...Malcolm Gladwell was born to Joyce and Graham Gladwell on September 3, 1963. When he was six years old, his family moved from England, his birthplace, to Ontario, where his father taught at a university nearby. Since a young age, Gladwell expressed interest in reading and literature, and accompanied his father during trips to the library. During his teenage and college years, Gladwell enjoyed conservative politics and highly respected William Buckley and Ronald Reagan (Encyclopedia Britannica). He was also a good runner and won a 1500 meter race in his high school. Gladwell graduated with a degree in history from Trinity College, the University of Toronto in 1984. He couldn’t move on to graduate school because his grades were below average,...
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...Author to the book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell’s main argument in regards to success is simple. Our standards for success are not achieved through the efforts and qualities of only one individual, but through environmental factors, family history, cultural background, opportunities, and 10,000 hours of practice. Gladwell writes, “But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities” (Gladwell 55). Gladwell thoroughly emphasizes his claims throughout his composition. He gives comprehensive analyses of selected successful people and dissects their lives. He points out how these people were raised, what opportunities they had, and how much work they put in. Malcolm Gladwell’s...
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...Katie Yang Outliers Book Review Honors Psych - Galovich 10/20/14 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell often discusses a common topic in respect to sociology and psychology: the unusual applications of research in social phenomena. Since a young age, Gladwell has been an ambitious person. His childhood spent wandering around the university where his father taught sparked Gladwell’s passion for reading and discovery. After graduating from college, Gladwell desired to become a journalist or writer, stating that he wanted to “mine current academic research for insights, theories, direction, or inspiration.” Up until now, Gladwell has authored five books. The reason for his writing is due to his two interests: his enthusiasm for collecting...
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...Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell's examination of what makes some people 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. He mentions in the beginning of the book that people who are born in the beginning of the years, have a better advantage and has an extra boost of knowledge then those who are born in the later months of the year because the people born in the front of the year has a LOT of extra time to gain knowledge and grow stronger and bigger. But Gladwell challenges this popular belief by looking at more detail of some outsanding outliers. There are five main points in this book for success: 1. When you're born, 2. Timing. 3. Upbringing (how the child was raised). 4. 10,000 hours – it typically takes that amount of time to ‘master’ something. 5. Meaningful work (working hard. Having passion)....
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...People believe that being successful is a person's destiny, other people believe that this is determined by innate talent. Who's more believable? David Epstein, the sports gene author, argues that people are born talented and physical talent cannot be the same. The auto of the Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell believes that preparation is way more important than innate talent. Gladwell argues that people can become successful by practicing and hard work, Epstein does not agree with Gladwell's reasoning, therefore Malcolm Gladwell reasoning has move convincing evidence to support the claim. In the sports gene, David Epstein talks about how one high jumper is better that the other because of scientific facts. Donald Thomas was not an experiences...
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...In the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, the author believed time, place, opportunity, culture legacy, communication, and hard work are the key to success. He gave a lot of people's examples that provide the information on how people are successful in life. People have to exchange something in order to get their achievement. Gladwell was wrong to concluded that early birthdays and the airplane crash of Korean Air Boeing 707 effect people on their way to success. First, Malcolm Gladwell was fail to convince that the early birthday has an effect on people's success. I am strongly disagreeing with him at this point. Based on what I see in real life, a child who born late in the year might losing behind in physical at first, but they are still...
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...all successful people made it to success with the help of hidden and unhidden advantages. He backs this point up by giving evidence of advantages such as birthday, family background, and small windows of opportunity. Malcolm Gladwell's first advantage successful people have could be their birthday. This fact is obvious when comparing professional athletes. The most obvious example is in Canadian hockey Malcolm Gladwell's first advantage successful people have could be their birthday. This fact is obvious when comparing professional athletes. The most obvious example is in Canadian hockey where some children are pushed above others unfairly with their hidden advantage that is their birthday. This correlates with success because it sets where they will be in terms of their team and the sports cut off dates. Malcolm Gladwell's second advantage successful people have is their family background. In the epilogue of outliers, Gladwell describes his ancestors lives and all of the advantages brought to him by those successes. He also points out that in New York many years ago, Italian people had an ancestral advantage of sewing skills that help them thrive in their new country. Gladwell will states, " Who we are cannot be separated from where we are from." This is very true also in terms of culture...
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...presented to the reader that there are not any successful self-made people, which is contrary to popular beliefs. The theory is presented in the book, Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), authored by Malcolm Gladwell. The theory is further defined by the premise that holds that success is enabled by a person’s culture, environment, when and where they were born, and a strong work ethic. These theories and examples of success are analyzed using the textbook, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills (2013) by Andrew DuBrin. Several examples are provided in this paper that illustrate and support Gladwell’s thoughts on opportunity and cultural legacy. Keywords: cultural legacy, success, leadership, Leader Member Exchange Model, in-group, out-group, cognitive factors, behaviors, task-related attitudesAn Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success The author of the book Outliers: The Story of Success, (2008) Malcolm Gladwell, leads us through several compelling chapters of discussion regarding selected individuals who are extremely intelligent, driven, some famous and ambitious. These are the characteristics of individuals that are perceived as being the highly successful members of our society. Successful individuals are termed as “outliers”, people who fall outside the normal acumen of human experience. Gladwell (2008) maintains that the way in which success is measured is wrong. Further, he argues that people are more a product of their environment,...
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...Elda Espinoza May 9, 2016 Sociology 101 Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell The Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell attempts to explain the reasons why people become successful in both controlled and uncontrolled environment. He uses different stories and studies to explain what makes a person who there are. For example, in chapter one Gladwell says that successful hockey players if born early in the calendar year this will make them stand out physically among other boys who are several months younger than they are. Gladwell says that over time, the opportunities that these players have has help them build up to make them better players. So, Gladwell uses a sociological perspective to try to explain the reasons for people's success. Gladwell’s primary objective in Outliers is to show that assumptions like these are often wrong. Gladwell argues that achievement and expertise don’t just happen, but rather they result from a combination of various things and sometimes seemingly superficial factors. For instance, he points out those athletes born in certain months, is older and bigger, receive more attention as kids, and therefore tend to achieve more success in sports. So if their born in January or July it can dramatically impact the chances of going on to play professional hockey, be a professional baseball, or a successful soccer player any where in the world. This can also be seen in a classroom setting, where the older kids in the class often test better than younger students....
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...OUTLIERS SUMMARY "Outlier" is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. It is basically anything out of the ordinary. Malcolm Gladwell started using that term in his book with same name to describe truly exceptional individuals who, in their field of expertise, are so superior that they define their own category of success. For Gladwell these individuals are outliers. He tries to understand the success of different successful people, such as, Bill Gates, Oppenheimer and even The Beatles. Looking into the lives of successful individuals, he helps us change the way we think about them. He claims that a large part of their success is not only because they had put in so much work and effort, but also because the right opportunities came along once they were at this expert level. Throughout the book, he mentions the “10,000 Hours Rule”, explaining that most people need around 10,000 hours to become an expert in their specific area. So basically, those who get good usually had the opportunity to practice. OPINION I found a video of Malcolm Gladwell talking about his book in an interview, which I believe is totally fascinating and really makes you think about the achievements of these successful people in a different way. It is clear that hard work and determination are often necessary, however, luck can also help you along. This fact can be illustrated with the comparison he makes of two bright individuals with different backgrounds;...
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...Haitham Mishal Engl 1A 0013 Prof. Nathan Connolly 28 November 2017 Outliers Homework #5 In Outliers, Gladwell conjectures why a few people have achievement path outside of measurable standards. These factual exceptions, accomplish at levels considerably higher than ordinary effective people do. One could state that Gladwell really alludes to his contention in the subtitle of his book. As indicated by his hypothesis of progress, it is the story encompassing a person that decides achievement considerably more so than a person's drive, knowledge or other individual attributes over which he states and explains in his book. In Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, as most well-known books managing examples of overcoming adversity,...
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...In the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell discusses several key aspects throughout the book that contribute to people becoming successful. Mostly, Gladwell argues that "hidden advantages", "extraordinary opportunities", and "cultural legacies" are the main factors that play a part in a person's level of success. So, due to these particular aspects that help make a person a success, not everyone is capable of becoming an outlier. People must have certain things working for them in order to become successful. A person must have "hidden advantages" working for them. They must have "extraordinary opportunities" that they are able to take. Furthermore, certain cultures have traits that are important in becoming successful, so a person's "cultural legacies" play a large part in the journey to success. In Outliers, Gladwell provides numerous examples of these key aspects being a part of a successful person's life, but are they actually true for every person that is an outlier?...
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...Outliers summary When it comes to success, we are taught from day one that hard work, perseverance and the will to succeed would overcome any obstacle. Every day, the stories of success can be shared and used to inspire others who hope to one day reach similar happiness. The extremely incredible entrepreneur who rose from rags to riches or the tale of the underdog sports team that surprised all competitors and won the championship are the stories that continuously drive the dreams of individuals and make success seem possible to all. But what if success was not attainable for all, regardless of work ethic and all other factors that may contribute to it. What if, based on predetermined occurrences, success was easier for some to obtain because of those occurrences? The Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell, is the author’s compiled study of success and how it very much so can be attributed to all of the normal factors (i.e. talent, work ethic, passion) but are also heavily influenced by the cultural and societal forces that give rise to opportunistic individuals. Through several cases of well known individuals who are deemed to be successful, we as a society easily fall into the myth that successful people are self-made. Gladwell writes that most successful people “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Gladwell’s definition...
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...In the book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, by Malcolm Gladwell, he reviews the lives of those people who have accomplished a lot and have been successful. Gladwell begins his book with the definition word "outliers”. According to Gladwell, outliers makes some people remarkably more successful than the other people. He thinks that these outliers are usually supposed to have talent and intelligence compared to an average and normal person. Gladwell shows these things by searching and looking at the background of some famous and remarkable outliers. Gladwell also takes an opposite view about how people achieve and manage high points of success. He states that definitely skills, abilities, knowledge and a lot of hard work are needed, and that success is also influenced by anyone. It means that people should look afar individual’s capability, excellence, worth, and value. In the first chapter, “The...
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...The debate of “How to become successful? ” is one of the core questions every person and every parents in this society has been curious of since the dawn of human civilization. Malcolm Gladwell's chapter two and three, “The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1 and 2”, of his best selling book “Outliers” tries to further justify his idea that there are various unseen factors are at play that can determine if a person becomes successful or not in his life. With these chapters, he takes a deeper look into “The Matthew Effect” with the help of two so called geniuses Christopher Langan and Robert Oppenheimer. Much like previous chapters “The Matthew Effect” and “ 10,000 Hour Rule” , Gladwell's ideas can be considered fairly paradoxical even to this day. Like what Gladwell says, today's society still believes that a high IQ level or the status Geniuses is a sure way a person achieves fame, wealth and success. To dis-spell this general view, he compares each Christopher Langan and Robert Oppenheimer's lives from birth to adulthood and how each of them differentiate from their family background, how they were raised, what they expect of the society and an authoritative figure, how they they dealt with any obstacles....
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