Rags To Riches By Malcom Gladwell: Formula Of Success
Formula of Success
(Hard Work)+(10,000 hours of practice)+(teamwork and Communication)x(Opportunities)(Intelligence)
1. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact 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. (pg. 19)
a. Malcom Gladwell wrote this book to show that “Rags to Riches” stories have more to them than just hard work and a good personality, he tells the reader that success is the product of cultures, opportunities, and many other hidden advantages. Not just one man and his desire to succeed. This book will teach the reader …show more content…
that if anyone wants to succeed they must use all the opportunities available to them. Mr. Gladwell later wrote that Bill Gates had many opportunities that allowed him to succeed. In high school he had unlimited, free time on a time-share computer. In 1968 that was almost impossible, if Bill Gates had not known about a programming language of ISI, and lived close enough to walk to Washington State University, and had been asked to help program a computer station, and also been able to temporarily skip school Bill Gates would never have become the man he is today. Without taking any and all opportunities available, one can never be successful.
2.
And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness...Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good. (pg. 41-42)
a. Practice makes perfect, a common idiom many have heard hundreds of times. However, Malcom Gladwell has said it better,” Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good”. This is one of the most important lesson Outliers will teach. Without the ten thousand hours or ten years of practice, one can never be successful in whatever art they strive to perfect. Without those ten thousand hours even the great Mozart hadn’t created an original masterpiece until 21 years of age, 10 years after he had begun composing, ten thousand hours after he had begun composing. The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. They had also practiced and performed for ten thousand hours in Hamburg, performing eight hours a day, seven days a week. Then when they returned to Liverpool they got better and better until, they became the Beatles that we know and remember. Practice is one of the keys to success, and without it success can never be …show more content…
possible.
3.
If we put the stories of hockey players and the Beatles and Bill Joy and Bill Gates together, I think we get a more complete picture of the path to success. Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented...That much is obvious. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities. (pg. 55)
a. This quote builds on the ideas of the first excerpt, opportunities. Opportunities make us who we are, if we accept them and use them as best we can we will become successful. If we don’t use them life will be ordinary, or worse. Additionally, Opportunities create our personalities, those who drew pictures and used any opportunity to do so at a young age love drawing now and probably participate in art competitions when the opportunity arises. By doing so their artistic talent increases, they get practice. and as they win those competitions they become known, if at first throughout their school and later at the county level and then the state and so on, until they truly become artists. Many successful artists probably went on that path. Bill gates path wasn’t all to different, first he developed an interest in computing. His school had a terminal, unlike most colleges in the country, which allowed him to learn coding. Bill Gates took advantage of that opportunity. His family was wealth which allowed him to purchase usage time. As these opportunities piled up he became an authority and successful entrepreneur in
the computer business. Opportunities, as Malcom Gladwell has stated many times in this novel, are the building blocks to success.
4. Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help when you are faced with a formful of clever boys. (pg. 69)
a. What Malcom Gladwell means by this is that just being smart is enough. Take Albert Einstein, one of the most well know geniuses in the world, who has an IQ of 130. He had received a Nobel Prize for Physics, because of his extraordinary work in the field. And compare him to Chris Lagan who has an astounding IQ of 170, much higher than that of Einstein, but had been kicked of his first college and dropped out of his second and later had trouble finding a job. When we compare intelligent people, other traits are very important. Albert Einstein obviously had a certain characteristic that Lagan was lacking. Malcom Gladwell discusses a list of colleges that produced Nobel Prize Winners and surprisingly MIT, Yale, and Harvard are on the list just as much as Georgia Tech and the University of Florida. After a certain point having an IQ of 10 and one of 190 have no difference on the chance of success.
5. If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind, and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (pg. 151).
a. This quote from Mr. Gladwell tells of the importance of hard work an effort. Without hard work Steve Jobs could never become the CEO of Apple (if only for a short time after being kicked out) without hard work. All those hours designing, programming, building tinkering, tweaking just to make one computer in his garage until finally he had others to help him, and finally a factory and enough demand to constantly be working on a new product. Without hard work many outliers in this book could never be what they became. Hard work truly does pay off.
6. The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication. One pilot knows something important and somehow doesn’t tell the other pilot. One pilot does something wrong, and doesn’t catch the error. A tricky situation needs to be resolved through a complex series of steps- and somehow the pilots fail to coordinate and miss one of them. (pg. 184)
a. Lacking or miscommunication and teamwork are the main reasons planes crash (terrorist attacks aside), as Malcom Gladwell explains, if a mistake is made you need to tell others and attempt to fix it. Epically when lives are at stake. But this problem is common in many areas. One year ago, I had participated in a robotics competition and had won, later because the other members had not communicated, one had disassembled the robot. Because of that the rest of the season we had done poorly because of the lack of time to build a good robot and our team work waned because of the frustration ensuing. The ability to Communicate clearly and work well with other people are necessary skills for success, being a CEO of a company requires one to have good communication skills to clearly lead the company with hundreds of people to all work together and know exactly what to do. If the CEO of a company I had worked for told me to think of a new innovative product, I might think of a way to use drones as a taxi service, but the company I am working for deals with toiletries and bath products. Then I would probably get fired. Teamwork is also important, if I was a leading a team to prototype a drone taxi I had come up with on my previous occupation and had unluckily got stuck with boisterous people. I couldn’t just tell everyone to leave and work on the Drone myself. I would have to improvise and talk the others in to helping and playing their part.
7. No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich. (pg. 294)
a. Building on a prior lesson, Malcom Gladwell included this quote to teach a very important lesson. If you can wake up before dawn and work on a field until dusk, then do the same every day without slacking. Hard, meaningful work for 12 hours, like the rice paddy farmers in china, could make anyone successful. Another good quote is, “Working really hard is what successful people do, and the genius of the culture formed in the rice paddies is that hard work gave those is the fields a way to find meaning in the midst of uncertainty and poverty. That lesson has served Asians well in many endeavors but rarely so perfectly as in the case of math.” (pg. 239). This excerpt also teaches a similar lesson. Without hard work, no matter what the circumstance, success is impossible. Those rice paddies in china still need to be worked on, even in rain, snow, and drought. In the formula of success hard work is the first monomial.
8. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed one thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur... Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsoft would we have today? To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success-the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history-with a society that provides opportunities for all. If Canada had a second hockey league for those children born in the last half of the year, it would have twice as many adult hockey stars. Now multiply that sudden flowering of talent by every field and profession. (pg.286)
a. This excerpt from Outliers is Malcom Gladwell’s great finisher, while also teaching the reader it also serves as a great ending to this book about success. This quote tells the reader one great flaw of society, a flaw that all attempted utopias had forgotten. Opportunities, more Washington State University with open time-share terminals, one where older kids weren’t favored other the other, one where those who are poor can still receive a good education. Where confidence is not based on income, or where culture doesn’t make one less likely to be a good pilot. This nuances in our world is what is limiting our world. Without them we can be so much more.
(Hard Work)+(10,000 hours of practice)+(teamwork and Communication)x(Opportunities)(Intelligence)
1. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact 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. (pg. 19)
a. Malcom Gladwell wrote this book to show that “Rags to Riches” stories have more to them than just hard work and a good personality, he tells the reader that success is the product of cultures, opportunities, and many other hidden advantages. Not just one man and his desire to succeed. This book will teach the reader …show more content…
that if anyone wants to succeed they must use all the opportunities available to them. Mr. Gladwell later wrote that Bill Gates had many opportunities that allowed him to succeed. In high school he had unlimited, free time on a time-share computer. In 1968 that was almost impossible, if Bill Gates had not known about a programming language of ISI, and lived close enough to walk to Washington State University, and had been asked to help program a computer station, and also been able to temporarily skip school Bill Gates would never have become the man he is today. Without taking any and all opportunities available, one can never be successful.
2.
And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness...Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good. (pg. 41-42)
a. Practice makes perfect, a common idiom many have heard hundreds of times. However, Malcom Gladwell has said it better,” Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good”. This is one of the most important lesson Outliers will teach. Without the ten thousand hours or ten years of practice, one can never be successful in whatever art they strive to perfect. Without those ten thousand hours even the great Mozart hadn’t created an original masterpiece until 21 years of age, 10 years after he had begun composing, ten thousand hours after he had begun composing. The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. They had also practiced and performed for ten thousand hours in Hamburg, performing eight hours a day, seven days a week. Then when they returned to Liverpool they got better and better until, they became the Beatles that we know and remember. Practice is one of the keys to success, and without it success can never be …show more content…
possible.
3.
If we put the stories of hockey players and the Beatles and Bill Joy and Bill Gates together, I think we get a more complete picture of the path to success. Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented...That much is obvious. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities. (pg. 55)
a. This quote builds on the ideas of the first excerpt, opportunities. Opportunities make us who we are, if we accept them and use them as best we can we will become successful. If we don’t use them life will be ordinary, or worse. Additionally, Opportunities create our personalities, those who drew pictures and used any opportunity to do so at a young age love drawing now and probably participate in art competitions when the opportunity arises. By doing so their artistic talent increases, they get practice. and as they win those competitions they become known, if at first throughout their school and later at the county level and then the state and so on, until they truly become artists. Many successful artists probably went on that path. Bill gates path wasn’t all to different, first he developed an interest in computing. His school had a terminal, unlike most colleges in the country, which allowed him to learn coding. Bill Gates took advantage of that opportunity. His family was wealth which allowed him to purchase usage time. As these opportunities piled up he became an authority and successful entrepreneur in
the computer business. Opportunities, as Malcom Gladwell has stated many times in this novel, are the building blocks to success.
4. Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help when you are faced with a formful of clever boys. (pg. 69)
a. What Malcom Gladwell means by this is that just being smart is enough. Take Albert Einstein, one of the most well know geniuses in the world, who has an IQ of 130. He had received a Nobel Prize for Physics, because of his extraordinary work in the field. And compare him to Chris Lagan who has an astounding IQ of 170, much higher than that of Einstein, but had been kicked of his first college and dropped out of his second and later had trouble finding a job. When we compare intelligent people, other traits are very important. Albert Einstein obviously had a certain characteristic that Lagan was lacking. Malcom Gladwell discusses a list of colleges that produced Nobel Prize Winners and surprisingly MIT, Yale, and Harvard are on the list just as much as Georgia Tech and the University of Florida. After a certain point having an IQ of 10 and one of 190 have no difference on the chance of success.
5. If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind, and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (pg. 151).
a. This quote from Mr. Gladwell tells of the importance of hard work an effort. Without hard work Steve Jobs could never become the CEO of Apple (if only for a short time after being kicked out) without hard work. All those hours designing, programming, building tinkering, tweaking just to make one computer in his garage until finally he had others to help him, and finally a factory and enough demand to constantly be working on a new product. Without hard work many outliers in this book could never be what they became. Hard work truly does pay off.
6. The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication. One pilot knows something important and somehow doesn’t tell the other pilot. One pilot does something wrong, and doesn’t catch the error. A tricky situation needs to be resolved through a complex series of steps- and somehow the pilots fail to coordinate and miss one of them. (pg. 184)
a. Lacking or miscommunication and teamwork are the main reasons planes crash (terrorist attacks aside), as Malcom Gladwell explains, if a mistake is made you need to tell others and attempt to fix it. Epically when lives are at stake. But this problem is common in many areas. One year ago, I had participated in a robotics competition and had won, later because the other members had not communicated, one had disassembled the robot. Because of that the rest of the season we had done poorly because of the lack of time to build a good robot and our team work waned because of the frustration ensuing. The ability to Communicate clearly and work well with other people are necessary skills for success, being a CEO of a company requires one to have good communication skills to clearly lead the company with hundreds of people to all work together and know exactly what to do. If the CEO of a company I had worked for told me to think of a new innovative product, I might think of a way to use drones as a taxi service, but the company I am working for deals with toiletries and bath products. Then I would probably get fired. Teamwork is also important, if I was a leading a team to prototype a drone taxi I had come up with on my previous occupation and had unluckily got stuck with boisterous people. I couldn’t just tell everyone to leave and work on the Drone myself. I would have to improvise and talk the others in to helping and playing their part.
7. No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich. (pg. 294)
a. Building on a prior lesson, Malcom Gladwell included this quote to teach a very important lesson. If you can wake up before dawn and work on a field until dusk, then do the same every day without slacking. Hard, meaningful work for 12 hours, like the rice paddy farmers in china, could make anyone successful. Another good quote is, “Working really hard is what successful people do, and the genius of the culture formed in the rice paddies is that hard work gave those is the fields a way to find meaning in the midst of uncertainty and poverty. That lesson has served Asians well in many endeavors but rarely so perfectly as in the case of math.” (pg. 239). This excerpt also teaches a similar lesson. Without hard work, no matter what the circumstance, success is impossible. Those rice paddies in china still need to be worked on, even in rain, snow, and drought. In the formula of success hard work is the first monomial.
8. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed one thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur... Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsoft would we have today? To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success-the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history-with a society that provides opportunities for all. If Canada had a second hockey league for those children born in the last half of the year, it would have twice as many adult hockey stars. Now multiply that sudden flowering of talent by every field and profession. (pg.286)
a. This excerpt from Outliers is Malcom Gladwell’s great finisher, while also teaching the reader it also serves as a great ending to this book about success. This quote tells the reader one great flaw of society, a flaw that all attempted utopias had forgotten. Opportunities, more Washington State University with open time-share terminals, one where older kids weren’t favored other the other, one where those who are poor can still receive a good education. Where confidence is not based on income, or where culture doesn’t make one less likely to be a good pilot. This nuances in our world is what is limiting our world. Without them we can be so much more.