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Essay about Upbringing vs. Success Rate

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Upbringing vs. Success Rate Malcolm Gladwell emphasizes the importance of the relationship between success and a person’s upbringing in Chapters 3 and 4, “The Trouble with Geniuses, Parts 1 and 2” of “Outliers.” This book attempts to help people understand what true success is, the value of it, and how the few people that actually achieve it get there. Gladwell’s theories helped me to realize that success is simply reaching your full potential in life by taking advantage of every gift and opportunity offered to you in order to make an impact on the world. In the opening chapters Gladwell mentions the importance of experiencing “extraordinary opportunities” (Gladwell 42) throughout one’s life to reach ultimate success. He also makes it …show more content…

Gladwell believes that “intelligence has a threshold.” (Gladwell 80) I agree with his opinion in that a smart person can only make it so far on pure intelligence before other factors come into play, such as the qualities and skills a person possesses. These skills are not inborn. One must be taught the value of certain qualities by their parents or guardians throughout their upbringing in order to put them to use as an adult. The study of the Termites ultimately proved that the most successful ones amongst the group did in fact come from stronger family backgrounds. Their parents were more affluent and provided their children with much more wisdom and guidance than those Termites who ended up not making it as far in life. Next, we were introduced to a man with a “one in a million mind,” (Gladwell 114) Christopher Langan. Langan has an IQ that tops the charts, presumably around 195. Genius level is around 130 to put this number into perspective. With this extraordinary level of intelligence Langan should be one of the most successful persons in America, leading an incredibly successful life; however, Langan currently lives on a small farm in Missouri with no more money than the average farmer. Langan had an extremely rough upbringing with no true father figure and hard-working mother who weren’t around her children as often as she would have liked. He was faced with numerous challenges throughout his childhood and young

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