Outliers Gladwell Analysis

Outliers, defined by Malcolm Gladwell are people who “do not fit into our normal understanding of achievement.” Gladwell discusses how success is not achieved through self-efforts, but rather because of hidden advantages; circumstances, opportunity, education, family, community, and the readiness for diligence. Gladwell has known people who are “smart, ambitious and not rich.” His point throughout this book is that many circumstances throughout an individual's life will have some bearing on who becomes successful. It is just not a fixed set of rules and riches. For the most part, everything can be achieved if a person is in the right place at the right time.
There is a young man that I know; his name is James. James was nurtured in a family …show more content…
James did not have the opportunity independent of school for advanced education and did not come from a wealthy family. Gladwell references a Stanford University psychology professor, Lewis Terman, who points out that intelligence and success are strongly interconnected. However, Gladwell is accurate when he suggests misconceptions about being a genius and success. James is intelligent but is not a genius. He is not what one would consider a self-made man. In Outliers, Gladwell writes that Robert Oppenheimer parents put him in the finest schools, got him the best training; James mother was not wealthy, nor could she present to James the advantages that were provided Langan by his parents. The minds of society are shadowed by the fact that money is required to succeed. James lineage had no wealth, and he continues to thrive.
Moreover, because of the values, the family pressed on James, he is driven just like his grandmother, mommy, and very unlike his absent father. As Gladwell suggests, James, who happens to be my son, succeeds because of “the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” and that “The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.” James is simply not an