Essay On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Outlier is defined as “something that is situated away from or classified differently from a main or related body” or “a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample”, which is the beginning to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. The meaning of outlier itself in relation to success symbolizes those who stand out with exceptional rates of success. The book does not necessarily cover how to become an outlier (in fact it first deams becoming an outlier is nearly impossible) but more which are the factors that have contributed to certain outliers in history on a broad spectrum of hockey players to the beatles to even the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

Audience: Outliers answers the unanimous question about those who become successful and “what they’re like”, “what makes someone successful?” or “what are successful people like?”. Gladwell directs his book towards an extremely broad audience. He talks about financial success, musical success, athletic fame, and everything in between, interesting everyone because who does not want to be successful? Outliers teaches lessons that are beneficial to people of all ages, and shows the readers what it takes to make it to the top.

In the number one National Bestselling book, “Outliers- The Story of Success”, by Malcolm Gladwell, he conveys a message to the readers that our societies views of success are flawed. What do you think of when you think about “successful people”? I am sure a few words came to mind- rich, famous, accomplished, smart. An outlier is defined in the book as “something that is situated away from or classified differently from a main or related body” (Gladwell 3). An example would be the red apple we see on the back of this book.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, talks about the different ways to obtain success and what to attribute it to. In his 10,000 hour rule chapter he argues that a person must but in at least 10,000 hours of work with their interest in order to be successful. In the chapter, Marita’s Bargain he argues that there has to be opportunities and one has to work hard to take advantage of them. Gladwell uses the example of Bill Gates to exemplify his 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell uses the example of a girl in a rigorous charter school

Although I have lived in America, I still feel infinitely grateful for my birth country, China. As Malcolm, Gladwell writes in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Chinese is innate born with diligence since the thousands of their ancestors have been working on the rice paddies days and nights to cultivate the corps, in the hope of earnning the fortune to the whole family. They believed that work hard, and the reward they will attain will respectively increase. This iron rule could also efficiently apply to Chinese education. Since China is a developed country, a large part of its population struggle to make a living under the average line of poverty, therefore it has a high demand on elite, with which to progress the whole society in all

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

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).

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, a novel depicting success, provides different examples of how an individual can achieve success in every chapter of his book to show his audience that success, despite a variety of barriers, is in fact in our control. A very important chapter titled, “Marita's Bargain”, explains the flaws in today’s public school systems. He shows the problems with the solutions to fix them while showing the alternatives to the regular system such as the KIPP Program in New York. The KIPP Program (Knowledge is Power Program) is a new kind of middle school that selects students from less fortunate locations and uses unique teaching strategies to turn them around into fantastic learners. In the chapter, Gladwell is extremely descriptive by using visual words to paint the picture of the South Bronx in New York City. He describes the buildings that were built in the 1960’s as squat and bleak looking. Gladwell had an interest in this subject as it involves success, however he had no prior experiences to produce the piece. Gladwell establishes personal credibility through the use of knowledge, reason, and facts and figures. He comes across very knowledgeable on the subject presenting great data with excellent vocabulary. He is able to do this with no obvious bias as well. Gladwell shows authority because he is well known for writing novels that involve success. His intention is to teach and explain how schools need to change the length of vacation breaks

In Malcolm Gladwell's national bestseller "Outliers", Gladwell makes many intriguing assertions, one of them being "If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your imagination, you can shape the world to your desires." This statement is indeed authentic. When one is privileged with extraordinary talent and yet incorporates time and effort to improve it, that person is destined to succeed.

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.

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell observes that professional hockey players are likely to have birth dates closer to January, because leagues follow the calendar year. Gladwell theorizes that for children’s hockey teams, coaches tend to select the largest players to be on the better team. The largest players are often the oldest children and thus, those children with birthdates near January. These children receive better coaching, face stronger competition, and ultimately, have a better chance at becoming elite athletes. Gladwell recognizes how early childhood experiences can have a domino effect on future life outcomes.

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

I am a very determined person and I am so competitive it's almost unhealthy. I have always been determined to be the strongest, be the best, be someone people won’t forget. I haven’t ever been the best until I was determined to be better than everyone else. Everything to be in a competition, I try to lift more than people, be faster than people, get better test scores than people; no matter what it is, I want to be the best. According to the book “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell, “it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field”

The notorious stereotype that Asians are good at math seems like a derogatory statement saying that no other culture can compete with the advanced math skills of an Asian. Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers The Story of Success gives insight to how a person’s cultural and family background has a much greater influence on a person’s life than is perceived, specifically their intellect. For example, Asian students have a greater advantage over the rest of the word on the TIMSS test, a test which is taken by students across the world. Children from Singapore, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Japan excell on this test; Gladwell makes several interesting and convincing reasons on why these Asian countries are able to do so. I strongly agree with Gladwell’s

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.