Research Papers On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Why do some people become successful and others don’t? In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell believes that successful people don’t succeed randomly, but that, success “arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities” (155). According to Gladwell, being successful happens to people who had special opportunities and unique circumstances that pushes them into their success(155). One of his theories about success, is the belief that practicing for 10,000 hours with allow you to become better in your talent, which will propel you into your success. Another theory that Gladwell looks is a middle -class parenting style called concerted cultivation. Concerted cultivation is when a parent “foster and assess a child’s talents,

Gladwell believes the people on the top of their field, the most successful of all, are people who put in the time to practice. By practicing for 10,000 hours, Gladwell believes it’s ample time for people to learn their trade and to master it. Using evidences for his book, Gladwell believes that successful software tycoon, Bill Joy’s success is an example of the 10,000 hours rule. In the early 1970’s, Bill Joy had fallen in love with the computer terminals at his university and ended up spending more time practicing coding on the computers than in his classes. According to Joy, he believes that by the time he was in his first year of graduate school at UC Berkeley, he was spending around 10,000 hours working and practicing coding on the computers. While I think that practicing helped Joy became successful in computer coding, I think that his love for computer coding is why he is successful. Without his passion and love for his talent, I believe he never would have bothered to spend such a vast amount of time working in the computer

Concerted cultivation is a middle class parenting style that teaches the child that “he has the right to speak up” (106) and learn how to “customize” their environment to get their way”(105). While being is an environment that teaches concerted cultivation doesn’t seem like it would be a big advantage, but Gladwell thinks it’s very crucial for reaching success. A prime example of concerted cultivation comes from looking at the life of a brilliant man named Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer came from a wealthy family that used the concerted cultivation teaching style, which helped him to foster his growth and taught him how to get “the rest of the world to see things his way”(99). The skills that Oppenheimer had learned from the converted cultivation allowed him to talk his way into a position at the Manhattan Project, despite being grossly unqualified, and had previously attempted to poison his chemistry tutor. Gladwell concludes that the cause of Oppenheimer success was not from his brillants, but because of the parenting style his parent’s used. But was Robert Oppenheimer successful because of how he was raised or because he passion that drove him to get his