Preview

Outliers Literary Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1235 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Outliers Literary Paper
Outlier is about how super-achievers like, for instance Malcolm Gladwell get where they are today. In Outliers, he inspects the wonder of high accomplishment, fantastic stories of triumph regularly ascribed to the steadiness, diligent work, and inalienable individual ability. Gladwell doesn't disown the need of inborn capacity, and he indicates diligent act as a significant element for triumph in any attempt. In any case he finds in these examples of overcoming adversity that components, for example timing, condition, and social legacy play an oft-disregarded yet basic part. Outlier is Malcolm Gladwell's tribute to these unsung models.
In a world where we think only the successful will succeed, that worship those who stand above the rest, and the concept of success that shouldn’t be hard to grasp. The first chapter called “Matthews Effect” is referencing to the biblical verse, “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Basically saying those who have much will get even more, while those who have little will lose even that small amount. As the story progresses on Gladwell goes in to the theory of what produces successful individuals and he uses Canadian soccer players to express that. Everybody has a successful role model that they look up to. We look up to them because they give us hope for success and an image of excellence. When you see someone else that is successful, shouldn’t it push you to want to be successful?
Gladwell expresses the complex system of the hockey leagues that spread across Canada. Children that begin playing hockey at a young age have a better opportunity to be selected for elite teams as they grow up. He examines why majority of successful Canadian hockey players are mainly born in January. The explanation for this is that the cutoff date is on January 1st, so being born before the cutoff date makes you play against someone who is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Outlier, Malcolm Gladwell argues an “opportunity” is the important key which lead people from one success to another success (5). He proves his point to the readers by an example that seems normal to a strong evidence about the “physical maturity” in which affect by the birth month gap (24). I agree with him about the meaning of an outlier who must “do things that are out of the ordinary” (17) and those “genuine outlier” hockey players “didn’t start out an outlier”, yet “he started out just a little bit better” (31). His viewpoint about those sport games not only precisely substantiate, but it also exactly justify the impact of family background that certainly affect individuals’ success. Gladwell makes me to realize that real life success…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A summary of Chapter 1 is a review of similar towns in Italy with much unlike life expectations and no obvious reason. Though the towns were only miles apart, the life expectancy in Roseto was surprisingly longer, than any neighboring town in the region, which makes Roseto an outlier, which is having exceptional accomplishments. The next chapter speaks about why the better athletes on Canadian teams where all born around the same few months. In a system in which achievement is based on individual worth, we would all assume the hardest work would convert to the best achievement. The fact this condition was just conquered by timing of birth and studies show that hidden advantage, namely being older and stronger than persons born later in the year of fitness brought permanent advantage, which produced Canada's most elite players.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The day the color barrier was broken in hockey. Although it was only two games it was O’ree’s time to shine. The Boston Bruins were down a man and needed a left wing so they looked at their farm team. A farm team is the minor league team that will make up the new NHL team. They saw that Willie was the best player on the farm team. Boston was playing the Montreal Canadiens. After the two games he played with Boston he went back down the minors. After a gap of about three years, Willie was drafted by Boston to play with them for half of a season. In the forty three games he played he had about twenty six penalty minutes. Most of them were because he was discriminated against, so he had a lot of fighting minutes. Willie scored his first NHL goal in the season of 1960-61 against the Montreal Canadiens. Don’t get confused that is also the team he played against in his first NHL game. After the half season he played with the Bruins, he went back down to the minor league and ended his hockey career with the San Diego Mariners in 1978-79. After his hockey career, Willie was offered to be the director of youth development for its diversity task force. The NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force is a non-profit program for children that encourages kids to learn and play hockey together.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Gladwell’s opening chapter of Outliers, he begins to tell us about where success comes from. Right away he makes clear that people do not come from nothing, to be successful, all on their own. He does this because you often here sports broadcasters say, “John Doe, came from absolutely nothing, to become this sports All-Start.” Gladwell uses the analogy of the tallest tree in the forest. He says that that tree does not get to be the tallest on its own. Gladwell reminds us that the sun was not blocked from that tree. That tree had no root damage from rabbits. That the tree was spared from a lumber jack. That tallest tree had help from many aspects of nature.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 243 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, reveals multiple stories on what makes people successful. These individuals achieved great things and their journeys to success were different than the average people, which made them outliers. An outlier is defined in a way that describes a person who achieves uncommon, but extraordinary things. In the book, The Other Wes Moore, the author, Wes Moore, had a journey full of success. Still, he grew up with no father, rough times at school, and even had encounters with the police. When his mother realized he needed an intervention, she sent him to military school. From there, he experienced a new environment and was surrounded by people who supported him. Later in life, he became a decorated veteran and…

    • 192 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Within Gladwell's books the prevalent theme of the little things comes up constantly. The Tipping Point being the book where it prevails the most. Gladwell believes that the little things define most of the outcome in life. When he begins the book he starts off with mentioning that economists talk about “...the 80/20 principle… the idea that… 80% of the “work” will be done by 20% of the participants’’. In daily life it can be found that the 80/20 principle takes place for example a group project or a job. The minority of the people do most of the work. This 80/20 is a prime example that the smallest things are what most matter as they change the outcome of the biggest events.…

    • 277 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gladwell mentions Bill Gates and how he was given so many opportunities to put in long hours for him to eventually create his company, Microsoft. There were so many factors that led him up to becoming a successful man, like his education or his location. There are a few others that Gladwell writes about, like Steve Jobs, yet his focus is on the amount of time that the individual puts into his or her work or even the opportunities. Gladwell then gives example of the richest people in the world, fourteen out of seventy-five names are from the United States, born in the nineteenth century. This is because this is when America’s economy went through a great period of transformation. Malcom mentions things like Wall Street or the railroads were being built during this period and many people benefited from that. Just like the nineteenth century, 1975 was a perfect year for a young person to excel with computers. It was at that time where computer technology was being advanced and they needed the right people to advance the programs, Bill Gates and Bill Joy were some of those people. They were born in the right time period and had put in the hours to understand and excel at what they were to do. Gladwell finally comments, “These are stories, instead about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    "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…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Outliers Analysis

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As I read Outliers, an excellent book by Malcom Gladwell also author of the Tipping Point one of my favorite marketing books I couldn’t help being reminded of the movie Good Will Hunting. There is a particular scene in the movie where Matt Damon, playing a poor teen from Southern Boston confronts a wealthy MIT student. Damon tells him, “You were born on third base and you think you hit a triple.” In other words, we often over-attribute our successes to our natural talents. But really, those talents and abilities came about through a series of explainable, fortunate circumstances that we should recognize, learn to use wisely and be grateful for.…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    outliers

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Many people believe that success has a direct correlation to one’s intelligence, ambition, and personality traits, but in fact, those are not what someone successful. As described by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers, the successful become that way as a result of many factors that come their way. Gladwell shows that surrounds the successful are their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experience of their upbringing. Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of success is correct because success not only need to intelligence and hard-working, and also social environment and opportunity as same as important.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Cesar Chavez

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Cesar Chavez was a civil activist who made it his mission to provide better pay and treatment for field workers. Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, believes in six key components that make an outlier successful: abilities, opportunities, passion, ten-thousand hours, cultural advantage, and community. Cesar Chavez maintained all of these elements of abilities and opportunities, passion and ten-thousand hours, as well as cultural advantage and community to complete his goal for field workers, which made him a successful outlier.…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The hockey game in the story “Rite of Passage” by Doug Beardsley represents the development of the narrator. He transitions from being an immature, clueless young boy who admires the hockey skills of those older than him, to a young man who is confident, skilled, and respected. The hockey games put the young narrator to the test, but throughout them all he gains the knowledge and ability to overcome the challenges…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chesterton juxtaposed these books with religion and chivalry, “They are much more wild than the wildest romances of chivalry and much more dull than the dullest religious tract.” He seems to think that these books are works of wild imagination, while at the same time boring because they don’t actually say anything. I don’t believe that all of the books on success is pointless because I have once read a book about success. As Chesterton stated this book was mostly about how did the successful people get to where they are right now, and if a person reads this and tries to mimic the path of a millionaire it would not happen. However, when I read the book like this I apply them to my daily life. As an example, when the book talks about getting rid of distractions I applied this to my sports, soccer. Before this advice, I always get nervous before and during the game, and that prevented me to play my own game. But, overtime I was able to stop listening to the negativities around me and focus on the game. Additionally, when read this kind of books as a kid it gave me excitements and hopes for the future. Specifically, when I read a book about a successful individuals I look at what colleges they went. These informations gave me the ideas of what colleges I want to go, and it encouraged me to work hard and aim for the…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays