Outliers Gladwell Analysis

Think of something you are passionate about. Is it a skill that you are able to push yourself in? People are always told that with enough hard work you could become a master of that skill. Even without natural talent, enough hard work at a skill will eventually build up the ability. By constantly pushing oneself past their limits during practice, they can improve quicker than someone who has the natural ability and doesn’t try. However, skill doesn’t always equal success. As Malcolm Gladwell states in his book The Outliers, luck plays a large role in the ability to obtain the 10,000 hours required to become an expert in a subject. However, many studies and even the researchers of the 10,000 hour study have rejected the rule outright. I disagree with Gladwell that 10,000 hours is required to become a master, and that luck plays a much larger role than he states.

Building upon the previous chapter, we begin to understand how all the right ingredients for achievement and success can be present, and yet they may never happen without a stroke of luck. Becoming an expert at some skill is earned by putting in hard work across several hours, approximately 10,000 hours. Being born in the right year, or time

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.

Practice isn’t the thing to do once you are good. It is the thing that makes you good. In the novel “Outliers", in the chapter “The 10,000 Hour Rule”, Gladwell introduces a theory that signifies that 10,000 hours is the approximate amount of practice time it takes for someone to become a master at something, and therefore likely to become a successful being. Gladwell backs up the theory by discussing a study that was performed around the 1990s by K. Anders Ericsson. In the study, Ericsson and his colleagues examined the long-term practicing habits of musicians at an elite musical academy in Berlin. Gladwell exposes the practicing habits of a few well-known successors to prove his theory such as, Bill Joy, The Beatles, and Bill Gates. Psychologist Michael Howe even applied the rule to Mozart, greatly considered a child prodigy.

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

After reading The Sports Gene and Outliers, it is determined that people become “talented” with practice and there is no such thing as innate “talent”. In Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, in chapter 2 it is said, “...10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert-in anything.” This supports the idea that people become “talented” with practice. The quote supports the claim because if it is being said that it takes 10,000 hours to master anything, it can be assumed that people do not have innate “talent”, but rather have a level of mastery over many hours of practice. It could be said on the opposite side of the argument that if it takes 10,000 hours to master anything, “ Why is there

Gladwell backs up his theory with examples of many people who are considered experts. Bill Joy, an expert computer programmer and creator of Sun Microsystems, achieved this status through years spent at the computer. Mozart was not considered an expert until he had been composing for ten years. Bill gates, a master of computer programming and inventor of Microsoft, programmed computers as much as possible in the seven years before starting his company. To achieve 10,000 hours, one must work for five hours a day for five years. Gates was well over that by this time. Gladwell brings additional examples in the chapter, and one thing is clear – it takes time to become an expert. It does not happen by coincidence.

Being great at something doesn’t guarantee success, and Gladwell states it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That’s why it is imperative to choose something that can make one successful to ripen into an expert in. An example would be a person becoming an expert at folding clothes. Just because that person became an expert they are more than likely not going to become successful from that particular skill. An example Gladwell gave was the Beatles whom spent an extensive amount of hours practising at Hamburg. Their talents were undefined and crude before they would go on to play for many consecutive hours at Hamburg. After they received 10,000 hours of practice they initiated a long and successful journey that led to their

“A theory of general psychology that states the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain. (Ericsson, K. A).”

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he says the pillars of success are hard work, location, and opportunity. Gladwell defines hard work as his 10,000 hour rule. I think his 10,000 hour rule has flaws. I found others that also argue about the 10,000 hour rule. Although Malcolm Gladwell’s formula offers many examples of successful people who put in 10,000 hours of hard work, he eliminates child prodigies or other people who are successful and quick to learn in under 10,000 hours.

In addition to his point about opportunities, Gladwell spends a chapter on hard work and its contribution to success. One of the most popular ideals from this novel is the 10,000-hour rule stating that to master a profession first you must practice 10,000-hours. He points out the specific research study by Ericsson explaining that “once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works” meaning that the difference isn’t a natural ability but a strong work ethic. From the top the huge factor that lets them achieve success is the practice and practice they complete (Gladwell 39). An actual example of this theory is about The Beatles and their continuous non-stop gigs lasting for more than the average timeframe. He wrote “by the time they had their first burst of success in 1964 in fact they had performed live in estimated 1200 times. Most bands today don’t perform 1200 times in their entire careers” showing that the abundance of practice the Beatles completed prepared them and helped the excel in their career. Gladwell informs the readers of the significance practice is on the overall success of an individual to add another aspect to the

Malcolm Gladwell supports his claim that in cognitively demanding fields there are no naturals, by writing interesting anecdotes that show examples. For example, the article contains an anecdote in talking about how Mozart’s earliest works were not outstanding; his earliest masterwork was created when he was twenty one years old, showing he had already been practicing for ten years and he had to practice to create his masterwork. Gladwell argues that even Mozart was not a natural. According to Gladwell’s article, he shares a story about the Beatles and how they played eight hours every day for two hundred seventy nights over the course of a year and a half. This evidence shows that they practiced long hours, and when they got to the United States they

Cote et al. (2007) points out the principle of the power law of practice, where great improvements are seen in the initial stages of practice, but the improvements level-off as one becomes an expert. This power relationship seems to be converted into a more linear relationship with increased deliberate practice. Violinists were studied, and time spent in deliberate practice was examined. By 18 years of age, experts accumulated 7,400 hours of practice, whereas intermediate-level performers had 5,300 hours, and lower-level performers only completed 3,400 hours. This linear law of practice seems to be generalizable to other domains, namely sport and chess (Cote et al., 2007, pp. 185). Although deliberate practice is very important, it is not the sole predictor of elite-level

Guitarist - french - iq witty statement. Gladwell’s book, Outlier, helps us understand that success is not simply a product of innate talent but that success is also intricately related to a person’s opportunities (or environment). His book outlines many examples why time, date of birth, and other unique factors add to success of an individual. Gladwell states: “practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good” (43). He believes that it is not just mere circumstance, it is practice which happens over time that makes an individual succeed. He believes in the 10,000 hour practice rule.--- This statement is not so convincing because I think it depends on other factors as well as practice to be good at