on from the ages of 13 to 18, you will become clearer about where to focus your wealth creation efforts.

Most of us have similar opinion about the term of success. Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outlier, have different assumption than most us, such as the link to success, what people overvalue, and what we undervalue. First, what links to success? There are many circumstance that effect you chance to success. To begin with, talent is one of the conditions that leads you to the success. For example, having better trait compare to other individual will make yourself outstanding, so you have the better chance being hire. Additionally, without effort, you chance become success for will likely to decrease. For instance, even if you were born talented, without the effort, you will not be able to make use of it. In the end, you basically wasted your

During the Kennedy era, many Americans saw Jacqueline Kennedy only as the wife of the president who did not know much; however, not only was she a faithful wife and First Lady, but she was also a very intelligent magazine editor with a very interesting life. In the New York Times bestselling novel called The Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell challenges the way that success is typically viewed by introducing the idea of an “outlier.” Gladwell defines an outlier as “something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body (Gladwell 1).” Throughout the book, he goes on to explain that success is much more than hard work; it also has to do with what he calls “The 10,000-Hour Rule” or “The Matthew Effect.”

Malcolm Gladwell’s book examines the contributing factors of high leveled success by looking beyond common beliefs. First of all, viewing the key element of an opportunity making way for success like the good nutrition the tallest tree receives from the sun and good soil. For example, Roger Barnesly, a psychologist, suggested good player are born in January, February, and March. However, Gladwell views this phenomenon as a difference in strength due to age as an almost eleven year old is stronger than a nearly ten year old. In most success stories an innate talent needs to be practiced and encouraged. Gladwell refers to this need of practice as the ten thousand hour rule done by Bill Jay,

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, the author of Outliers, believes that working at something for 10,000 hours is required to achieve mastery and become a world class expert at anything. While this is a nice way of making it seem like anyone can be successful, it is not true. Some things you will never be good at, no matter how much practice you put into it. There are also a variety of factors that play into success and becoming a world class expert besides practice. Some things require much less practice than the magic 10,000 hour threshold that Gladwell established.

As both children and parents look towards a bright future, preparing future leaders today means equipping young people with the skillset employers to seek and participation in organized youth sports provide just that. Youth sports participation continues to play a major part in our preparation for a successful career. Numerous studies on youth sports participation have found that sports provide a positive influence on character building in children and young adults. It continues to be an on-going debate on whether ‘sports build or reveal character’ but through literature analysis, it has been shown that sustained participation in youth sports predicts a child’s career success due to self-motivation, work ethics, and leadership skills. Involvement in any coordinated physical activity has the ability to enhance the competency necessary to develop future economic success. Youths of all ages regardless of gender, who employ sports participation into their academic curriculum can have a significantly higher wage than those who chose not participate. In addition, formulated physical activity advances self-motivation, discipline, work ethics, and leadership skills which correlate to greater financial opportunities. This paper will argue that there is indeed a correlation between engaging in organized sports as a youth to receiving higher salaries in the future.