Alex Reine
Ms.Stroud
English III
3/5/17
Book Summary
In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to answer, What makes some people successful while others cannot seem to realize their full potential? In U.S. society, people are considered successful when they have traits and characteristics: self-sacrifice, intelligence, talent. However, He says that the conditions and circumstances surrounding our lives are the significant influential factors that determine our success, not our inner ability or talent. These talents and abilities allow these people to be separate from society. Part One examines opportunity as a function of timing. Canadian hockey players born closer to the magic birthday of January 1 have advantages that compound over
…show more content…
Outliers as a total book describes how success can be achieved and how successful people make it. This passage uses speech that in turn describes how people are like trees and uses seeds to describe the way they are planted and made. The way people live their lives in turn gives a better future. The passage also talks how sunlight can help people grow and make a new life for everyone. Gladwell uses speech like this throughout his novel to show the contrast between people and plants and how life can be simple. We can bring to a new beginning and create our own future by uses the terms and object he uses in this book. To see how to live your life to the fullest we have to start by planting ourselves in good environments and use the advantages we have to the fullest.
Vocab
1. compatriot a person from your own country
2. egalitarian favoring social equality
3. ethos the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era
4. quarry animal hunted or caught for food
5. array an impressive display
6. meritocracy a social system in which power goes to superior intellects
7. virtuoso someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field
8. menial used of unskilled work, especially domestic work
9. parentage the kinship relation of an offspring to the parents
10. patronage the business given to an establishment by its customers
11. algorithm a precise rule specifying how to solve some problem
12. innate present at birth but not necessarily hereditary
13. gawky
Success is measured differently by every person and each and every culture. The journey to success in most cultures, however, is generally idealized in the same way: one person working harder than everyone else to achieve his or her goal with their own merits as their only advantage. In Outliers: The Story of Success, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, argues about how wrong that ideology is and the truth behind successful people. Throughout his guide, Gladwell employs the help of many argumentative techniques to convince the reader of his message.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is the story of success. It is the story of what it really is that makes certain people successful. The book delves into the science of how exactly people climb their way up the latter of success in a way that is new to our society with an idea that is well supported and very logical.
Vince Lombardi, a great American football coach, and player, once stated that the “dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success”. According to Lombardi, hard work will get you to where you want to go, and many people would agree. In Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” secrets and misconceptions about success are exposed and explained. Gladwell was right in saying that “if you work hard enough and assert yourself...you can shape the world to your desires”, as evidenced by examples from the book itself, the successful career of Serena Williams, and my own personal story (Gladwell 151).
Although Outliers: The Story of Success may not be the most appealing topic at first sight Malcolm Gladwell creatively wrote this masterpiece providing various stories of successful people and many stories that provide the reader with a different outlook on life. The book provides an epiphany of ideas
Another reason that I feel Gladwell is a credible author for Outliers is because of his mother’s occupation as a psychotherapist. There is a possibility that his mother’s findings influenced his ideas, or perhaps her occupation influenced him all together to research such sociological and psychological topics.
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
In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the concept of success is reintroduced and retaught. Gladwell’s narrative style is richly immersed in great descriptive detail, which provokes interest as the reader relearns the idea of success.
While the author, Malcolm Gladwell, does not dispute that hard work in a necessary component, we learn that many factors, lucky breaks, and some coincidences all occur in making high achievers into true outliers. We also learn that many of the richest, most famous, and most successful people in
Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell 's examination of what makes some people excessively more successful than others. These "outliers," as he calls them, are commonly thought to possess talent and intelligence far above that of the average person, but he challenges this popular belief by looking at the background of some notable outliers.
Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, and the essay Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, interact with each other quite well with many similarities and differences. In Gladwell’s book, he shares many stories of how people become successful, explaining that success is not achieved based on the character traits and work habits of an individual. He says, “We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots…” (Gladwell, 20) Gladwell insists that success counts on where an individual comes from and all aspects of their life. However, in Self-Reliance, Emerson never mentions success. He explains the importance of individualism and free thought. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.” (Emerson, 9) Emerson argues that everyone should go out and seek the life that pleases them, whether that is success, or not. Despite the differences in the two texts, in their writings, both authors show how individuals can step away from the rest of society and become outliers.
Teens today could improve upon so much to get a better chance to become more successful in life. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that a child’s performance level for anything has to do with their culture. He says that people of Asian descent will focus more and try harder when they do not understand something. He also talks about how constantly practicing can make you master a skill. If teens can use ideas that Gladwell talks about they can become more successful.
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
Is it coincidental that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Joy and many other multi-millionaires were all born within a span of 3 years? Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, suspects that there is something more behind this occurrence than just a simple coincidence. He asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man and success does not come from natural talent, rather it comes from extraordinary opportunities and hidden advantages. In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to debunk the myth that people are successful because of themselves, and not because of other factors. Even Malcolm Gladwell acknowledges that passion and hard work are required to succeed. However, he believes that this passion and time to put in the work would not be possible without the aid of extraordinary opportunities. Gladwell prepares a firm set of logical arguments, including the advantages of birth dates, cultural legacy and family backgrounds, to guarantee that his audience will be convinced of his conviction.
Lastly, Gladwell incorporates the audience’s interests to appeal to them in an emotional and engaging method in the subject of the argument, success. The goal for many is to be successful in their specific craft, and even from the title Outliers: The Story of Success Gladwell advertises his own story of success, and the audience believes if they follow the methods that successful people use then they will be successful too. Gladwell gives testimonies of people that would be predictably successful but never made it far due to not having a community to support them to open opportunities. He describes Chris Langan’s lack of credibility and success despite having a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and before he lets Langan describe a typical day
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book with very insightful and intriguing information that is important for all people with professional careers to understand. It allowed me to understand the importance of success and how that success will be achieved. Success will never be achieved by taking short cuts or beating around the bush. It is accomplished through hard work and many hours, just as Gladwell explains in his book.