Essay on Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

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.

The power of opportunity is emitted through the dark clouds of unique mystery that surrounds every successful individual. In the novel Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses subjects pertaining to opportunity and legacy through the use of stories and analytical statistics. Consequently, he achieves credibility and support for his message, while simultaneously providing a more insightful approach to mysterious correlations that commonly occur. Within these correlations, the author implements an unusual predicament, then derives a powerful theme. For example, when discussing the birthdays of successful hockey players, Gladwell explains the significance behind the notion of seizing the day. He articulates the value found in people who are able to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities they are blessed to have as a result of circumstances; thus, disproving the popular idea that successful people are purely self-made. Gladwell closes out the section by discussing one’s opportunity. He states, “Their world- their culture and generation and family history- gave them the greatest of opportunities”(Gladwell 158). Furthermore, he bridges the novel together by

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

Malcolm Gladwell insists throughout his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that the recipe for achievement is not simply based on personal talents or innate abilities alone. Gladwell offers the uncommon idea that outliers largely depend upon “extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” (Gladwell19). According to Gladwell, successful men and women are beneficiaries of relationships, occasions, places, and cultures. The author draws on a different case study in each chapter to support a particular argument concerning success. Despite his indifference and suppression in regards to counterarguments, Gladwell’s claims are effective for many reasons, including through the accounts of experts, tone and style of writing, and the

“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.

In the book, Outliers, the Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell discusses “outliers” and uses many examples of success. This book expresses the many ways in which “outliers” are different from the “ordinary.” Gladwell explores the factors that influence and help people in their journeys to success. The factors expressed in this book include: their culture, family/parents, their background, and especially their personal experiences that have had major impacts on their life. Gladwell stresses that it’s not only about a person’s hard work for the success, but also about the things that helped them to grow and succeed in the first place. He uses many examples of people who are considered to be outliers and their stories of success and what helped them achieve that success.

Malcolm Gladwell defines an outlier as an individual who has accomplished so much in extraordinary circumstances compared to people with normal circumstance. Outliers are individuals that succeed in life despite the odds that are placed against them. However, Gladwell states in his nonfiction book Outliers: The Story of Success that the success of an outlier “is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky- but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier in the end is not an outlier at all,” (299).

Malcolm Gladwell, in his novel entitled, “Outliers,” explores the landscape of success and shows us that success comes from the culture that surrounds the successful , not their intelligence and ambition. Gladwell explains this through a series of situations and studies. In Part One, he discusses success as a result of timing, such as the month or year you were born. In Part Two, he focuses on cultural legacies and how they play a role in helping someone become successful. He unfolds the reasons why hockey players are not born in the latter part of the year, why the Beatles and Bill Gates were able to become so successful, and why Jewish immigrants were able to become successful lawyers and doctors. Gladwell disproves many beliefs by discovering

Typically used for college sports, redshirting is now being applied to the American education system to kindergartners. In the book “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell, redshirting (being held back a year to have some sort of advantage) happens when Gladwell goes into the sport of Canada: hockey. Gladwell continued on about redshirting by comparing all the players on the team and how all/most of their birthdays were in January, February, and March. He went on to explain that players with “cutoff” birthdays were going to be “ahead of the curve” because the will have the advantage if they are redshirted. This is not fair to the younger and maybe more talented kids for team selection.

Outliers-The Story of Success is a sociological, and psychological non-fiction book, which discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. Malcolm Gladwell explains this by dividing the book into two parts, opportunity and legacy. Opportunity discusses how select people are fortunate enough to be born between the months of January through March, and also includes the idea that those who are already successful will have more opportunities to improve and become even more successful. The 10,000-hour rule proves the idea that in order to become successful in a certain skill, one must have practiced that skill for at least 10,000 hours. In addition to the 10,000-hour rule, timing

Since the around the 1980s parents have worked to make sure that their kid has the upper hand. Redshirting to help your children does not help but hurt your children in the long run. Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell gives many theories into why people are successful and what they did to be that way. He Tells us why Canadian hockey players born in the first three months are the most successful and skilled. He claims that this theory pertains to the American education system as well.

The Concept of The Self-Made Man Throughout the course of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he reiterates the claim that, “there's no such thing as a self-made man and that super achievers are successful because of their circumstances, their families, and their appetite for hard work. " This controversial statement is one of which many tend to agree with, although it could be noted that one’s natural ability may also contribute to instances of higher achievement. Gladwell expertly expands on the evidence which assists and supports his declaration throughout the novel. Though the author’s ideas are well founded and possess significant clout in their veracity, one’s circumstances alone do not dictate their success. Both Chris Langan and Robert

Often times whenever we are presented with information as human beings we tend to automatically assume that it is correct. When we hear about a murder on the news or see a missing child in the newspaper we never question ourselves about whether it is real or not. A Lot of information we receive has been edited and manipulated to fit whatever mold the presenter deems fit like in the book outliers. I agree with Machiko Kakutani because in the book outliers Malcolm Gladwell presents evidence that seems to perfectly justify his argument, which that “the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot”.(Gladwell 19) . All of the famous examples he uses are white men, and his points on cultural legacy tainted by his upbringing as a Jamacian.

Since John McGraw and Connie Mack were inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, only 21 other managers have accomplished the same feat. To put that into perspective, there have been a total of 697 managers since Major League Baseball (MLB) was made official in 1876. According to the “San Diego Reader”, in 2000, only 15,213 people had played in the MLB and as of 2016, only 217 players have been inducted. This means that a player is 3x more likely to make the Hall of Fame than a manager is. It comes as no surprise that more experience with a task, the easier that task comes to the individual. Malcolm Gladwell writes about the 10,000 hours rule in his famous book “Outliers”. To summarize this means that an individual cannot become an expert on something until he or she has practiced for 10,000 hours. In the past two MLB off seasons there have been 11 manager changes. Six of these changes have given birth to six first-time MLB managers and five have gone to returning managers. There is a new trend or thought process is that the manager is not that effective. This comes from the idea that a manager often does not come in with a new system like coaches in other sports may. Often in the MLB, a manager’s impact may not been seen day in and day out. Also a manager’s experience will not deteriorate his effectiveness with age, whereas a player’s effectiveness often declines at the end of his or her career. However a manager’s experience cannot physically go

People raised in other countries will bring their cultural assumptions with them. In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argues that how much we look after of ourselves depends partly on our cultural background. Individuals show different degrees of independence. Based on cultural variations, people have different understandings in independence. I agree with Gladwell that cultural legacy influences how independent people try to become.