Outliers

Is there a significant correlation between success and skill? Nowadays, the path to success seems to be different for each individual, as some people have unfair advantages to help them excel faster. Often times, these advantages stem from circumstances no one even has control over. Through his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claims that the idea of a self-made man is a logical fallacy as almost all successful people have had a leg up over others. While a small portion of success is due to pure talent, Gladwell’s argument holds true as most super-achievers can attribute their accomplishments to their time of birth, family upbringing, and receiving extra opportunities to perfect their skills.
There are certain advantages that people have just
In Canada, the cutoff for each age in hockey is January 1. That means “a boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn't turn ten until the end of the year” (Gladwell 24). An almost twelve month gap between two people competing against each other gives older athletes a leg up, as they are physically more developed. At the age of nine and ten, players are already sought out by coaches for the travelling “rep” teams. Naturally, the coaches are more likely to choose “the bigger and more coordinated players, who have had the benefit of critical extra months of maturity” (Gladwell 24). As a result, the older athletes end up getting more practice and training after being recruited, leading to most of them becoming professional hockey players. This shows how big an impact uncontrollable factors have on success. It is pure luck for an athlete to be born in the earlier months of the year, yet this detail will have a huge effect on the player. Likewise, age
Coming from a wealthy background, Bill Gates went to private school where a portion of the institution's funding went to a new computer terminal. However, Gates did not “learn programming by the laborious computer-card system, like virtually everyone else was doing in the 1960s [,and instead] he got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader” (Gladwell 51). The upper hand that Gates had with this privilege, eventually gave him the chance to work at Information Sciences Inc, ISI. There he spent “1,575 hours of computer time on the ISI mainframe, which averages[d] out to eight hours a day, seven days a week” (Gladwell 52). This ample amount of time to practice and perfect his craft gave him the extra boost to become exceptional at programming leading to the creation of Microsoft. Although, it seems that his success can be attributed to his own passion and dedication, the opportunities that he was presented with helped him with his progress. Similarly, the Beatles were given more opportunities and time to practice their music, which led to their fame and wealth today. The Beatles got their first chance when they were invited to play at Hamburg strip club. This job forced the band to practice more and more allowing the Beatles to grow in skill. Looking back many members of the group say that the when giving performances at Hamburg, they “‘had