The Three Lessons Of Joe Flom's 'Outliers'
Kiosha Buckingham
Mr. Olds
Fundamentals of College Literacy
November 3, 2014
Gladwell, M (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York, New York: Little, Brown, & Gladwell
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. 1st Ed. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
Outliers Chapter 5
Chapter 5 is titled “The Three Lessons of Joe Flom.” He tells us about the immigrant world Flom grew up in. Everything you would think to be disadvantages were actually advantages, like being poor for example. Joe Flom’s story provides a structure for understanding success in law. In this chapter, Gladwell focuses on 3 lessons; The Importance of being Jewish, Demographic Luck, and The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work. Gladwell discusses
the importance of being Jewish in the 1900s and how the larger law firms wouldn’t hire them. Because they didn’t fit the image of a perfect lawyer due to this those Jews went to smaller companies and some even started their own law firm which made them very successful in life. In the second lesson, he talks about how the time you were born in effects how successful you are in life. It says that if you were born after the depression you would have a better chance of being successful than those born before the depression. The third lesson talks about a man who started a garment business with only twelve dollars in his pocket and made a living off of it. At the end of this chapter it explains how those successful lawyers, doctors, and entrepreneurs’ children became successful as well.
In chapter five Gladwell discusses how culture can play a huge part in someone’s success. He speaks about Jewish immigrants and their rise to success and he explains various reasons as to why they were able to gain success faster than Italian or Irish immigrants and one of the reasons was they had a specific trait they had learned in the old country, which they practiced and perfected that enabled them to further in their craft. He explains the fact that the children of these people become successful because of the way that they were brought up. I agree that culture is a big factor in a person’s success, but I believe that their success and focus came from seeing their parent’s hard work and dedication to their own profession, which perfectly ties in to Gladwell’s explanation of why Oppenheimer was able to gain success compared to Lagan.
Mr. Olds
Fundamentals of College Literacy
November 3, 2014
Gladwell, M (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York, New York: Little, Brown, & Gladwell
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. 1st Ed. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
Outliers Chapter 5
Chapter 5 is titled “The Three Lessons of Joe Flom.” He tells us about the immigrant world Flom grew up in. Everything you would think to be disadvantages were actually advantages, like being poor for example. Joe Flom’s story provides a structure for understanding success in law. In this chapter, Gladwell focuses on 3 lessons; The Importance of being Jewish, Demographic Luck, and The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work. Gladwell discusses
the importance of being Jewish in the 1900s and how the larger law firms wouldn’t hire them. Because they didn’t fit the image of a perfect lawyer due to this those Jews went to smaller companies and some even started their own law firm which made them very successful in life. In the second lesson, he talks about how the time you were born in effects how successful you are in life. It says that if you were born after the depression you would have a better chance of being successful than those born before the depression. The third lesson talks about a man who started a garment business with only twelve dollars in his pocket and made a living off of it. At the end of this chapter it explains how those successful lawyers, doctors, and entrepreneurs’ children became successful as well.
In chapter five Gladwell discusses how culture can play a huge part in someone’s success. He speaks about Jewish immigrants and their rise to success and he explains various reasons as to why they were able to gain success faster than Italian or Irish immigrants and one of the reasons was they had a specific trait they had learned in the old country, which they practiced and perfected that enabled them to further in their craft. He explains the fact that the children of these people become successful because of the way that they were brought up. I agree that culture is a big factor in a person’s success, but I believe that their success and focus came from seeing their parent’s hard work and dedication to their own profession, which perfectly ties in to Gladwell’s explanation of why Oppenheimer was able to gain success compared to Lagan.