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Self Profile Research Paper

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Self-Reflection Profile Essay
It was one of those rare hot summer days back in my home country Germany. My mother and I boarded an overcrowded Lufthansa plane at Frankfurt’s international airport, starting a journey that would have a lasting impact on my life. I was just 5 years old, but the memories seem as vivid today as the actual experiences were back then. It was my first trip to the United States of America. I remember loving everything about it, the people, the food, the smells, the sceneries. It felt like home from the moment I arrived. Today, I believe that this trip sparked a flame inside of me that grew bigger and bigger as I grew older. I became passionate about everything and anything American. It was as simple as watching a cowboy …show more content…

I felt connected to the United States at any given point in time. After finishing high school, graduating from a 3 year hospitality training program, being drafted into the German military and joining the workforce for approximately one year, I was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. I was asked if I would be interested to spend 18 months in the United States as a management trainee. That was the day when my childhood dreams became a reality. Over the course of my childhood and life as a young adult, I spent hundreds, probably even thousands of hours researching the United States. Some would have called it an obsession, I called it a passion. After reading Gladwell’s “The 10,000-Hour Rule” in Chapter 2 of Outliners, I cannot help myself but believe that his rule might have applied to my life at that time. I didn’t practice on an instrument and I didn’t program computers, but I dedicated an enormous amount of time to perusing a dream, and guess what, it became reality! Gladwell presents a very well structured and logical thesis in the second chapter which illustrates how only intense practice leads to mastery of a skill. Unfortunately he fails to deliver on validating any counterarguments and solely focuses …show more content…

Their introduction serves as generalization showing how his argument can be widely applied. Mozart, the Beatles and Bill Gates complement the introductory story well and “Build on substance, not overtone” (Anthony Weston, 2009, p.5) in an easy to follow order that appears almost natural. “The 10,000 Hour Rule” (Gladwell, p.35) starts to seems plausible considering Gladwell’s ability to “Use representative examples” (Anthony Weston, 2009, p.11) throughout the Chapter. The author repeatedly points out how each person of interest in the examples was exposed to lucky circumstances, allowing them to spend additional time on activities they would later succeed in, just like he did in the introductory section speaking of

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