Outliers: The Story of Success

Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell can be described as quite a unique novel, taking into consideration the language used in writing and even the different approaches Gladwell used to bring out his ideologies about the rich. In his book Gladwell discredits the cliche about rich and successful people being of high intelligence and with great ambition. Gladwell articulately argues that the story of success is very different. He inclines upon trying to understand how rich people live, if we want to learn something from rich people, we should study the way they relate with people, their family, the place of birth and even their birthdate can tell a lot. In this way, Gladwell is able to give a clear pathway or blueprint to making the most out of human potential. In his book Gladwell clearly describes a different perspective of looking at success in both life and personality. His acute precision to descriptions and the different perspective to life thrills the readers into needing to find out more about the book and its contents.

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In his book Gladwell describes an outlier as a person who out of the ordinary do not have any social fittings with the common myth of achievement. He describes that great men and women are born out of specialization, out of collaboration, time, place and the culture. All these factors do contribute to the success for great people. Another factor to consider is that people who are successful in life are not just geniuses, but they are people who practice their craft over and over again to perfection that is where the genius is born (Axelrod 320-323).

Malcolm Gladwell can be described as an apt writer who started his writing career at a young age when he was writing for the Washington Post. He creatively wrote his post which was in-depth and down right to the core. His major influence in his writing is his mother how was a Psychologist. His mothers influence in his writing come out clearly in his literary ways of writing. Malcolm is able to analyze people from an eagles point of view, he has an in-depth understanding of human beings and the art of thinking and has a deep knowledge of the behavior of people and their tendencies. His psychological background has helped him quite well in his life and works through the production of his books like, Blink, The Tipping Point and. What the dog saw. All these books have a commonality in them, an in-depth understanding of people. This particular trait attracted many readers in his columns, and his books too, his understanding of sociology has seen him receiving appreciation tokens like Award for Excellence by the American Sociological Association.

The first part of the book talks about the parable of the talents. In this book, he talks about the The Mathew Effect. He describes the people are born to do some activities; time predisposes some people with the right tools and partners to effect certain activities in their life. He describes the life of Bill Joy and Bill Gates being born in the 50s as a predisposition by the time that they are fitting within the renaissance of technology in the world. He also describes that achieving great feats in life is all about understanding that perfection comes with practice. He brings out the allegory of Mozart, who had to practice day and night in order to perfect his musical skills.

Cultural Legacies are the point of views of a given society that has surpassed the test of time. Gladwell describes cultural legacies as tendencies that have persisted generations after generation and people cannot conceive or make sense of the world without them. Gladwell discusses the perceptions and ideologies of a given society. He describes that certain qualities of a given society can be that of success or doom. He gives literal examples like how Korean airline industry had rigid conceptions about their piloting of their planes due to the likelihood of a crash, but this rigidity has helped the airline attain high safety ratings in the industry. Different societal ideologies can help a society thrive or even tumble down to rags.

The critic of the book Outliers by Gladwell has been popular over the years many people saying that the book is quite a vane, anecdotal and in many ways too obvious. It doesn't mean that the book is quite shallow and too general about how success can be attained and how successful people have made it in life. Gladwell brings out the concept of nurture clearly as opposed to nature. One may say that nature has an influence in people's success stories, but Gladwell focuses on nurture, the aspect of personal development and a breakaway from the general conceptions of society. One critic by Max Ross, who works for the Star Tribune describes Gladwell's concept of success in his words Gladwell never questions the actual foundations of success being hard work, the ambition and the ability to undertake a certain task. Gladwell simply adds a hurdle to the path of success; these values should be factored in, in a temporal and also in a societal context for them to be realistic. This critic approaches success from a practical perspective which in this context makes a great deal of sense.

Taking a parallel lane and looking into an article by Nicholas D Kristof of The New York Times, Saudis In Bikinis. In his article, he describes the repressed nature of Saudi women and their frivolous stubbornness on not being repressed in any way. He talks about situations where he met three veiled Saudi women in abayas checking out a short skimpy dress. He then wonders about the things Saudi Women put on under the black vails. He talks of his interviews with several women who give him a scathing critic of his opinion on women suppression in Saudi. Most women he interviewed gave a different perspective to freedom; they expressed that they appreciate their culture for what it is and the principles it instills in them (Hurteau 239-240).

Saudi women are loyal and respectful to societal expectations of them; others are ambivalent about it, but many are comfortable with it. The economic development of Saudi Arabia and its international reputation can be in jeopardy due to their backward nature when it comes to freedom of women. This article correlates with Gladwells Outliers, in the aspect that cultural legacies have an influence on societal success or failure. Cultural legacies however backward, it can be of positive impact on the growth and progress of a given society. Taking an outsider's view of the cultural legacies of Saudi, one may think of it as a deterrence to progress but on the flip side; their deep-rooted culture has also helped develop a society of order and undisputed progress. Holding on to what a certain people believe in their gut is right, can have both positive and negative outcomes. It is, therefore, important that one does take a certain perspective, thinking that it is right while overshadowing the positives that come with other cultural beliefs. Individual and societal success depends on nurture and both nature but is important to factor in qualities of sheer hard work and determination that aid in the achievement of set goals.

Works Cited

Axelrod, Saul. "A Review Of: Malcolm Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story Of Success .a". Child & Family Behavior Therapy 31.4 (2009): 320-323. Web.

Hurteau, Bob. "Outliers: The Story Of Success. By Malcolm Gladwell. New York, Little, Brown & Co. 2008. Pp. Ix + 310. $27.99.". Mission Studies 27.2 (2010): 239-240. Web.