Book Report On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell examines the lives of people who have achieved greatness in the world, to find out what makes them achieve greatness. Are there “secrets" and what we can learn from these outliers in order to become successful ourselves. Gladwell challenges our usual thoughts that the self-made man will succeed and proposes his own theory of how ordinary people become successful. While the book makes for an entertaining read, but not every argument of his is water-tight. In today’s society, a majority of people have come to think that the building blocks of success are within the personality and character of the individual. While Malcolm Gladwell says, in his bestselling non-fiction book Outliers, that success is shaped by exogenous

To support his idea Gladwell provides his readers with stories of The Beatles, Bill Gates, and Bill Joy in their quest towards triumph. When describing The Beatles, Gladwell mentions their sum amount of performances, “The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night… All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half” (pages 49-50). It certainly makes sense that a lot of hours of practice will equals to higher efficiency in any skill, but Gladwell’s argument is that the opportunity to play shows so frequently and so long is what provided The Beatles the possibility of becoming a successful international sensation. Although their performances gave The Beatles a large amount of time to progress.The amazing guitarist Steve Vai conveys the theme of determination with no need for the “golden opportunity.” One may say that he receive that opportunity because his parents gave him his first guitar and supported him. However the largest difference is that tons of individuals are privileged with the opportunity that others may never get to experience, but the idea is that some people chose to surpass normality because of they are ambitious, driven, and therefore expanding the window of opportunity through their effort. Mr. Vai stands out among the rest as he got a doctorate in music from and is considered a musician who revolutionized the way of playing guitar. Vai is evidence of not only gaining success, but he exemplifies the journey towards mastery through personal motivation with coming in short (very short) of the 10,000 hour