A Jewish Perspective

One of the theme's in Gladwell’s The Outliers  concerns the idea of privilege, and the crucial role that cultural heritage plays in determining success. Cultural heritage can be an advantage or a disadvantage, and sometimes it can be both at once. For example, the rise of Jewish-run law-firms in New York City in the early 20th century had much to do with the fact that Jews were discriminated against, and forced to form their own firms. This ended up giving Jewish firms a major advantage when corporate takeovers became common practice later in the 20th century. The tremendous success of many of New York’s most legendary lawyers stemmed from the disadvantage that religious discrimination had formerly imposed on them: a disadvantage became a huge advantage over time. Gladwell expands on this point throughout the book, examining ways that our cultural heritage can influence our attitudes towards race, religion, honor, work, money, and entitlement. Cultural forces even generations removed can determine success as much as timing, talent, hard work, and luck. 
                                                                                 - Firdaws Roufai

The 10,000 Hour Rule

Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule in which he explains the reason behind people success to well know people like Bill gates and The Beatles. He explains how these professionals spent 10,000 hours practicing their respective fields. This chapter was my favorite because it shows that you don't only need talent in order to be successful, you also need a lot of practice in order to be successful. Without the tremendous amount of dedication that these professionals put in to their work they wouldn't be as successful or known as they are till this day. It shows me that if anyone wants to do something they need to spend a lot of time perfecting their work and practicing constantly in order to get better and better.

Legacy: Rice Paddles And Math Tests

The chapter Rice Paddles And Math Tests sparked my interest because it gave me insight on the common belief that Asians are the smartest in math. I kind of figured this was true because Asians normally attend more school than anywhere else in world. It was mentioned that in the United states, students usually attend school 180 days out of the year while the South Korean school year is 220 days long and the Japanese school year is 243 days longs as stated by Gladwell. One thing that I did not know was that their culture was an adding factor that makes them smart in math. This book has shown me just how much culture plays a role in one's life. I know that culture shapes people but I never realized how culture could contribute to success. In the Asian culture, hard work is a factor that is emphasized and stressed. This is why farmers work so hard in terms of harvesting and growing rice. They have the mentality that the harder they work, the more profit they will gain. This mentality has proven to work for them. The more hours and dedication that they put into growing and harvesting the rice, the bigger the yield of the crop becomes. I do think that this mentality needs to be emphasized and applied in western culture. I think we often become lazy and take opportunities for granted. Americans are quick to take education for granted but if you notice, when immigrants and foreigners get to this country, they cherish education and take advantage of its opportunities which makes us Americans look bad honestly. Sometimes, we become lazy and give up on things without even dedicating ourselves to trying. Everyone falls victim to this, even myself sometimes I must admit. It's sad because this habit is almost "natural" in a sense. Gladwell mentions a study done by Alan Schoenfold where he asked a group of high school students how long they work on a homework question. On average, students confessed to looking over a problem for 2 minutes before determining that it is too hard or giving up. If people take the time to not give up so easily, I think success would ultimately be easier to obtain.

The 10,000 Hour Rule

Gladwell writes about the 10,000 hour rule where he explains the reason behind the success of outliers such as the Beatles, Bill Gates, and professional pianists is that they each had accumulated 10,000 hours of practice in their respective fields. I found this fascinating as it shows that you don't need a ridiculous amount of talent or be extremely smart to succeed. What you need is practice; the means to practice, passion for the thing you are doing a drive to succeed. Gladwell said “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good” (42).  He also goes on to say that for these outliers it’s not only practice that made them successful but also being born in the right year and having just the right luck. Gladwell says that for a pianist to succeed their parents have to have the resources to start them off at an a early age with a teacher and also to get in the required 10,000 hours of practice the child also has to increase the amount of time in which they practice as they get older to reach the magical 10,000 mark of success. Though in this chapter success seems within reach for those who are willing to work very hard for it; In our society the cards also have to be in your favor to be able to have any chance of success and then you have to work extremely hard to show you deserve the luck you got, you have to be willing to take advantage of the opportunities that have been given to you. 

The 10,000 Hour Rule

Out of the nine chapters within Outliers: The Story of Success, the chapter that I found held the most truth to what I believe in was chapter 2, "The 10,000 Hour Rule". Gladwell discusses the importance of putting in tremendous amounts of time and effort to achieve success, and that based on scientific studies it takes 10,000 hours of practice for someone to truly achieve mastery in any career. He uses several success stories including The Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates to prove that "Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good." (Gladwell 42) I am a firm believer that it is not just luck that gets most people by when it comes to success. In most cases, success comes with long hours, lots of hard work, and surely what my fellow peers can relate to, very little sleep. I also agree with what Gladwell said that it is opportunity in addition to hard work that allows for people to be successful. It is about the opportunities people get and a matter of whether or not they take them. And while this may be true, we must also ask ourselves: what about the people who get less opportunities than others or those who do not get any at all? What do we do for those who may be what Gladwell calls in the book "grinds", people who no matter how hard they try, they can't seem to break the glass ceiling above them?

The Three Lessons Of Joe Flom

In The Three Lessons Of Joe Flom chapter 8, this chapter is about the garment industry and its meaningful work. It tells the story of Louis and Regina Borgenicht who were immigrants that came to America and struggled to make a life and business for themselves. Louis started out selling fish in the street but once his wife Regina gave birth to another child, the pressure was on for him to find a job that could support his family. One day while outside looking for inspiration, Louis saw a young girl with an apron on. He then had bought pieces of fabric with the little money he had left and took it home. He and his wife had spent the whole night cutting and sewing the garments into 40 children's aprons of all different sizes. The next day he went to the streets to sell and within 3 hours, all the aprons were sold. In this moment, Louis had realized that this was the business that he and his wife were meant to be in. While the first version of this story presents itself to be clear cut and simple, Gladwell goes deeper and breaks down the history and background which led to and contributed to this story. Before arriving to America, Borgenicht had become very familiar with fabrics and garments in Europe to the point that just by touching something, he knew what thread count the garment was and where it came from. Regina his wife had also been running a dress making business since the age of sixteen. Malcolm Gladwell's lesson in this story ultimately shows that success does not appear randomly. One's culture as well as experiences play a big role which determines one's success. The Borgenicht's background experience in garment is what ultimately helped them be able to succeed and make it in the clothing business as they set up a new life for themselves in America. This story interested me and showed me how events connect to one another and determines the outcome of situations.

Outliers

Firstly, I want to acknowledge how well written this book is, Gladwell was able to provide clear evidence and anecdotes that proved an undermined correlation between the success of an individual and the society that produced the right opportunities that fueled that success. He emphasizes the idea that success is a medley of the right opportunities, cultural background, and hard work- not innate talent. It is baffling to see that this seems logical yet we haven’t acted upon these findings, I would like to believe that with this knowledge we can create more opportunities for everyone and in effect allow everyone to succeed in what they want to succeed in. This whole book I feel, is a call to action as Gladwell questions how many more Microsofts we would have today if a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity as Bill Gates, “our world allowed only that thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968”(268).  It is sad to see we continue to use useless exams to determine intelligence levels in which we base our ideas of success and continue to use systems in which we limit opportunities so that only some succeed. I really think we should implement some of Gladwell’s ideas into our society like creating classes based on birth dates instead of rank and see how it might play out just like KIPP did.
Chapter seven, “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes” was one of the chapters that caused me to think more deeply about how culture plays into how we respond to certain situations and how that can lead us to failure or success. It was interesting to  learn about the “Power Distance Index” in which cultures are examined to see attitudes towards hierarchy and the amount of respect given to authority. Gladwell explains that the reason most plane crashes occur is because of cultural miscommunication and he provided examples like the Avianca crash where the subordinate, Klotz failed to report his state of emergency. Gladwell says this can be due to the high power-distance of Colombians as he was probably frustrated that the captain was not doing his job and he was using his own cultural language to express himself to the ATC. Klotz’s society values authority and speaking up against let’s say the captain or talking to the ATC would not be something he would be comfortable doing. America falls under the low power distance category and Gladwell notes that “no American would have been so fatally intimidated by the controllers at Kennedy Airport” and that their “American-ness” means they would be most likely to take control as they see the air traffic controller as an equal. This was weird to me because I identify as “American” as I have been born and raised in an American society however, I also identify as Mexican and I indulge in its culture but these countries are at opposite ends of the PDI.  I often find myself speaking up even with authority figures. I do not necessarily think this is because of my American society but from just the idea of being affiliated with different cultures. If the whole culture thing was relevant then I would be less in command because of the Mexican culture I had always been surrounded by. The thing is my experiences oppose the whole PDI ideas because at home I was taught that I am an equal but in school and in other interactions in the American society I was taught to respect authority. Is this being some sort of an outlier? I think America in general is an outlier in culture tests because we have created an American culture but it is not prominent as a whole in America because there are also a lot of different cultures represented, this would mean that not everyone would respond the same as we are all attached to a different culture.

The Matthew Effect

Gladwell opens the chapter by describing how a hockey player rose to the top in Canada. He works hard and rises to the top on his own merit. Players succeed because they perform well, and they succeed on the basis of their own ability, nothing else matters. Gladwell then questions this and asks us if this really is the case. Gladwell directs the readers attention to a 2007 roster for the Medicine Hat Tigers, an elite Canadian youth hockey team. He tells us that Roger Barrenly, a Canadian Psychologist looked at this roster and noticed that many players were born between January and March. In contrast to the very few who were born between October and December. The same pattern occurred elsewhere in other teams. Gladwell says this is because of the cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1st, which gives those who were born earlier more time to train and prepare than those born later on. "We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by 'we' I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't" (Gladwell 33). Gladwell here shows us how society affects how much we succeed. Society personalizes success and this stops others from trying to succeed. Society makes rules that stop people from succeeding and writes off people as failures. But, Gladwell repeatedly tells the readers to overcome this enormous role that society plays and continue on to succeed. I chose this article because I really liked how Gladwell shows the readers how birth months really affects success. But then he shows us that this is really blocks made by society, with cutoff dates being in the beginning of the year. After reading this I realized how society is a huge block that hinders in the way of every person's success.

Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell provides his readers of Outliers with a complicated and vague concept of what success really is that only further confirms the idea that there is only so much one can do to be successful. I do find myself agreeing with the conclusion that past a certain point intelligence is no longer a driving factor towards success. After reaching an IQ of 120 it doesn’t matter if you're score is 121 or 150, both persons have equal chances of success from an intelligence standpoint (Gladwell 79). Gladwell does have intriguing points that make us think if we were lucky enough, if we ceased enough opportunities to be an outlier. But I feel as if Gladwell discredits the success of many accomplished men. He contributes their success to mere luck and underserved opportunities. 

This is not the first time I’ve heard about the 10,000-hour rule. I read the excerpt from this book prior and found interest in the fact that the key to mastery is just 10,000 hours, reigning true to the fact that practice makes perfect. But reading the 10,000-hour rule when it’s wedged between stories of unworthy hockey players and geniuses seemed to water down its validity. Gladwell does away with the idea that having a natural talent or affinity for something contributes to overall success, and even with the data that was clearly handpicked to prove his point, I don't believe it. But that’s just my opinion.

The 10,000 - Hour Rule

In the “The 10,000 - Hour Rule” chapter of Outliers Malcolm Gladwell talks about the certain hours of practice needed to become successful. This chapter talks about psychologists who figured out that 10,000 hours of practice is needed to “make it”. Studies have proven that people who practice more than others outshined in a particular activity. Psychologists studied violinist players who all started playing the violin around the same age, at age 5. They were grouped in three different groups: those who had potential to become world - class soloists, those who were average, and those who had no hope to ever play professionally. The psychologists realized that at the age of eight these students started practicing for different amount of times, thus allowing the psychologist to later conclude that those who practiced longer hours were the ones that outshined the others. The more successful group had practiced a total of 10,000 hours at the age of 20. Gladwell states that these studies only proved that once a person gets into a top school the “thing that distinguished one performer from another is how hard he or she works”.  He later goes on to speak about Bill Joy, The Beatles, and Bill Gates, all whom have made remarkable achievements in their life. Gladwell writes about all the accomplishments of these men and how they got to where they are. However it was interesting when Gladwell says that although these men worked hard to achieve success it was opportunity that also helped. Gladwell says that these “outliers” all had something in common: a kind of unusual opportunity. These men were all born around a time where their area of profession was much needed. I found this idea very interesting but it all made sense. These men became successful because their area of interest just so happened to be much needed at a certain time period. This doesn’t mean that these men weren’t intelligent it just means that intelligence and practice isn't the only thing needed to be successful, opportunity is needed as well.

Reflection on The 10,000 Hour Rule

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers is a complex yet interesting book which encompasses different events as well as topics that all ultimately prove why some people are prone to be successful over others. In chapter 2 of Outliers which is titled  The 10,000 Hour Rule, Gladwell expresses that for one to truly master a skill or trade, they must put in hours of hard work and dedication in order to be able to do so. He proves this on numerous occasions when talking about Bill Gates, The Beatles, etc. For example, Gladwell talks about The Beatles who were a band that had to play in Hamburg for eight hours straight (49). The only way they were able to get better as performers was to perform eight hours shows regularly through the week. This taught them how to be versatile and to traverse through different styles of music which taught them how to add flavor to multiple songs in different ways. While the title of this chapter is titled The 10,000 Hour Rule, the Beatles were able to become such good performers because they had gotten well over 10,000 hours of practice. One thing that catches my eye about Malcolm Gladwell and made me choose this chapter is how well he is able to string together events and turning points. I learned that success stories are not as simple as the world and some make it seem. On page 54, Gladwell points out that success is achieved through the unusual opportunities and turning points in an outlier's life.  For example, if Bill Gates did not have "access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968" or "happened to live within walking distance of the University of Washington" which "happened to have free computer time between three and six in the morning" then he might not have ended up creating Microsoft or becoming so skillful at programming. Reading this book has ultimately shown me that in order for one to become successful, there are rare opportunities that allow people to become successful. It makes me want to work harder in order to achieve the goals and levels of success that I desire for myself.

The 10,000-Hour Rule

        In Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Outliers, Gladwell explains the factors that contribute to reaching the highest peak of  success. He argues some factors to success are birthday, family,birth place and how much time one spends on practicing.
       While reading this novel, one of the most relatable and interesting topic was the 10,000 hour rule. The concept of this rule is that to be successful, we have to put in a great amount of effort and time practicing. People that practice for at least 10,000 are more successful than others that do not. I'm not sure how I feel  about practicing for 10,000 hours to be successful but I do know that practice and hardwork is key ingredient to success. The more you practice, the better you get and the more you fall in love with what it is that you are trying to achieve. Gladwell starts of the chapter with Bill Joy who spent hours working with computers before becoming successful.  He attended University of Michigan with one of the most advanced Computer Science programs. Programming practices were limited but he took advantage every time he could practice.  He spent most of his time in the computer center practicing, working in collaboration, and gaining more experience. Yes, Joy did not intend to to be working with software in school but because he was at the right place at the right time, he was hooked and bettered himself. Sometimes we find our passion in places and things we did not intend on. If you seize your opportunities and practice, nothing will stop you from success.
        After Bill Joy, Gladwell discusses the Beatles and their path to success. Prior to their success in America in 1964, the Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg Germany with huge non stop show, hour after hour. While playing at these shows, they got lots of practice and "got better and got more [confident]" (Gladwell 49). In Hamburg, the band played for 8 hours so they had to find new ways to play. The better they got, the more fans, the more exposure and the more practice. The ties into Gladwell's theory on success in the sense that before the Beatles become the best in America, they had already had hours and hours of practice. The shows in Hamburg were live practice. Next Gladwell refers to Bill Gates success who was lucky to live in Lakeside and took advantage of the computer room in his high school and computer access in the university near his home. By taking advantage of his resources, he had extra practice even before going to school (Gladwell 50-54).
      I agree with Gladwell when he argues success comes from a mixture of opportunities, practice and hardwork. Although the novel was published 9 years ago, we can relate. We have a lot of opportunities and the only way to become successful is to grab these opportunities. Everyone is in competition to become the best and if you don't practice and are not serious and passionate about what you do, people will pass by you. Success is not just given to you, you have to work hard to achieve what you want. I remember when I first came to the U.S., I spoke better english than my teachers thought. It was not because I was lucky and english came natural but it was because I had practice in Ghana before coming here. I went to a private school and I was forced to learn english. After I came to the U.S., along with regular english class, I had the opportunity to work outside of class with an english teacher. I took the opportunity and got better. I am not the best english person because I practiced and took advantage of my opportunities, I have gotten better.

The Only Human Error Is Miscommunication

In this passage, Gladwell analyzes the reasons for failure and uses a general analogy to demonstrate why such mistakes occur. A plane is designed and programmed to function altogether, safely, efficiently, and successfully. However, when a plane crashes, the fall does not occur spontaneously, there are repercussions that happen beforehand that ultimately make the plane fall. Gladwell uses this plane to say that many people died because the plane had no fuel and just that. There was no random phenomenon that made this plane crash.

I chose this passage to make a connection between the plane and human error. Planes are all run by humans and although they are not designed to fail, humans are. With these errors, anything that we create is bound to mess up. Typical plane crashes occur because a pilot was tired, rushed, or forced to navigate a plane through horrible weather conditions which as a result, cause the crash. It is the job of the pilot and his crew to communicate together as a team to get a job done, and be dedicated to that job. Whether it be gas or the pilot himself, communication is needed to do a job efficiently. Every job is responsible for serving the public in some way and if there is no communication in doing that job, there is human error doing that job. Overall, I believe Gladwell stresses the importance of communication in this passage and uses the plane analogy to emphasize the gravity of performing a job efficiently.

What It Actually Means To Be Successful

     
       In Malcolm Gladwell's mind opening book, Outliers, he is able to inform the reader about what society has come to think of success, and what it takes to be successful. Starting from part one titled, The Matthew Effect, Gladwell explains the “meritocracy”(14) of Canadian hockey, where boys initiate “before they are even in kindergarten”(14) and they have the opportunity of joining a league for their age group. These boys are trained and examined to determine whether or not they are apt to play, those who are fit to play hockey move on to the next level and those who are not, get kicked out. This is the way it is seen for most sports, however, is ability actually the way these players are being judged? The real explanation on who gets to be a successful hockey player was found by a Canadian Psychologist, Roger Barnsley. He had found that, “the very best of the best- 40 percent of them will have been born between January and March”(23). Gladwell later discusses how the same thing occurs in Czech’s National Junior soccer team and education! Economists Kelly Bedard and Elizabeth Dhuey had investigated that if two students, one older and one younger in the same grade, were to take a test, the older student would score higher than the younger, leading the older student to be eligible for a gifted program. Capacity should not be determined by age or by the month one was born in. Society has deceived us into believing that success comes along with those work hard and have fought hard to achieve their goals. I chose to talk about this part because it blew my mind, Gladwell was able to show me the unfairness of what is perceived as success. I am unable to grasp why its so hard for society to create an equal balance for everyone, why can't everyone benefit from the different opportunities that are given? Looking over my life I have tried to accept and take any opportunity given to me because I am the minority. I am constantly stressing over my future and by reading Outliers, I realize that this generation needs to work hard to change the way success is seen. 

IQ: Intelligence and Ingenuity

(pages 77-89)

     I chose these two passages of the book because they challenge conventional thinking along with the education system, two things that need to be reformed if we are to advance as a society. Gladwell makes two connections with IQ: IQ in comparison to intelligence and IQ in comparison to imagination. First, he uses scientific research and prior knowledge to explain what IQ means, highlighting the fact that IQ does equate to success. However, there reaches a line, where anyone with an IQ above 120 is smart enough and capable of anything because the extra IQ points after 120, don't "'translate into any measurable real-world advantage'". Here's a list of the IQ's I made based on Gladwell's passage:

• 0-70 = mentally disabled 
• 100+ = average / college ready
• 115+ = graduate-program ready 
• 120 = the line 

     From this information, Gladwell creates several different connections, such as basketball where a certain height is needed to exceed in the sport but someone taller does not mean they're better. In other words, as long as someone has an IQ over 120, they are capable of being more successful than someone with a higher IQ. He brings up Einstein's IQ of 150 as an example, a list of schools for "good enough" students, and the strict education system that uses rigorous exams to admit students into such "high-degree" schools.
     While I agreed with most of what Gladwell had to say, he brought up a more important point which was the combination of intelligence and ingenuity. While someone can be extremely intellectual, a certain imagination and creativity is needed to execute plans in an efficient manner and for that reason, there are "divergence tests". This is where I started acknowledging the entertainment industry. While surgeries, operations and procedures can be taught from one doctor to another; the creation of worlds through books and films, the development of fictional characters and personas, and the invention of new ways of thinking and philosophies; cannot be taught through lessons and classes. That's not to say that doctors should be devalued, but there is an obvious lack of appreciation for authors, artists and inventors that isn't glorified as doctors, lawyers and professors. Gladwell does not directly say any of these things but the connection can be made to anything that requires retrospective thinking. There is no way to discover new things without being unorthodox and unconventional with the way we perform our careers. Doctors cannot find cures, authors cannot create worlds, technology cannot advance itself, without combining intelligence and creativity.

The Matthew Effect

There are countless books out there in the market which discuss success on how it's achieved, the traits needed to succeed, and the tools essential to move forward. In Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Outliers, it has a rather different approach of being successful than most other novels that involves a rather dark approach to whether a member of society succeeds or not. This is figured out by the Matthew effect which involves statistics, age, and self esteem as evidence to help validate its claim. The idea of the Matthew effect is those with a distinct advantage over others at a young age will be presented with many opportunities in the time that comes. The sociologist, Robert Merton, believes those who are successful are more likely to be given special opportunities that lead to future success (30). The statistics can be referred to the scores of the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) test which is taken every four years by children around the world. It was found among fourth graders that the oldest children (by month) typically scored between four and twelve percentile points better than the youngest children (28). It's a small difference that can go a long way, for the same analysis was conducted in colleges within the U.S and found the youngest group in their classes are underrepresented by about 11.6 %.(29). This small difference carries on in the future and can be the deciding factor to going to college and having a chance to go to the middle class (29), which is why this section of the book had intrigued me and made me think of school in a different perspective. It makes one wonder if education and several other programs could become better if there were no ability grouping until a later age when the children then matured.

Marita's Bargain: Cultural Legacy & Success

In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he focuses on why some people succeed more than others do. This chapter is mainly focused on tying in all the elements of success, hard work, opportunities, and talent. Gladwell reiterates the importance of cultural legacy and how it can change lives drastically. He mentions KIPP, a public school in New York that is mainly focused on academics and achievements. The school is known for helping students from low-income families become successful. Students who attend KIPP attend school from 7:25 am to 7:00 pm on weekdays and from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturdays. The students get a lot of attention from their teachers and the discipline academic codes ensure that their students become successful. The students at KIPP get a head start to achieve something in their lives despite 80% of them coming from poor homes. Gladwell notes that there is a gap between children from wealthy families and kids from poorer families; this gap was only after the summer vacation. This means that while the rich kids strengthen their academic skills during the summer, the poorer kids relapsed. I feel that it isn’t fair how the smarter kids come from wealthy families. They are only educated better because their parents have money to enroll them into programs and extra help and high and mighty private schools with fancy classrooms. Kids from the city who have no choice but to go to public school don’t have the same advantage as the wealthy kids. It’s a sad truth that will be persisted throughout the lives of kids with low-income families. Schools like KIPP are trying to make an effort to help these kids succeed with extended hours and programs. Even in high school, income plays a large factor in which college a student goes to. Wealthier kids can go to prestigious colleges while some kids have no choice but to go to a college they can afford because sometimes the scholarships they might get aren’t enough. Some kids have the potential to be something great or even an outlier but they just aren’t available to opportunities that can help them get there.

The 10,000-Hour Rule

This book provides a different perspective on many different things like success and who it is determined. I believe students should be given the opportunity to read more books like these because they give a different meaning of what real success is rather than what people think is success but really isn’t like getting a job or going to college. Those things do help you go somewhere in life, but if you don’t have “innate talent”, it can be very hard for you to achieve success. Now sometimes even if someone is granted with innate talents, they still need practice to achieve not perfection, but something very close to that. Even though there are some people who don’t have innate talents for something, I believe that if they put in the some amount of dedication and time into what they are doing, they can match or even surpass someone who has innate talents. I know sometimes when I watch sports players who have just completed, they go on a say that many people told them that they could not achieve what they are going today, but with practice and guidance those sports players were able to not only prove their critics wrong, but impact others of were told that they could not do it because of how tall, athletic, or skilled they were at the sport. I chose this chapter because some people believe that success comes to you if you do some work. But in reality if you really want to have success hard work and dedication is required.

The Circumstances of Success

Outliers- extremely successful people in society- are the subject of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. In Outliers, Gladwell argues that success does not only derive from "diligence, self-sacrifice, intelligence, and innate talent." He encourages us to look at the conditions and circumstances that surrounded these individuals such as their birth date, cultural legacy, and background. The Chapter that stood out most to me was Chapter 2, The 10,000 - Hour Rule, because he expands on the idea of hard work and its rewards. The notion that worth having comes easy is widely know. We all know that what we put in is what we will get out. We also know that those who succeed are bright and gifted in some way. However, we often overlook the relationship between success and opportunity. Gladwell uses studies on the practicing habits of expert and amateur violin and chess players to show the no one gets to the top without practice. In order for one to achieve expertise in anything, it takes 10,000 hours to do so. One must also have the support and resources to be able to spend 10,000 hours practicing. I enjoyed the way Gladwell took the success stories of Bill Gates and the Beatles to challenge the common ideas about how success works. These individuals were not only born at the “perfect time” but they also took advantage of their opportunity which allowed them to get all those hours of practice in. After reading this chapter, I considered what factors could potentially help me succeed. I have to admit that always considered myself fortunate and perhaps even privileged to live in a “first world country”. However, I had never considered how important a factor my birth date is to my future success. I see how important the year I was born is now because as someone who is about to apply to college, I see that more and more people are graduating from high school and enrolling in college. Although most kids who go to public schools come from low-income families, this can also be a source of opportunity because there are many programs that exist today tailored for different types of students. I myself am part of a program that provides me with SAT tutoring and materials as well as a network of people that work in different fields. I also have parents who are involved in all aspects of my life. Some takeaways from this book are that it is important to network, to take the opportunities presented to us, and practice everyday.

The Matthew Effect: How It Affects Our Success

In Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Outliers, readers are able to comprehend and understand the fundamental reasons to why a person may have success. Many associate success with one’s talent, ability to surpass others, and intelligence. However, what many fail to realize is that one’s success does not merely prosper from their own will and power, but by the influences that have made an impact on them and the opportunities given to them. In the first chapter of the novel, Gladwell explains how Roger Barnsley, a Canadian psychologist, realized, as he observed the player roster of the 2007 Medicine Hat Tigers, that hockey players are usually born within the first three months of the year. Seeing that this is applied to many hockey teams, he came to the conclusion that the reason for this was because the “eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1st” (24). Therefore, for a child who turns ten on January 2nd and another child who doesn’t turn ten until the end of the year, it makes a huge difference in strength and ability. For those who have the advantage, they are the ones who receive better coaching and attention, thus making them more likely to make it to the Major Junior A league, which further leads them to the bigger leagues. This is called the Matthew Effect. Because they have more practice and time to progress, this is why children born from January to March have the advantage and have more success. As stated by Gladwell, “we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung,” because we have these cutoff dates (32). We could change it by setting up different hockey leagues and letting players develop at the same speed. The same could even be applied to schools, all people would have to do is divide students by the months they were born in and then they’ll be able to learn at the same rate. However, we won’t change this because we believe that success is based off “individual merit.” The reason to why I chose this piece to discuss about is because the idea of others being able to have an advantage is unfair because everyone should have an equal chance to go after the same goals as someone else. We don’t get to choose which month we’re born in so how would this be our fault?