Wayne Gretzky skates down the ice with the puck, he fakes a shot, the goalie falls for it, Gretzky shoots, he scores! This is a common occurrence for Wayne Gretzky, a former NHL player who holds the record for most career regular-season goals (894), assists (1,963), points (2,857), and hat tricks (50). Most people would say Gretzky’s success all stems from his innate talent, but in “The Matthew Effect,” Gladwell argues that innate talent is not the only reason for success. He reveals there’s a much more surprising reason. In Gladwell’s chapter, “The Matthew Effect,” the controversial writer expertly asks rhetorical questions and uses charts and statistics to defend his claim that a person’s date of birth has a significant influence on their athletic and academic success.
One example that he talks about is “The Matthew Effect”. “The Matthew Effect” is shown through the Medicine Hat Tigers elite hockey team of Canada; if one was to look at the roster, which includes their birth dates, they would find something quite peculiar. Most of the players were born in the early months of the year, for instance, January, February, and March. The cutoff date for making the elite team is also January 1st; meaning that all the hockey players born close to the cutoff date would be enrolled for the next year and therefore, have a whole year on people born in December of that same year. Not only are the early month players physically developing more quickly, but they also get more practice, which causes them to be more successful than others and have a huge advantage. The same results also appeared in Czech junior soccer teams as the cut off date was also January 1st. Gladwell states, “...the Czech soccer coaches might as well have told everyone born after mid-summer that they should pack their bags and go home” (27). Overall, this effect helps contribute to Gladwell’s main statement about opportunity, which is that the opportunities presented to you stem from the month, year, or era you were born in, your culture, and your family background. Sometimes they are even presented to you just by luck but, with either case, to become successful, you must be able to notice your opportunities and then invest yourself in
Each of those opportunities continues to build, and they continue to gain the experience needed to become successful in their field. The hockey players that were born during a certain time of the year, January and February, to be exact, already had a greater advantage over the rest of the players born in any other months. This was because of the way the cut off is set in place for hockey at the elementary level. Those player, then, are a little older than the rest of the team, grow and mature a little faster, and become the better player. They then will be offered more opportunities, such as club teams, to continue their practice and eventually put in enough hours of practice to become a professional hockey
Malcolm Gladwell introduces his readers to his story by discussing an advantage several hockey players possess that cannot be controlled by the individual. In a roster that was provided with birth months, Barnsley, a Canadian psychologist, identified that, “in any elite group of hockey players—the very best of the best—40 percent of the players will have been born between January and March” (qtd. in Gladwell 22), and the percentages decreased as the months reached the end of the year. What
In Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, his central premise is that success is not obtained the way most people think it is. We are often told that success come from sheer luck, or a triumphant rags-to-riches story. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of many successful outliers such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, The Beatles, and many more. He breaks down each story and points out what actually made that persona successful. While breaking down the story her also introduces the reader to what he believe are the actual keys to success. In the book he talks about The Matthew Theory, The 10,000 hour Rule, Practical Intelligence vs Analytical Intelligence, and Demographic Luck.
Chapter 1 refers to the Bible that states that those who have will be given more while those who have not will lose that which they had. During chapter 1 Gladwell talks about the certain leverage children and sports players have in school just because they were born in a beneficial section of the year. That led them to have a positive influence for their life that only helped the more though ought there life from there. Gladwell had analyzed a comparatively unique statistic about the Canadian professional hockey leagues: 10% were born between October and December, 20% between July and September, 30% between April and June and 40% between January and March. His interpretation for this bizarre statistic is elementary: the cut-off birth date for trying out for hockey in Canada is January 1st. remarkably, from his statistics if you turn ten on January
“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.” As seen above, Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers revolves around success and the constituents influencing it. His quote above wraps up the overall theme that drives this book; success and the things that make success happen the most. Gladwell argues in Outliers, that success can be derived mainly from opportunities that the everyday person does not encounter. For example, bill gates creating microsoft, athletes becoming famous because of the month they were born in so on and so forth. To me, success does not rely on one’s opportunities. Instead it comes directly from individual merit.
Throughout the process of how Canadian hockey sport selects their top of the top hockey players for the Memorial Cup, Gladwell proves that these top players are successful not only because of their hard work but also because of the advantage of the earlier birth month which give them more opportunity in the competence compared to others who was born in later month of the year. Gladwell argues that the inequitable “cutoff date matter” as in “other […] areas” (33), for example in education. He urges that our society need to change the way we think of success in which “we miss opportunities to lift others” (32). He also suggests that education system should change to let children “compete” each others whose don’t
In Chapter One of Outliers, Gladwell focuses on the way in which people who are born early in the year have advantages in certain areas over those born later. He discusses the fact that professional hockey players are disproportionately born early in the year. He says this is because they are the oldest children in their youth hockey leagues and most of the players are born in the first part of the year. They will be bigger, stronger, and better-coordinated than those born later in the year. As a result, they will get more attention, more coaching, more reinforcement, and more self-confidence.
How does one reach success? In the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the main perspective of the novel is that success does not come from an individual simply by being lucky. In fact, success roots from our history, the environment we surround ourselves in, our values, and our cultural legacy. Every human being has the option of becoming successful despite a person’s disability, or the background a person comes from. Success is a gift. Gladwell describes what outliers mean to him, “Outliers are people who have been given opportunities and have the strength and presence of mind to seize them” (Gladwell 267). Malcolm Gladwell explained that often people are categorized into different groups of talent. Naturally, the group
Gladwell hints to his purpose of his book in demonstrating how hockey players are chosen for the nationals. The author sheds light on his view point of success: “cling to the idea that success is a simple-function of individual merit as a society don’t matter at all” (33). He addresses the issues in
In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell attempts to prove that success is based on more factors than the general public believes. While hard work is important to the prospering of the very successful, the sheer circumstances presented to those individuals gave them a far greater chance of success than their peers. Through the use of statistical analysis, very well organized writing, and many quoted authority figures, Gladwell exemplifies his phenomenon very clearly with little ambiguity.
n this psychological non-fiction book, Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, he explains several different strategies and methods to achieve success. He is a firm believer in potential and opportunities; and that making the most of those opportunities is what ensures results. He focuses on time and opportunity as being significant in realizing potential, and believes in the motto “practice makes perfect” and refers to the “10,000-Hr Rule," in ensuring mastery of a skill. Gladwell discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. He also 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 is also a major component that implies being in the right place at the right time, which brings the author to discuss Bill Gates who was born during the time where programming and computer technology was emerging, therefore sparking his interest in computers, later bringing him to create Microsoft. Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion
Most people normally bring about personal qualities when they think for the main components of success. However, Malcolm Gladwell, a famous writer, contradicts the assumption of people through the book, Outliers. Gladwell insists that extrinsic factors define success rather than the personal qualities. Nonetheless, Gladwell himself goes against the topic of Outliers in his assertion about hard working “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires”. Although people should work hard to seize the opportunity for success, success actually came from extrinsic factors because opportunity of relative age gives physical and emotional advantages through appropriate timing for birth, opportunity to raise under the concerted cultivation increases one’s practical intelligence, and opportunity to fulfill 10,000 hours of practice guarantees time to achieve success at every field.
A..In 1962 BMW introduced the 1500 series and was the start of a completely new model range - a compactly styled, sporty alternative to the spacious luxury saloons. The four-door saloon was the foundation for the "New Class" of BMW automobiles that were as convincing with their sporty driving performance as they were with their availability of space. The BMW 1500 was a medium-size car for the entire family - and a role model for the later vehicles of the 3 Series that was to be equally successful.