ENGLV01A English Composition | Natural Born Talent

Through his book, outliers: The story of success, Malcom Gladwell has challenges several traditional assumptions about the innate genius as well as natural born talent.  The insights of success provided by the mentioned writer highly differ from the conventional methods of obtaining success in both personal as well as professional life. The author has clearly mentioned that “In Outliers, I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work”[1].  In order to explain his statement, the author had taken the help of the speech given by Robert Winthrop about the hero of American independence Benjamin Franklin. In his speech, Winthrop has stated that Franklin had rose from nothing and was unable to evidence basic advantages during his early education. This fact contradicts with Gladwell. According to him, behind the success of each and every individual there remains the contribution of his or her parents, culture and patronage. Success of an individual gets highly impacted by their background an early childhood[2]. The culture one belongs to along with the legacy passed down by the forebears shapes the pattern of one’s achievement.

 With the help of a good number of examples , the author have explained that the chief reasons behind succeeds are timing, practice, circumstances, upbringing culture as well as opportunities[3]. He has pointed out that those successful people we admire like Mozart and Bill Gates were not born with natural talent. Instead of that, they were brought up rightly and were in the right place at the right time. Not only that there hard works of 10,000 hours along with a few lucky opportunities are the chief reason behind their success. The distinguished is one of Gladwell open a new way of thinking for me. Previously, the fact that successful people are born with intent talent often disappointed me. However, after going through this book, I understood the importance of hard work and practice which enhances the belief within myself that I also posses the potential to gain success. In his writing, the author have chiefly focused on 5 factors that has the potential to lead to success. The first factor on which success is highly dependent is Practice. According to Gladwell, a good number of experts ensue about 10,000 hours of practice before they develop their talent. For instance, the famous music band Beatles had to spend two prolonged years in Germany playing 8 hours a day before they experienced success. Bill gates, before he evidenced success, used to spent prolonged hours for programming. Even Mozart, who is known to have god gifted talent have sent a huge amount of time practicing piano on other’s composition before he was ready to create his owns[4]. Thus from this insight of the Author, I understood that talent can only lead to success id it is sharpened with the help of practice.

The next factor that Gladwell explained to be crucial for success is Timing. In his book, he had related a good number of examples of eminent people who are considered to be highly successful since they possess the right skill at the right time. For instance, William Joy learned programming just before it had gained popularity. Just about the time he accrued 10,000 hours of programming practice, personal computing arrived, making the prospect ideal for someone with his skill to make use of the market[5].  The third and four insight of Gladwell  include culture and upbringing. In order to explain the relation between culture and success, Gladwell  have used the story of a Colombian pilot who crashed a plane since, even with thinning fuel, he wasn't self-confident enough to stand up to the threatening control tower agents and demand to land. Thus he explained that culture that promotes passive submission to hierarchy may not be able to experience success. When it comes to upbringing, goodwill explains how upbringing shapes the characteristic of an individual which can either open or hinder his or her way to success[6]. For instance, a child who have been taught to ask questions whenever he or she feels to is more likely to gain success compared to a child who have been taught too suppress their concerns.

While going through the book, I found it impossible for me to read it without looking closely at my own story of success. The insights provided by the author had made me understood the chief reason behind my past failure. Not only has that, the new explanations of success also provided me the track on which I should run in order to achieve success in future. As per my opinion, the chief purpose of the author behind composing the book is to demolish the popularly held beliefs that prevail in the mind of the youth which often hinder their way to success. His book has the potentiality to break the rigid thoughts and involve them more in practicing their skills in order to achieve their ultimate goal. In order to apply the idea of Malcolm in our personal life the first step that should be taken by us includes pursing ‘insane’ ideas. We all posses ideas about how can we make our life better but majority of us often resist ourselves from executing the same due to the far of failure. However, from the new insight gained, people should be encouraged to pursue their innovative ideas followed by extreme and prolonged hours of labors. When it comes to labor we must follow the 10,000 hours practice theory of Gladwell[7]. Not only should that, parenting lessons should be provided to “would be” parents where they will be taught to appropriately up bring their offspring so that they can obtain all the skills that will be needed by them in order to gain success. Finally, as per my opinions, the insights of the author must be incorporated in the study resources of students so that their perspective of success gets changed in a positive way.

References

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The story of success. Hachette UK, 2008.

Hoerr, Thomas R. "Principal connection." Educational leadership 3 (2013): 86-87.

Kovacs, George. "Airway management:“the times they are a-changin”." Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine 15.6 (2013): 317-320.

Koyle, Martin A. "Repair and repeat: Comments on the learning curve for TIP urethroplasty." Canadian Urological Association Journal 7.11-12 (2013): E795.

Nakayama, Don K. "Getting to 10,000 hours." Journal of surgical education 71.2 (2014): 159-160.

Rauch, Marta. "Best practices for using enterprise gamification to engage employees and customers." International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.

Wong, Nathan Colin. "The 10 000-hour rule." Canadian Urological Association Journal 9.9-10 (2015): 299.

[1] Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The story of success. Hachette UK, 2008.

[2] Wong, Nathan Colin. "The 10 000-hour rule." Canadian Urological Association Journal 9.9-10 (2015): 299.

[3] Nakayama, Don K. "Getting to 10,000 hours." Journal of surgical education 71.2 (2014): 159-160.

[4] Rauch, Marta. "Best practices for using enterprise gamification to engage employees and customers." International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.

[5] Koyle, Martin A. "Repair and repeat: Comments on the learning curve for TIP urethroplasty." Canadian Urological Association Journal 7.11-12 (2013): E795.

[6] Hoerr, Thomas R. "Principal connection." Educational leadership 3 (2013): 86-87.

[7] Kovacs, George. "Airway management:“the times they are a-changin”." Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine 15.6 (2013): 317-320.