It’s All About the Drive in Outliers The Story of Success...

In the second chapter of his book â€Å"Outliers: The Story of Success,† Malcolm Gladwell introduces what he believes to be a key ingredient in the recipe for success: practice. The number of hours he says one must practice to obtain expert-level proficiency in a particular skill is ten thousand hours. He goes on to list several examples of successful individuals and makes the correlation between the amount of hours they practiced their skill and when they achieved expert-level proficiency (almost always around ten thousand hours of practice). While the magic number appears to be the main focus of the chapter when it comes to success, Gladwell seems to put more emphasis on the advantage and opportunities each individual experienced. However, I†¦show more content†¦The hours to those facilities were limited, but Joy exploited a bug that would allow him to work more than the typical one hour per day that all students were afforded. The bug may be seen as another opportu nity. However, weren’t other students at that school able to access the same facilities? Couldn’t they also have exploited the same bug that Joy exploited? I believe it was Joy’s passion for programming and desire to improve that led him to put in more hours than everyone else. â€Å"He wanted to learn† (46). He worked long hours and even devised a way to keep at it when others couldn’t or wouldn’t. Gladwell uses The Beatles as another example where happenstance was a deciding factor in their success. It was luck, or maybe fate, that put The Beatles in contact with a club owner in Hamburg, Germany. The club owner’s format required bands to play extremely long hours. Gladwell makes it seem as if the band would not have put in the long hours and potentially would not have become the rock ‘n’ roll legends they are today had it not been for that streak of luck. Other bands played those same clubs in Hamburg. Could they not have also played eight hours a night, seven nights a week? They had the same opportunity as The Beatles. Gladwell’s last example of opportunity paving the way to success is Bill Gates. Gladwell paints a picture of a privileged childhood, private schools, well-funded computer clubs and easily accessibleShow MoreRelatedCharacteristics Of Steve Jobs895 Words   |  4 Pagesperson’s culture, family, generation, and upbringing are more accurate determinants of success when compared to that persons traits such as personality, ambition, and intelligence. While circumstances being conducive to their needs helps, anyone with enough determination can rise above obstacles and become an outlier. Arguments against this, often have faults. There are many clear examples of driven, brilliant people, of all backgrounds, reaching great heights. One published believer of successful peopleRead MoreOutlier1537 Words   |  7 Pageshave thought and understood success compared to the way Malcolm Gladwell argues is the circumstances and families that create success. Previous to reading this book, I strongly believed that the way to become successful was to put in hard work. For example, my theory to success was similar along the lines to what Malcolm Gladwell discusses earlier in the book. He says, â€Å"Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good†(Gladwell, 2008). I believed if you practicedRead MoreOutliers, By Malcolm Gladwell1541 Words   |  7 PagesSocietal success relies on whatever society values most at a point in time. In the current state of society, this value exists as something quite obvious: money. Money carries with it a sense of glamour and achievement. Earning large quantities of money seems achievable, it acts as clear-cut goal that people can point to and shout, â€Å"Hey, that’s success!†. Furthermore, personal success does not offer this luxury, and thus evades people to its true meaning. Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Outliers, demonstratesRead MoreWhat Are They Key For Success?1650 Words   |  7 PagesMay 4th, 2015 WHAT IS THEY KEY TO SUCCESS? Standing on One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, one is simply flabbergasted at the nearby mountainous office towers, studded with immaculate windows, hazily reflecting the sun. How did one man, Bill Gates, establish these headquarters and virtually mold this 370$ billion company from so little? Many would argue that his intrinsic genius, inherited traits, and sheer brilliance are to blame for his success; after all, he is the wealthiest man in AmericaRead MoreEssay on Barefoot Spirit2119 Words   |  9 Pagesno money to give him, he changed the subject by asking about the silver locomotive he had been staring at through the window. While this lightened the high strung tension in the room it also opened up another conversation and gave Michael an idea of how to get Mark’s money back. He would take what he found out was wine in those silver locomotives, bottle and sell it. 2. You learn what the job is and then you do it – This lesson came about when Michael had worked so hard to do exactly what DonRead MoreA Concise Guide to Market Research Using Spss71933 Words   |  288 Pages45 80539 Munich Germany sarstedt@bwl.lmu.de ISBN 978-3-642-12540-9 e-ISBN 978-3-642-12541-6 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-12541-6 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speciï ¬ cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microï ¬ lm or in any other way, and storage in data banks