Outliers Malcolm Gladwell Analysis

All children are not raised the same exact way. There are many different parenting styles, ranging from authoritative to neglectful parenting. Along with those many different styles also come many different opinions on which ones are better or worse for children. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that essentially looks into many factors that contribute to people's successes. In chapter four, Gladwell writes about how different parenting philosophies impact how successful the children will be when they are older. Gladwell claims that there are essentially only two main parenting philosophies, “concerted cultivation” and “accomplishment of natural growth” (Gladwell 104). Gladwell goes on to also claim that between those two parenting philosophies, children raised from concerted

In the book Outliers, the author Malcolm Gladwell elucidates that people have to practice for more than 10,000 hours or 10 years in order to fully become successful. People can achieve more regardless of not being financially wealthy. Even though some people that have practiced for less than 10,000 hours did achieve their goals, the majority of the successful people have practiced for more than 10,000 hours. Gladwell states that, “they work much, much harder” (39). and that they have to want to stand out from everyone else. I believe that very successful people are lucky, and have talent, and are willing to work harder than everyone else.

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).

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.

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.

From our readings in Outliers we’ve learned how difficult it is to succeed in life without hard work and savvy. Even geniuses have been known to underachieve if their intelligence fails to match a great work ethic. Other factors come into play as well that help those who have ascended in a field reach their potential” Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up.” (pg. 67 Gladwell) For those of us that lack the hidden advantages afforded to the wealthy, we look to education in order to bridge the gap between, what society deems as success and failure which presents its own interesting challenges. Being smart enough to excel in higher education

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,

Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell, is about how a person becomes successful and analyzes the factors that cause the success. According to the author, success is the combination of talent, deliberate practice, family environment, opportunity, and practical intelligence. These factors are complementary and influence each other. However, among the many factors of success, the only thing that can be controlled is the deliberate practice. Therefore, in my view, success is due more to deliberate practice.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell explores a variety of different success stories as case studies. Gladwell begins by explaining the definition of an outlier. An outlier can also be referred to as “something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body” (page 3). Therefore, this means that outliers can be a person, place, or even an event in time.

Malcolm Gladwell uses a particular structure in his book Outliers; each chapter consists of a backstory, an example, an analysis, and other stories. In Chapter 2 The 10,000-Hour Rule, he opens with the backstory of Bill Joy, a computer programmer who co-founded Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley. Starting off with a successful person is one of Gladwell’s tactics; he draws you in with a poster child for success. Also, throughout the books he uses engaging pop culture references: “the university’s enormous mainframe computers stood in the middle of a vast white room, looking, as one faculty member remembers, ‘like one of the last scenes in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. ”’(34) This approach helps tremendously with visualization, while simultaneously creating a correlation to the book and author.

Outliers Outliers is a story about how people become successful through various different theories, practices, and tests. I extremely enjoyed reading this story because it makes you want to change your actions in order to become successful. Outliers explains the various different methods and ways to achieve success. Whether that be the “10,000 hour practice rule” or the luck of a birth date, anyone can strive towards success. The story opens up about “The Matthew Effect” and why hockey players are born in the January, February and March months, while baseball players are born in the June and July Months.

Gladwell presents a strong argument for “concerted cultivation” in comparison to natural growth in his book Outliers. "The Trouble With Geniuses,” chapter two of Outliers He introduces us to new groups of “Outliers” which fall into the category of genius. In this essay I will define purpose, voice, audience and context used in the chapters describing the troubles related to geniuses.

Despite Gladwell’s many different theories of success, his claim that expertise comes with 10,000 hours of practice is not an accurate example of the complexity of success. Gladwell argues in Outliers that if everyone had the opportunity of time practicing, more people could become experts. Yet, the ‘10,000 Rule’ is not true from person to person. According to Dr. Fiona McQuarrie, 10,000 hours was only the average of the group that is considered to be experts, not necessarily the accumulated total of each person. One person can be an expert with less practice time than another. She states in her blog, “...the best violinist and the best pianists had accumulated an average of 7,410 hours and 7,606 hours of practice time respectively.” (McQuarrie)

Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1608-1618. doi: 10.1177/0956797614535810