Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book based on the stories of different types of successful people (“Outliers” from society) and focuses on what opportunities contributed to their growth. Gladwell claims that he was inspired to write this out of his growing frustrations towards the way people described the careers of successful individuals, such as Bill Gates. Gladwell realized that our understanding of success was very crude and stereotypical. He believed that it is much more than natural talent that shapes an individual, but other factors/opportunities that has helped aid in creating a person who is “successful”. Gladwell was then intrigued to investigate how/why billionaires and athletes become successful. Along with why asian students seemed to excel in math compared to other countries. Gladwell tries to address a variety of people in society and the opportunities/struggles they had to endure in order to become “successful”.
Gladwell describes this novel as an anti-self help book, because he wants to change the entire perspective of society not just the individual. His purpose was to prove that people who are successful aren’t just lucky; he wanted to prove that there were people and opportunities during their journeys that contributed to their goals. Gladwell strongly believed that we should not label someone who is successful, solely on the fact that “They’re really smart” or “They’re just very ambitious”. He justified this by stating all his companions that he grew up with. They’re all very intelligent and ambitious; however, they were not worth billions of dollars like Steve Jobs. Gladwell purposely address the impact of intelligence on success, to further prove that having a high IQ is only part of the struggle to reaching your goals. He continues on by stating that being a certain ethnicity, social class, or background does not dictate whether or not you will become successful. Gladwell acknowledges that there are disadvantages, but argues that it should not prevent anyone from trying to achieve their goals.
Finally, what Gladwell wants readers to take away from this book is to realize that people become “Outliers” not just because of the initial efforts they put forth or their intelligence. It’s because of the people who have helped them throughout their journeys and the opportunities they seized. As a society we need to realize that not everyone succeeds, just because they are lucky or smart. We should not let others story discourage us from being ambitious and try to uplift each other to help reach our aspirations.
-Krystal Jamjampour
This books sounds very interesting and enlightening. I too have measured success by wealth and achievements, failing to recognize the hardships, companions, and opportunities that precedes success. The book's view that intelligence is only a mere factor to success is very surprising as I have never realized this. How do you define success? Personally, it's the amount of happiness and satisfaction in one's life for me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gladwell that certain characteristics of a person do not determine whether or not they will become successful. It all depends on the hardships/ sacrifices one makes on his or her journey to achieve their goals and dreams. With that being said, I like how one of Gladwell’s purposes of his book is to uplift or boost the confidence of those who look up to the “lucky ones” because it is not impossible for them to become those “lucky ones,” too.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author's claim that it is not just natural talent or luck that makes a person successful and also when you mention how he believes we as a society perceive success in a very narrow-minded way by thinking this. However, another side to that is how society generally makes success objective, or specific around certain goals and aspirations. I believe it is also important to not perceive success as or compare success to the achievements of others. You don't have to do monumental things in order to be successful in life, but I feel that there is a constant pressure on people to be great and do great. As Hamilton mentions, personal happiness and satisfaction with one's life is a good measure of success, which doesn't necessarily have to be well-known for it to be worth more.
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