In chapter 7 of outliers Gladwell talks about plane crashes in the 1990's in Korea. He says that there are far to many crashes that statistically should happen. Also since Korea was having way to many crashes other countries started to say that they were not going to let Korea fly over them or use their airports if they did not turn themselves around. With this threat Korea began to investigate the reasons for the plane crashes. They first tried to us common sense by saying it was the condition of the plane, the pilots were not trained properly and so on, but what they found out was that everything was up to code. So then they had to investigate deeper and look at other things and what they found out was it was the culture. The plane crashes…
A man slowly walks down a royal red carpet, he is wearing a black satin suit and has a handsome look on his pale face, but who is it, it’s Bill Gates. How did he become successful enough to walk this carpet? The truth is that he earned his way on the walkway for celebrities because he made a prominent identity for himself. Furthermore, Bill Gates rise to success is explained in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. It is also explained that a person’s identity is developed due to the key opportunities and talents that are acquired over a lifetime.…
The amount of Final Destination movies that I’ve watched will always make me anxious in airports, even if I know the movie is pure fiction. While reading Gladwell’s theory in Outliers about plane crashes being a result of poor communication and seven consecutive minor human errors (184), I could feel my heart racing. I felt so frustrated because I felt like all of it could’ve been prevented. For example, Klotz using the word “ah” while telling the ATC that the plane was running out of fuel made me so angry because this was a crucial moment, but he wasn’t taking it seriously (193). Gladwell explains this behavior as “mitigated speech” because he’s downplaying the moment while talking to an authority (194).…
The simplest way to describe the “Matthew Effect” is to say that the good will only get better and average will remain average. Gladwell supports this claim using sports examples and asserts that success is not based purely on talent, but rather a combination of talent and other uncontrollable factors, such as opportunities and rules determined by society. He supports this claim by describing the process of how hockey’s All-Stars are chosen. Gladwell explains that because of how the age cutoff dates (a rule set by society) in the hockey leagues are set up, the bigger players are cultivated and receive more attention than the smaller players and therefore, become more skilled. Whereas the smaller players, because of the age cutoff date, will…
Malcolm Gladwell's, The Matthew Effect argues the opportunity in the country of Canada. The piece argues that the opportunity of the setup of ages being placed by year is unfair. Malcolm shows the example of how boy’s hockey is even subjected to this. In Canada, looking at the statistics of best players, you can see that the boys born in January, February, and March make up 40% of the country's best hockey players. With this being said Malcolm discovers that the cutoff line for age class hockey is January 1st. From the statistics given it leads to the information that boys born in closer to the cutoff mark have more experience than boys who have a summer or fall birthday. Malcolm argues that this opportunity is unfair. Barbara Ehrenreich's,…
Outliers: The Story of Success is a book that examines the qualities and experiences of successful people in order to provide a blueprint for nurturing the human potential. According to the author, Malcolm Gladwell, human potential is not something one is born with but something that has to be shaped throughout one’s life course. Contrary to popular belief, having a high IQ or a lucky break are good opportunities to have, however, they do not contribute to an individual’s success alone. Gladwell realized that it took a combination of biological, personal, social, and environmental factors to help an individual reach their full potential. Examples of those factors that influence one’s success include timing of birth, area where one lives, family history, and culture. These factors make up concepts that Gladwell described as practical intelligence, social savvy, natural growth, and natural advantage. In addition to these factors, he discussed how anyone can succeed if they were willing to practice and work hard. He demonstrated this theory by researching the different stories of successful people and he found a common denominator, long hours of professional practice. He referred to this as the “10,000 Hour Rule. He mentioned that it took 10,000 hours or approximately 10 years of practice to perfect a professional trade. Outliers are successful people that are not your ordinary individual. However, the distinction of a true outlier can be attributed from the author’s recipe of success: the right combination of the different factors, practice, and hard work.…
Published in 2008, Outliers: The Story of Success is Malcolm Gladwell’s third consecutive best-selling nonfiction book, following Tipping Point (2000) and Blink (2005). While Tipping Point focuses on the individual’s ability to effect change in society, Outliers deals with the cultural and societal forces that give an individual a chance. Through a series of case studies, Gladwell insists that we have all too easily bought into the myth that successful people are self-made; instead, he says they “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.”…
Malcolm Gladwell in the fifth chapter to Outliers, "The Three Lessons of Joe Flom", argues that even if you were born into the lowest stature, poverty, and was given life in the wrong life, there is a small door of a slice of opportunites being given to the poorest. Gladwell supports his argument by illustrating several different people who were going through the same scenario as Joe Flom- being born into the poverty class stature- and were had difficulty trying to "fit-in" with society. Despite even trying to get to their goal, and failures, in the end, they did not give up because they had other mean's of alternatives to help out with their dilemma and quickly bail them out in dire times. The author's purpose is to show the aspect of how,…
"And that opportunity played a critical role in their success" (30 Gladwell). Many times, people will argue that if you want something, you can achieve it simply through hard work; however, that is not always the case. In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, he explains the significant amount of opportunities that successful people are given. Gladwell uses the example of Joe Flom to explain how timing is a huge factor in success. Early in his career, he was declined by a huge law firm, and had to settle for a firm that was just starting out. Even though this seems like a disadvantage, it turned into an opportunity because the new law firm turned out to grow into one of the best. Another example used in Outliers would…
In the passage “The Egalitarian Terror” , author Margaret Mead believes that many a lot Americans are confused about success.We admire other people's success and accomplishments that don't mean anything to us yet envy the ones that do. When a famous person wins an award people tend to be proud of them and celebrate their success but we show jealousy toward the ones that are close by.Despite what others believe, Margaret’s argument is reasonable, success is taken as a contest and a threat by our classmates, neighbors or friends however they are pleased by celebrities, politician or athletes success.…
In chapter Eight of the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claims that Asian people are more likely to develop and have better mathematical skills than Western people because of their cultural background. Gladwell explains how difficult it is to farm rice without advance equipment yet high percentage of Asian family handled to maintain and produce good quality of rice for years. Gladwell also mentions how farming rice requires about 3000 hours of care in a year which led to shaping Asian people’s personal qualities such as patience, motivation, and hard work. Gladwell then demonstrates how these cultural developed qualities encourages Asians to excel in math because they are more likely to put in hours and dedicate themselves to stick with math…
In chapters 3-5 in Outliers, Malcolm makes a very great point. People in this world tend to think that those with IQ's higher than 140 are the ones that are going to have great futures with jobs that will make them great income. Now anyone in this world would agree that those with high IQ's are intelligent, but just because they may be smarter than most people, does not necussarily mean that they are going to succeed in life. Having a high IQ does not define who you are, the way that you were brought up as a child has a lot to do with where you will end up in life. There is nothing about an idividual as important as his IQ, except possibly his morals.(Gladwell 75) This essay made me think about myself and what my furure holds. I know that my IQ isnt higher than 140, but does that mean that I will not graduate college and make myself known? No. My parents didn't go to college, but that just motivates me to do what they couldn't. Luckily I grew up in a home with morals, my parents taught me that oppotunity is everywhere and we must take advantage of it when we see it. Im not shy or anything, so that helps. I have goals that I will reach of becoming a great teacher. But we are all different. Some may have high IQ's with no morals, others may be average with a great imagination and morals. It really doesn't matter how intelligent you are, all it takes is determination and support from the people around you and I'm sure you will get somewhere in…
Malcolm Gladwel Analyses in his latest book Outliers , the circumstances that made some people successful . He shows another aspect of their self-made rise to success. Gladwell gives the definition of an outlier as an unusual person ‘classed differently from a main or related body’ (2008:3), in other words out of the ordinary. He argues that success is not in any case a matter of talent, but of practice, of social status, culture, and of being in the right place at the right time.…
In Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers, his goal is to convince the reader that “people don’t rise from nothing” and that “ we do owe something to parentage and patronage.” Although certain people’s success requires prerequisites of talent and knowledge. I agree with Gladwell that it is not solely because of these talents that these people are successful. However, their success most often is dependant on one’s past good fortune. For example, when or where one was born and raised, one’s cultural background and family legacies, one’s schooling, and many other factors, create opportunities for success where these talents can be utilized. Although some people are thought to have risen from nothing or to have gone from rags to riches, the fact is no one is capable of creating their own success without the help of others and good fortunes along the way.…
Is it true that wealth has a determining factor on one's success? Is it simply easier for a person with a wealthy background to be more successful? In order to answer these questions, we can analyze children's academic success within different socioeconomic classes. KIPP Academy is a public charter school that is located the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. What is different about KIPP is its success rate. In Malcom Gladwell's book, the Ouliers, he discusses KIPP's success, claiming that, "by the end of eighth grade, 84 percent of the students are preforming at or above their grade level" (parenthetical citation). KIPP is able to achieve this success through their rigor. Children that attend KIPP spend fifty to sixty percent more time learning than average public school students. KIPP children even spend an extra three months at school during the summer. This shows that with more time and opportunities, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are able to reach high levels of academic success.…