The Outliers: The Book of Success

 At first when I looked at the book I believed that these book is going to talk about a student in highschool who is described as an outlier where they don't have anyone to talk to and does not fit in that school. Then when I read the first page it was an introduction about how to be successful and I was thinking I need this book because I definitely want to be successful, I mean who wouldn't. Later on, Gladwell defines an outlier as a person out of the ordinary “who doesn't fit into our normal understanding of achievement.” According to Gladwell, great men and women are beneficiaries of specialization, collaboration, time, place, and culture. An outlier’s recipe for success is not personal mythos but the synthesis of opportunity and time on task. I thought that maybe in other words he was saying that hard work equals success, but I kinda argued that because there other people that haven't worked hard and receives opportunities other people don't get and receive money easier than other people. For example if you have a rich family your father is a billionaire and your mother is a millionaire they would give their child everything and then didn't work hard to get what he needs. I might be wrong, but I digress. Framed around the biblical parable of the talents, or “The Matthew Effect,” Part One examines opportunity as a function of timing. Canadian hockey players born closer to the magic birthday of January 1 reap advantages that compound over time. Likewise, computer programmers Bill Joy and Bill Gates, both born in the 1950s, have taken advantage of the relative-age effect to become industry giants in the 1980s. Gladwell not only debunks the romantic mystique of self-determinism, but also the myth that genius is born, not made. He claims that Mozart and The Beatles are not so much innate musical prodigies but grinders who thrived only after 10,000 hours of practice. The more hours you work on something the more you're good at it which in the future if you continue doing what you love you will be good at it and become successful. It's just like going to school the more work you put into your classes the more points you gain in that class and if you continue doing hard work you’ll graduate and get a diploma. Part Two of Outliers focuses on cultural legacies, which Gladwell says “persist, generation after generation, virtually intact...and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them." Gladwell is more eclectic here, and he examines both success and failure. He deftly moves from the dooming “culture of honor” in Appalachia to the rice paddy cultivation in China that fosters patient problem solving. Gladwell is at his best when he illustrates how a cultural legacy of failure can be transformed into one of success. Korean airlines, once very likely to crash their planes because of rigid power structures among pilots, have since fostered collaboration in the cockpit and, therefore, attained high safety ratings. Overall, this book is  a great book for people who want to know how to gain success and how much effort must a person put to achieve his goal. I believe everyone should be able to read this book and understand how to reach success and thanks Ms. Brannon for the book.