Outliers Essay

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

The introduction of Outliers begins with an inspection of Italian American immigrants near the end of the 19th century, the founders of a small town in Pennsylvania, called Roseto. In a study conducted by physician Stewart Wolf, et al. researchers set out to decide how the people of Roseto were able to live longer, healthier lives than that of the people in the towns of the same region, as well as the rest of the nation. The secret of the success for the people of Roseto could be found in a nearly unanimous social integration, which focused on respect for elders, a common set of religious beliefs, and an egalitarian way of thinking. Wolf’s findings introduced the medical community to a new way of

An Outlier is someone who stands out in a group due to their mastery of a certain skill and because of that they are successful. According to Gladwell not anyone can become successful; it takes the right circumstances and opportunities. Human’s capability seems limitless, and if we put in the time and hard work we can achieve our goals. We as a society love to think that a person may become successful and that we all have the same opportunities and chance of succeeding if we just work hard enough. According to Malcom Gladwell, the author of the book Outlier’s these common beliefs are incorrect and are not the means of a person becoming successful. The main theme throughout Gladwell’s Outlier’s is that successful

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

“There is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell is trying to convince his audience that they misunderstand how people become successful. Many believe one only needs hard work and determination in order to achieve success. However, Gladwell complicates this idea by explaining that hard work and determination is not how people become successful and instead, it is all about the opportunities one is given that decides if he or she is successful or not. Gladwell uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in order to persuade his audience to accept his idea of the process of becoming successful.

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

In many instances, those who are successful are made out to be some sort of separate breed, those who were innately able to perform remarkable feats that others, no matter how hard they tried, simply could not. Through this exhibition, many people view success as an elusive feature that only a select few can obtain. This theory is the main inspiration for Malcolm Gladwell’s exploration of success in Outliers: The Story of Success. In the book, Gladwell analyzes not only those who are successful, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, J.R. Oppenheimer, and Joe Flom, but what path led them towards becoming exceptionally skilled. This extremely in-depth analysis of successfulness forms Gladwell’s layered theory of what creates success, and his attempt

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 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

Teens today could improve upon so much to get a better chance to become more successful in life. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that a child’s performance level for anything has to do with their culture. He says that people of Asian descent will focus more and try harder when they do not understand something. He also talks about how constantly practicing can make you master a skill. If teens can use ideas that Gladwell talks about they can become more successful.

Gladwell had several ideas he had based people’s successes on, one of which were their skills. He focused on whether a person was capable of being successful in their career path. Not just their IQ, or their ability to perform a task well, but whether their social skills were also capable or not. Gladwell states that it is not possible to make it far alone, so he would check to see if an individual wasn’t an awkward loner who excelled in only academically. Gladwell would not only look at SAT scores and how well they did in school, but look at how creative or innovative an individual was.

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

I really liked the book an the fact that it recognized the importance and influence of external factor intertwined with internal characteristics to explain a successful turn out. As Bill Gates said “I was very lucky”. Thanks to Gladwell’s broad analysis we can understand all of the underlying factors that Gates takes into account when describing his luck. History, culture, opportunity, community, family and SES make you what you are. You are

Malcolm Gladwell crafted a formula to combat one of man’s greatest obstacles; finding the concrete method to success. He contrived his formula by providing the reader examples that represented his personal ideals and it’s attempted to solidify that they were common appearances throughout history. However, having concrete belief that his formula will work in every success story cannot be ascertained, especially when proving failures, as the examples he provided were very general. Through further inquisition and research many of Gladwell’s examples in Outliers counter themselves in regards to their adherence to his formula for success.

Malcolm Gladwell proposed a mission to find the answer to an obstacle that plagues the modern civilized man; crafting a concrete method to success. Thorough out history we have defined the path towards success to be paved by the individual; through his or her ingenuity, intelligence, and perseverance. Gladwell’ personal opinion about the formula for success is voiced indirectly through his specific real-life examples. His assertion is that with ample amounts of hard work, creativity, personal belief, and intelligence anyone can succeed at shaping the world. To take his statement at face value one needs to realize that it is a generalization of the