Outliers Malcolm Gladwell Essay

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.

A man most people know for his incredible but challenging basketball career, Michael Jordan, once said when giving tips on how to be successful like himself, “You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the levels of everything you do will rise. I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.” Although some may disagree and say that quality practices do not go hand in hand with quantity practice for successful people, I disagree. Successful people practice with a purpose: to be successful. Bill Gates had intentions of becoming successful when spending endless hours in the computer lab. The Beatles always had it in their plans to become better each performance when they would play eight hours a day in Germany. Based on evidence, it seems to be a pattern that a successful individual does have both a practice of quality and quantity in their vocabulary to mean the same thing. These individuals have therefore taught themselves hard work, because this idea of 10,000 hours of practice has allowed them to learn how to work for what they

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

The central focus of Geoff Colvin’s article, “What it Takes to be Great”, published in Fortune magazine, October 30, 2006 is research on things that makes a person great. Colvin notes that researchers were firstly curious why some people are able to go on improving while others can’t, that led to them to study elite performers. While many believe that having “innate” ability is the only key to achieving actually greatness in their field, the researches and Colvin conclude that greatness is achieved through “deliberate practice”. Deliberate practice involves: hours of consistent practice; the right way of course, continuously observing results, making changes, and having the right mindset. To support this argument Colvin shares information

One’s skills and talents define what someone does and how others perceive them. In Outliers, Gladwell speaks of the “10,000 Hour Rule”. He says that if one practices a skill for 10,000 hours, then they will master that skill. Some musicians, like the Beatles, are known for their music and their musical talent, because they practiced over 10,000 hours. Their musical skills help develop their identity and how others recognize them.

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

This rule is said to be the foundation and “magic number” for greatness and success. In order for one to truly be successful and reach a strong basis for having a good understanding in one’s career, profession, etc., they must have at least spent 10,000 hours practicing/doing/learning about whatever they want to be successful in. Gladwell provides many examples to support his concept. He uses examples of violinists and pianists, singers and musicians like the Beatles, and great programmers like Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steven Jobs, to help support his concept of the 10,000- hour rule. What Gladwell found in common with all of his examples, was that all of the violinists, pianists, musicians, and programmers, were successful because they put at least 10,000 hours into their work. Additionally, Gladwell found out that not only did successful people put 10,000 hours towards their particular area of interest, they were able to further in success because of great opportunities and a series of fortunate events like birth year, up-bringing, networking, and sometimes sheer luck, etc. that all helped to allow them to reach their 10,000 hours. Ultimately, Gladwell suggests that in order to succeed, one must put a lot of time and effort into whatever they want to be successful

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).

Expertise is something many people look at as coincidence. They see it as something that merely happens to someone. Malcolm Gladwell, however, studied how one attains this status. He proposed that it takes 10,000 hours of practice put into something to truly become an expert at it. Proficiency at a skill does not come automatically. It takes time and effort to really master anything.

The idea of practice makes perfect can be inspiring to those who want to succeed. However Gladwell mentions, “That’s on a par with Bill Gates getting unlimited access to a time-share terminal at age thirteen (Gladwell 66). Gladwell mentions that the reason most of these people are so successful is just luck. Luck and luck where opportunities are just thrown at someone. The 10, 000-hour rule does have the right point to tell people that hard work does pay off which it does. But, according to Gladwell luck can also just be the reason for success. How it connects to problem of extreme complexity is that the 10,000-hour rule shows that practicing for hours can help someone become an expert on a certain field but the complexity of reaching to the expert level does take time but also opportunities which revolves around internships or other opportunities s that can lead go success. The point that complexity can be a barrier to those who don’t get a lucky opportunity, but rely on their amount of hours of

Researchers who believe that practice create expertise are supported by the argument that it takes minimum 10,000 hours to become an expert in something and that amount of deliberate practice is the primary determinant of of skill level. They are also support by expert’s perceptual learning ability which comes from experience and and practice of the skill as those found in master chess players and professional basketball players. However, there are other research which does not go with the argument that practice alone can lead to expertise. Research with rotary pursuit task with identical and fraternal twin shows a limitation with practice alone. Although in the rotary pursuit task individuals rapidly improved their accuracy with the task

he subject of this chapter was that perfection can only be found after 10,000 hours of intense practice. There is no other way around it; this chapter really worked around the saying “practice makes perfect.” Gladwell made this clear to the reader by pulling examples from all different sorts of trade professionals: computer programmers, composers, chess player, musicians and billionaires. These people were fortunate enough to get life-changing opportunities that acted as the perfect platforms of practice that lead to the path of success.

Gladwell’s “Outliers” talks about a rule that if a person practice a thing for more than 10,000 hours can be the expert of it. However, both of the articles, “10,000 Hours May Not Make a Master After All” by Maia Szalavitz and Eric Levenson’s “Malcolm Falwell Defends Disputed ’10,000’ Hours’ Rule” by arguing against this idea through some facts and research results but not very effectively.

If you apply yourself to anything for a decent amount of time, chances are you will improve but not to the extent of success that Gladwell claims. According to research from psychological scientist Brooke Macnamara of Princeton and colleagues, “Overall, deliberate practice – activities designed with the goal of improving performance – accounted for only 12 percent of individual differences observed in performance.” (Princeton University, 2014) From my own experiences, and from additional research, I don’t agree with Gladwell’s theories that he outlines in the first and second chapters of Outliers as much as I believe it has to do with opportunities that arise and resources that you have available. The one thing I can say for certain is that if it was up to Gladwell I would be a master at his theories with the 10,000 hours under my

In a world where creating a mistake or not knowing the solution to an issue you are looked at as a failure and not someone who can be respected. In a society where mistakes are not accepted yet these authors portray the importance of practicing and making those mistakes. Learning how to master a specific skill like knowing how to maneuver a soccer ball, play the violin without a hiccup, and doing your job to the best of your ability takes time. With time you are capable of memorizing the skills and find what is harder for you and teaching a way to understand it for oneself. The profound authors Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote “10,000 Hours Rule”, Charles Duhigg writer of “How Habits Work”, and lastly Dan Coyle, who wrote “The Sweet Spot” all giving different perspectives on what is a possible route one could take to begin achieving mastery of a skill. Each kind of writing that is being presented by the authors use many different kinds of evidence to show the understanding of the topic of creating a habit, remembering the activities from memory, and lastly repetition and how it is engraved in the brain once it has been done many many times. Gladwell, Coyle, and Duhigg all explain how repetition is a key part of refining your skills. Humans have the ability to find something that they see as interesting and become good at it. This is only accomplished if using parts of steps from these authors experiences and studies.