¶ … Outliers: The Story of Success" is a non-fiction literary work written by Malcolm Gladwell in 2008. In this book, Gladwell has explained the underlying reasons for the success of certain very famous individuals. He has called such people "outliers," which by definition is any value that lies far away from, or at the extreme ends of, a set of data. Similarly, Gladwell has explained such individuals to be very different from the rest of us, exceptional, far removed in their immense success.
In the book Gladwell has explained certain factors he believes are the reason for the success of, say, Bill Gates and the Beatles. These include the "Matthew Effect," which Gladwell has used to explain why many elite Canadian hockey players are all born in the first few months of the year. The reason he gives for this is that, as youngsters, these hockey players had an advantage of being older and hence bigger and more mature than their younger opponents, and therefore received extra coaching. This enabled the likelihood of their being selected into elite hockey leagues. In this way, the stronger kept getting stronger and the weaker (those born in late months and less mature) kept getting weaker, i.e. they did not make it to the major leagues. This is called the "accumulative advantage" by Gladwell, or the "Matthew Effect" (named after a biblical verse in the Gospel of Matthew).
Another idea presented by Gladwell in this book is the "10,000-hour-rule." This idea is basically that greatness requires a lot of time and effort, specifically 10,000 hours according to Gladwell. He has used the example of Bill Gates, who gained access to a computer at an early age and then spent almost 10,000 hours on it programming. He also gives the example of the Beatles, who performed in Germany over 1200 times in four years, which amounted to 10,000 hours.
Gladwell has also explained the notion that it is not merely hard work or genius that determines the success of a person, the environment the person has grown up in also plays a major role. He supported this idea with the example of Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic...
This led to him having a childhood of concerted cultivation. (Gladwell 320)
The ideas Gladwell has presented in this book can be applied to real life as well. We can see examples of outliers in our contemporary society as well as in history. One such exceptional personality is William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare was a famous English poet and playwright, and he was widely regarded as the world's most pre-eminent dramatist. Some also name him as the national poet of England and the "Bard of Avon." Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
John Shakespeare was the son of a tenant farmer, but he moved to Stratford at the age of 20 and set up a business trading wool, malt and corn. His business tied well with his father producing and supplying the goods and John selling them. He also started making and selling leather gloves and purses for the nobility and this helped him earn enough to buy a house in Stratford, and another one in the same city after five years. Mary Arden was born into the noble Catholic family of the Ardens of Park Hall, who were one of the most prominent families of Warwickshire. She was the most favored of eight daughters. When her father passed away in 1556, she was named as one of the Executors of his will and inherited some money and land from him. These two very different people were married in 1557 and they lived happily for a while.
But the journey became rough…
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