Let’s get this straight first. I actually applaud Malcolm Gladwell for writing his book Outliers. His theories throughout the book touched ideas that I wouldn’t even begin to think about or question. He gave support for his theories and spent a lot of time describing occurrences that seemed to prove them (as you can guess I’m a bit skeptical about some). I actually enjoyed reading once I got myself to actually focus and read. You see, it’s not the type of book that you don’t want to put down; it’s more of the book that you can effectively read a chapter or two without getting bored. There were just some things that I had a problem with while reading this book that I can’t seem to wrap my head around.…
To convince his audience of that, however; Gladwell must first ensure that they are able to connect with his journey to discover the truth behind first impressions. The style choice of a personal narrative helps the reader get involved with the essay and makes the author more relatable. Gladwell informs the readers of his first impressions of Nolan Myers despite knowing they are unlikely to be accurate (5). The author starts forming a relationship with the reader early by showing his vulnerability and humanity. He acknowledges his own fallibility in believing his conversation with Myers allowed him to determine that Myers is a person he would like and that he will succeed in any position. Gladwell extends that relationship when he reveals that…
Growing up, people have different goals in their lives, and sometimes without knowing exactly what they are going to do, they simply want to be successful in the future. Success is a word that has different meanings for many people: some of them think success is the wealth, for some it is just making the world a better place. Success does not happen overnight as describes Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the book called, “Outliers: The Story of Success”. In most cases it takes a lot of practice. Sometimes the past of a person or the place where he/she was born affects the future of that person. Referring to some facts from one of Gladwell’s…
Malcolm Gladwell’s arguments center around an idea he calls “thin-slicing.” Thin-slicing is the concept that our unconscious can take lightning-quick bits of experiences and use preconceived notions about behaviors and situations to interpret them. Our unconscious thin-slices the world around us on a constantly– every person we meet or even already know we thin-slice. In times of panic, our brains rely on those split-second decisions based on what we have unconsciously observed. The reactions that we have from thin-slicing are sometimes called one’s basic instincts: the inkling inside of you that you may or may not understand. This is where Gladwell gets into the idea that even when your unconscious brings these thin-slices to your conscious attention, you probably still won’t know why you feel the way you do about things. The little connections that your unconscious brain makes are behind a set of locked doors. It’s a bit off-putting to know that your brain is doing things completely unaware of what in this class we would call one’s I-function.…
Many people believe that success has a direct correlation to one’s intelligence, ambition, and personality traits, but in fact, those are not what someone successful. As described by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers, the successful become that way as a result of many factors that come their way. Gladwell shows that surrounds the successful are their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experience of their upbringing. Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of success is correct because success not only need to intelligence and hard-working, and also social environment and opportunity as same as important.…
In “The Sweet of Success Isn’t All That Sweet,” writer Laurence Shames emphasizes that people should accept failure as a having positive instead of purely negative attributes [is this really his point? Simplifying it thus changes his meaning]. Shames’s purpose is to clarify the true meaning of success and what people can learn from the process of becoming a successful person, rather than what it looks like when a person ends up with what society may label success. Shames adopts an ironic tone and uses an organic arrangement to define what the true meaning of success is [his statements are intended to apply to all of Western or at least North American society, not just his readers].…
Success is an integral part of a good life. Everybody wants to be successful and everybody has the potential to be such. The familial environment that I grew up in and the habits that were instilled in me set me on a successful path. I consider myself to come from a successful family. My father was an esteemed judge in Iraq (I say was because he is no longer alive; he was killed after the break out of the war in Iraq in 2003). My mother graduated college with an engineering degree and taught electrical engineering at several high schools in Baghdad. Growing up between them, it was never ok to be lazy or careless and being successful was the optimum way of life. I was always encouraged to do well in school and give my best effort in everything.…
Every human historically and presently, thrives for the same thing, success. Some seek it through monetary values, while others perceive success as the amount of power one possesses. Ralph Waldo Emerson however, offered a new perspective of the meaning of success. He claimed, “To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place, to know one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded”. Emerson’s words of inspiration have got me thinking. Perhaps life’s luxuries are not based on what we own, yet who we are as a person. All the wealth in the world could not buy the respect of others, nor true happiness, and certainly not the courage to change society. I believe Emerson has brought a greater meaning to the concept of success, and with striking compassion, attitude, and demeanor, I aim to achieve Emerson’s definition of success.…
Malcolm Gladwell is the writer of books and for New Yorker Magazine. His books are generally categorized under the category of “Self-improvement”. However, in my opinion, he is not one of that self-improvement trashes. You can see that he does really research for his books. Just take a look into his “cites”. Even this made him different them from those I called trash. He is not putting an exact way on you, he does not tell you what to do, as if you are beginning to use a new software on your computer. He just narrates the stories and researches the reasons behind them, then convey you those as they are. And so readers can take parts of his writings which work for themselves.…
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld wrote in a newspaper article, “What Drives Success?” about the drive for successfulness according to ethnicity, religion and particular group that a person may belong to. “It may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall”(Chua and Rubenfeld). Success is taught to all people from a young age. “A seemingly un-American fact about America today is that for some groups, much more than others, upward mobility and the American dream are alive and well”(Chua and Rubenfeld). In today’s…
Success is all that we want. To be successful in life, to be successful in our career, to be successful in everything we do. But have you done your part in achieving those goals in life? Are those efforts of yours enough to be on the place you want to be? For you to achieve that success, you must strive hard and work hard. It is not like a seed that will bloom once you’ve planted it underground. The road to success is not smooth. It is a rocky road full of bumps and cracks. You may stumble and fall while chasing that dream but that doesn’t mean you have to stop. Rise again and continue. You may never know, it is just one step away from you.…
Success has been man’s greatest stimulus. It is very important for all. Success has great effect on life. It brings pleasure and pride. It gives a sense of fulfillment. It means all around development. Everybody aspires to be successful in life. But success comes to those who have a proper strategy, planning, vision and stamina. A proper and timely application of all these things is bound to bear fruit. One cannot be successful without cultivating certain basic things in life. It is very difficult to set out a journey without knowing one’s goals and destinations. Clarity of the objective is a must to succeed in life. A focused approach with proper planning is certain to bring success. Indecision and insincerity are big hindrance on the path to success.…
A person may say that he is successful even he don’t have everything that a typical person yearn to acquire, as long as he is happy with his achievements in life. Moreover, the success of a person must not be enjoyed alone, but it must be shared with everyone around him. Ultimately, if he came to a point that he already attained what he aimed, he must not forget to recognize the guidance and support of God as well as of those who were the reason what and where he is…
Success is basically about how you can crack adverse circumstances in your favour. Once a great man said that, hard work is the key to success. Maybe he was right. As it turns out, human relations may support people to have good associations with their surroundings, but today’s world is a competitive world. Everyone here wants to be famous and wants success in his/her life, and maintaining good relations cannot always come in handy. We may consider one thing in motion, that sometimes, while maintaining nice and wide association; people tend to lose all their glory and success. For this, we can take in account of one simple instance of Speak Asia.…
Most of the successful people in the world are those who are not idle. They do not sit at home in front of the TV. They don’t spend their whole day eating and sleeping. They don’t talk about unnecessary things. They spend their time doing useful things. They study and learn different things, and think about how they can make it better or easier. It is this kind of people who can be successful in life. And it is this kind of people who…