Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2008. Print.
The Crazy Looking Ones are Always the Smart Ones
Outliers - well... why?
The title of this nonfiction novel is Outliers. In math, an outlier is a number far away from the average. In statistics, an outlier is an observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample. However, an outlier is most often defined as something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body. Throughout the novel, Malcolm Gladwell writes about certain figures of success, how they became successful, and the legacies of certain factors that allowed for success. Each chapter begins with the story of a person who is well-known for being successful, famous, or talented. The ones who are mentioned, such as Bill Gates, are considered outliers because they are different from the majority of people who never become as triumphant.
The Important People and Entities That Compose Outliers
Unlike some nonfiction novels, Outliers does not focus on one individual. Instead, each chapter begins with a different individual, and as the chapter unravels, more characters are introduced. In the first chapter, the story of successful hockey players is told. The athletes mentioned are the best of the best, flying on the ice with confidence and superiority. While elite hockey players are talented, Gladwell mentions a hidden trait that separates the rpofessionals and the wanna-be's. He reveals that most professional hockey players in Canada have the birthday of January. He then explains that the early birthday opens opportunities that allow for success. Players with the birthday of a later month, such as August, do not have the same opportunities. Throughout the book, the hockey players are continuously brought up because their story is easy to remember and relevant to most topics later brought up.
Another person that served important to the story of Outliers was not brought up until the very end, in the epilogue. The epilogue begins like any chapter, with a story of a person who starts at the bottom and climbs to the top. This story was different, though, because it was not about a particularly famous person or event. Instead, it was about Gladwell's mother. He tells how she began as a poor Jamaican girl daily attending the crowded school house as a child. She later managed to attend a private high school, get accepted college, and overcome racial hardships only to later become a well-off author, family therapist, and mother. Like any other story that is told throughout the book, Gladwell states that his mother's success was due to her acting on the given opportunities that allowed for success. The character of Gladwell's mother is important, however, because her story wraps the entire book together and allows the audience to see the occasion that sparked Gladwell to write Outliers. The story of his mother allows one to believe that Gladwell was inspired by his own family's history to question how one starts at the bottom and ends up at the top, which is the overall subject of Outliers.
Although many people are mentioned in Outliers, the story's main entity is really opportunity. While almost every person mentioned throughout the novel had the traits of hard-working and talented, they were lucky enough to be given opportunities. Each opportunity offered an advantage that separated the successful from the non. As the novel unfolds, each character's story is analyzed only to find hidden intertwined factors that result in opportunity. Of these factors are the date of birth, 10,000 hours of practice, being talented enough, family background, cultural differences, and the environment one grows up in. While it is hard to one character from the novel, these factors can be used to create a typical character found in the novel. They must have been born in the right time frame, allowing for history to take its course and creating revolutions. The character went through a unusual circumstance that allowed 10,000 hours of practice to be done at a fairly young age. The activity they were introduced to is something they understand and has purpose to them, making the 10,000 hours come easy. Lastly, their surroundings, which includes family background, culture, and social status, must support their road to success.
A Couple of Settings in Outliers
Along the Pearl River Delta, there is a thick polluted haze hovering above the many factories and buildings that make up industrialized China. On one side of the factory there could be a runty apartment building while on the other side could be a freeway backed up with the traffic of tractor trailers and cars. Not far from the big cities of China, there are fields of banana and mango trees, pineapples, papaya, and sugarcane, being cultivated only to later be exported. China has quickly been industrialized. If one was to look at this area not long ago, the only visual would be rice and its paddies. However, the old China is still present if one looks past the factories and thick haze. Carved into mountains and hills are muddy rice fields, giving the land splashes of vibrant green. Near these fields are mud huts housing Chinese families. These huts make up small towns, where their life revolves around cultivating rice and trading in the open-air markets. In the dry season, from November through February, families continue working with small practical tasks, such as weaving baskets and hats to sell in the market, repairing dykes in the rice paddy, and rebuilding their mud huts. The towns are continually buzzing with diligent people working at a constant pace. Significantly, the parts of China where cultivation of rice is major is responsible for some of the most hard-working people with beliefs such as, "No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make the family rich." (Pg. 238)
On the island of Jamaica, there is a small village called Harewood. While the name Jamaica is almost a synonym to tropical paradise, bringing up the image of tourists laying under the sun on the white-sand beaches with a fruity drink in hand, Harewood would not fit this expectation, especially in the mid twentieth century. The city was mainly populated by the lower-class. It was full of small run down cottages, churches, and a long, single-room barn raised on concrete stilts that was used as a school house. The amount of people in the school house varied from day to day. Sometimes there would be a large amount of students, as many as 300, reading, writing, and reciting their times tables. On the days when the schoolhouse was too crowded to bare, the teacher would move class outside. On other days, however, there were roughly two dozen students present. Either way, the children sometimes grew restless and lost control. The teacher would stomp down the aisles, waving a strap around, and the class would fall back into place. Although Harewood seems like a rough town to grow up in, Gladwell's mother was able to get an education and later succeed.
Likewise to the characters, a wide variety of places are mentioned throughout Outliers. However, the two that were most elegantly described by Gladwell are China and Jamaica.
Ten Occurrences in Outliers
Similar to the characters and settings, Outliers does not necessarily tell a story chronologically. Instead, it sets up stories in a chronological way to present the facts and statistics that support the big question, "How do people succeed?"
1. The story of a man who noticed the similar date of birth in an elite hockey league.
This story was significant because it introduces the study that certain dates of birth, whether it be month or year, serve as an advantage and an opportunity for different things. For this particular story, those born in January are the oldest in the league. This is important at young ages because a boy born in January compared to a boy born in August would get more attention because he was bigger. With the more attention, the more the young hockey player would get help. This means he would get better and selected by the better teams, which would cause him to practice more and continue to get better.
2. The story of computer programmer Bill Joy and how he was introduced early to computers.
This story introduces the idea that one needs ten thousand hours of practice before they can perfect the art of an activity. It also reiterates that the year Joy was born, 1954, allowed him to be at the perfect age when the University of Michigan opened the world's most advanced computer center in 1971. Joy was able to get his ten thousand hours in because he found an error in the system that allowed him to stay on the computer for a long time without getting charged. Because he was highly interested in computers, he spent most of his time in the computer center. He rewrote the software UNIX, which is still used today as an operating system.
3. The story of the Beatles at Hamburg, Germany.
This story serves as another example of the ten-thousand hour rule. Before the Beatles came to the United States, they were a band in Europe. They were offered to play all night gigs in Hamburg, Germany. The shows were nonstop and forced the band to play at eight hours at a time, seven days a week. By time they got their first burst of success, they had performed live an estimated 1200 times, easily giving them the 10,000 hours of practice they needed.
4. The story of computer programmer Bill Gates, which is similar to Bill Joy's.
Likewise to Bill Joy, Gates was introduced to computer programming early enough to get ten thousand hours in. He was born in 1955, which made him old enough to be part of the coming computer revolution but not too old to miss it. Because he lived in a wealthy community, he was introduced to a computer through school. He soon became addicted to programming, and him and a couple friends managed to find ways to access computers through donations and hospitals. Because he was able to practice so much, he was one of the better programmers, even at a young age. This resulted in him getting a job offer with a company because he was one of the few who were familiar with a certain programming software. This gave him more practice, so once he started his Microsoft business he was fully practiced to succeed.
5. The story of Chris Langan.
Langan's story is unlike others. He is very intelligent, with an IQ of 195, beating Einstein's IQ, which is150. However, he is not as successful as he has potential to be. He dropped out of college due to money reasons and because the college felt no sympathy towards his poor status, he grew bitter feelings towards college education. Thus he never went back to college. Others who have an IQ lesser than his, but good enough, who were given opportunities have been more successful. Thus, Gladwell gets the rule that one just has to be good enough to succeed.
6. The story of Robert Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer's story is similar to Langan's, however it has a different ending. He was, like Langan, a genius with a spectacularly high IQ. In college, however, he tried poisoning his tutor, resulting in Oppenheimer being on probation. Without an education, and a sketchy record, Oppenheimer managed to convince Leslie Groves that he should be the one to lead the atomic-bomb effort. He became successful and well-known after that. This story emphasizes the importance of having a convincing manner. If people are able to convince others to give them what they want, they can manage to be successful. This is known as practical knowledge. It is found more in upper class families because the parents push their kids to be more assertive, where as lower class families allow their kids to be more passive. With assertiveness, one gets more respect and practical knowledge presents itself. This is a result of social/economic status.
7. The story of Joe Flom
Joe Flom was a Jewish immigrant in the mid twentieth century. He was a brilliant man with all the requirements necessary for becoming a lawyer. However, he was not hired anywhere because he was overweight and Jewish. He had to go to a small law firm for a job. This law firm took all the cases that bigger law firms would not take. Of these cases were litigation cases. These cases weren't big to start, but by time they did get big, Flom was able to get his ten thousand hours, and he managed to bring a lot of business to his firm. Flom's story reiterates the ten-thousand hour rule, and refers to time because he was able to catch on to a revolution before anybody else. His story also teaches the lesson of demographic luck, meaning one has to be born at a time that they miss history's worst hits. For example, somebody born in the early 1900's had to deal with World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression. These three things ruined Flom's father, who had just as much potential.
8. The story of the Jewish couple and their garment industry
This story talks about a Jewish immigrant couple who came to New York and started a clothing business. At the time, technology was not in their favor. The couple would sew all day and night. They were a very hardworking couple. Many Jewish couples ran the garment industry at that time because that is mostly what they did in their homelands. They found their work meaningful, allowing them to continue on and succeed. Because their kids were raised around this kind of atmosphere, most of the children went on to practice a meaningful occupation, such as a lawyer or physician. In fact, most kids of the garment industry went on to those two occupations. This story brings up the factor of cultural background and family history.
9.The story about the plane crash at Guam
This story describes a plane crash that occurred with Korean Airlines. Korean Air soon got a reputation for its plane crashes. Many factors lead to plane crashes, such as exhaustion of a pilot, many minor difficulties, and, most importantly, bad communication. While this does not seem relevant to the other stories that deal with success, it is a crucial story when understanding cultural differences. Because South Korea believes highly in respecting the power of higher officials, when the copilot believed there was danger, he spoke with ambiguity. Because of this, the American captain didn't sense much danger in the copilot's tone nor words. Therefore, the plane crashed. This is a prime example of how cultures are different, which can cause success or failure when two people with different cultural backgrounds have to work together, whether the success be as minor as flying a plane or the failure being as big as crashing the plane.
10. The story about the Asians and education
Similar to the last story, culture is a major factor of success in this story. When trying to remember numbers, the English language is against Americans. There are many exceptions and the numbers are not consistent. For example, if 14 is fourteen, it would make sense for 12 to be twoteen. But instead, it's twelve. Some Asian language has more consistent rules, making it easier for the young to learn to count. This puts them at an immediate advantage. When time comes for school, the Asians have an easier time adding because their words for numbers are simpler to translate into numbers. For example, if an American child hears thirty plus twenty-two, they have to translate the numbers in their head to 30 and 22, then add the numbers. An Asian child would hear three-tens plus two-tens two, which is exactly what the numbers are: 30 and 22. This makes it easier for them to add, meaning their at a cultural advantage. Also, the people from some places in Asia go to school 240 days a year, while Americans only go to school 180 days a year. This means they have a smaller summer break to forget things. This puts them at an even bigger advantage.
Gladwell's Tone on Page 267
Gladwell's tone is informative throughout the entire book as he presents facts and statistics. However, he also sets up arguments neutrally. For example, page 267 reads, "Is this a lot to ask of a child? It is. But think of things from Marita's perspective." On this page, Gladwell is talking about a girl, Marita, who attends a special middle school where the hours are from 7:25-5:00 on the week days and 8:00-1:00 on Saturdays and a couple weeks in the summer. Although he states that this much school is a lot, he begins to mention the pros of that much school. His tone is therefore neutral, allowing the audience to take their own stand. Even though there are many stories in the novel, Gladwell takes on an honest tone, in order to make the stories as factual as they can be, while still being interesting.
The Best Part of Outliers
Nonfiction books are sometimes difficult to read if they do not hold one's interest. However, with a talented author, the factual books can still contain imagery, figurative language, and other rhetoric skills that make reading entertaining. While the entire book is full of interesting facts, the best part of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is the epilogue because it added Gladwell's personal story to the entire book, it bluntly stated the lesson of the novel, and it allows the audience to truly understand the purpose of the book.
The epilogue talks about Gladwell's mother's story. He used almost all the factors that lead to success that were mentioned in the previous chapters to explain his mother's success. Because he did this, it allows the audience to see the relevance of Outliers to Gladwell's life. From his mother's story, the audience feels a connection between the entire book and why it is being told. On top of that, after seeing Gladwell make a connection from the novel to his own life, the audience can make a connection to their life too. They can use the information that was given throughout the novel to look at their family's success or failures.
Because of the epilogue, Gladwell's message is clearly stated. He wants one to look at a successful person as an equal, which is implied from the quote, "It is impossible for a hockey player, or Bill Joy, or Robert Oppenheimer, or any other outlier for that matter, to look down from their lofty perch and say with truthfulness, 'I did this, all by myself.'" (Pg. 285). Nobody succeeds without a little help from outside factors. Therefore, nobody is necessarily better than anybody else. Some people may be stronger in some areas than others, but they can only be successful with the help of other factors. The real message of Outliers is hidden, but it is that somebody's success does not mean they are superior, it just means they were in the right place at the right time.
While all the stories in Outliers had a theme of success and failure, each character was an outlier. However, it is hard to connect each story when the characters could be as different as a hockey player is from a lawyer. The epilogue manages to connect everything and wrap up the entire novel without leaving unanswered questions. Gladwell connects the stories when he states, "Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't... Their success ... is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances ... all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all." (Pg. 285). Gladwell basically says successful people are just ordinary. They do not have special powers, they are not always geniuses, and they are not destined to succeed. No matter what the terms that define their success are, such as money or fame, the successful are just humans. Thus, they are not outliers.
Outliers - About 300 Pages Condensed Into One
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell covers a wide variety of people and stories. However, the overall message is that nobody is an outlier. To be successful, help from outside factors is necessary. If someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time, they could miss their opportunity that would lead to success. If someone has a certain cultural background, their legacy could favor success, or favor failure. To emphasize these points, the book was separated into three parts: "Part One: Opportunities," "Part Two: Legacies," and the "Epilogue: A Jamaican Story." Thus, the summary will be separated into three parts.
Part One: Opportunities
In this section of Outliers, the purpose is to introduce the audience to the main factors that lead to success. Gladwell does this by telling stories of people who ended up successful. Each successful story has similar hidden factors, such as the date of birth, having 10,000 hours of practice, being talented enough, family background, cultural differences, and the environment one grows up in. For example, elite hockey players in Canada, Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and the Beatles all had at least 10,000 hours of practice before they became notably successful, making that one of the most influential success factors.
The hockey players who were born in January had more time to grow than other kids because of the cut off dates for their league. Therefore, they were bigger and more noticeable. This led to them being chosen for the better leagues from the beginning, giving them more time to practice and get help from coaches. They reached 10,000 hours before other young hockey players.
Bill Joy was able to reach his 10,000 hours by being at the right place at the right time, or University of Michigan in 1971. This was the year the Computer Center opened. Once Joy had learned the error of the system, he spent many hours programming before most people got the chance to even use a computer. Bill Gates's story is similar. He was able to reach 10,000 hours because of the donations he got to use the computers, and the nights where he wandered to the hospital so he could use the computer while it was open. By time a programmer was needed, he was ready.
Lastly, the Beatles were able to reach 10,000 hours because of a demanding gig in Germany that required them to play up to eight hours a night, seven days a week. By time they came to America, they had already had at least 1200 live performances. Add that to the amount of time they practiced, and they had at least 10,000 hours.
Like the 10,000 hour rule, the other factors are present in each story. With each chapter in Part 1, Gladwell manages to pull out the intertwined elements of each outlier's story. He separates each factor from the other to make it easier to understand. He then puts the influences with statistics and other information to prove that the factors really do determine whether one succeeds or not.
Part Two: Legacies
Unlike Part One, Part Two in Outliers is more concerned with the differences among people that allow them to succeed or favor. The purpose of this section is to show the audience that different regions of the world have characteristics that allow them to succeed or failure. The best example of failing comes with the plane crash section, while the best example of succeeding comes from the math advantages some Asians have. However, Gladwell also describes how the legacies only serve as a minor barrier from succeeding. While there are other sections of part two, these two best exemplify Gladwell's purpose.
The plane crash section begins with describing a captain's day, the flight, and then the crash that occurred with a Korean airport. Around the time of this crash, many planes with that same airport were crashing. Gladwell explains the factors that cause plane crashes. One of the main reasons planes crash is because of miscommunication. When there is a captain and a copilot of two different races, or the captain and copilot are not comfortable around each other, the likelihood of a crash increases. This is because different regions have different ways they speak to one another. The crash that was first described in this section had an American captain and a Korean copilot. The captain wanted the copilot to tell the air-route control stations that they were running out of fuel. However, Koreans put heavy respect on others who have more power than them. Therefore, the copilot was telling the control station that they were running out of fuel, and that was normal for a plane who was about to land. The control station ignored it because the message sounded anything but urgent. However, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed. This communication problem was fixed by changing the language of Korean airlines to English, which forced copilots to better their English, thus bettering communication.
While Koreans were at a disadvantage when it came to flying planes, most Asians have an advantage when it comes to math and education. This is because their language allows for numbers to be more straightforward, with a consistent pattern of how they are named. This allows them to learn to count more quickly than an American child who has to learn that even though 14 is fourteen, 12 is not twoteen. On top of that, Asians, and Chinese in particular, come from lands where they are used to working hard on rice fields, and labor similar to that. Thus, they have a better work ethic. As if that was not enough advantages, some Asians go to school for 240 days, while most Americans go to school for 180. The longer school year allows for less material to be forgotten over the breaks. It also allows more time to learn lessons thoroughly. This disadvantage for American students can be fixed by attending schools that have longer, and more, school days.
Epilogue: A Jamaican Story
After a long novel of many stories and facts, the book comes to an end with the story of Gladwell's mother. Like any other success story, she started out at the bottom and, with some advantages, she worked her way to the top. After telling this story, Gladwell uses everything that was used in part one and two to analyze his mother's success. After doing so, he smoothly wraps the story up with the overall lesson that nobody is really an outlier. Anybody can be successful, but nobody reaches success on their own. Success comes from hard work, determination, and a lot other factors that people cannot control. Therefore, successful or not, everybody is human. Some just get lucky sometimes.
I Highly Suggest You Pick Up This Book... but not for this project
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a great nonfiction novel. It helps answer the question of curious readers, "What makes somebody successful?" Gladwell answers the question creatively with stories from a wide variety of situations. He also makes the reasoning easy to understand. On top of all that, he is inspirational to anybody who one day hopes to be successful. Gladwell consistently compares success rates between two different groups of people. It makes you wonder what you have to do to be the more successful person.
While I recommend Outliers to anybody, I do not advise somebody to use the novel for this project because it is hard to answer some of the questions. This book evaluation requires readers to write about main characters, settings, and chronological events. Outliers has none of these things. Instead of main characters, it has many minor characters. It does not have any major settings, just the minor settings that go along with the minor characters. The novel is not set up chronologically, instead it is organized into ideas. Therefore, writing about the events that Gladwell writes about chronologically would be terribly difficult. Not to mention, the book begins to seem repetitive at some points, and I feel as though Part Two is not necessary to get the main idea of the book. But overall, it was an interesting novel with a lot of applicable information.
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