The Importance Of Success In Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'

People always strive to be successful, but what if they have no control over the success they achieve? They do. Hard work, passion, and dedication is what makes someone successful, not something like a birth date. In chapter one, of the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the author is incorrect in arguing that success is determined by someone's date of birth compared to cutoff date. Gladwell uses hockey players to argue that the majority of the best players are born between January and March, with the cutoff date being the beginning of a new year. He believes that at a young age the difference in maturity of size and coordination has coaches selecting the older kids for the all star teams that gives kids better coaching and extra practice

Looking at the roster of a canadian hockey team Gladwell makes the observation that most player are born in the beginning of a year. He make it clear that is the case for all good hockey teams. He states his claim when he says, “In any elite group of hockey players - the very best of the best - 40 percent of the players have been born between January and March, 30 percent between April and June, 20 percent between July and September, and 10 percent between October and December”(Gladwell 23). The key word in his argument being any, he makes a conclusion about all hockey teams that doesnt have enough evidence to support, resulting in Gladwell making a hasty generalization. He looks at one canadian hockey team and states all are probably the exact same way. This claim is proven to be a fallacy, and untrue while looking at the current National Hockey League( NHL) rosters by birthdate. The NHL contains the very best players, and according to Gladwell the majority of them should have birthdays in January through March. In the NHL there is a even split between players having birthdays in the first half of months and the second half of months. Hockey players with birthdays in the later months of the year don't have any less of a advantage as players with birthdays in the early part of a year. A date of birth doesn't make you a good play hard work, passion, and dedication is what makes someone good at

Gladwell explains a theory called the Matthew Effect, sociologist Robert Merton creates the theory that people who are most likely to be given special opportunities leads to further success. Gladwell relates this to his hockey theory by saying, “The professional hockey player starts out a little but better than his peers. And that little difference leads to an opportunity that makes that difference a but bigger, and that edge in turn lead to another opportunity, which makes the initially small difference bigger still”(Gladwell 31). Gladwell says the professional hockey player starts out a little better than his peers not older not bigger but better. The better players are the ones who get special opportunities that do lead to future success but a players birthday is not something that can give opportunities to further a person's success. If that was the case success would be 100 percent on luck but it isn't success is about working hard and getting noticed. Once they are noticed, like gladwell said they are given opportunities that lead to their future