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Myrlene Reid Professor Adam Padgett English 1101-056 October 15, 2013 Is Success Predetermined? In the book Outliers, Gladwell focused a lot on what makes a person successful. Does it solely depend on how much time they put into what theyre doing? Is it about when their born and the opportunities that arise in that time period? Or is it about what ethnical background theyre from and how that holds them back or pushes them forward? I believe that Gladwell refers to success in this book and in life as something that is predetermined. Gladwell makes points about success depending on where youre from, your economic status, the values your parents instill in you at a young age, and the opportunities that come your way. In this paper, I will focus on the factors that make it so that success isnt necessarily something that comes to people who solely work extremely hard, but is instead decided by small things that one may not even notice. In Outliers, where you are from has a huge impact on the type of opportunities you are going to be exposed to and the chances of certain goals being met. For example, if one is from the city of New York and has the dream of becoming a farmer it may be a bit more difficult for them than it would be for someone from a town in North Carolina. This is because a person from North Carolina has more exposure to farming than a person from New York City. Gladwell talks about how success is being able to put your 10,000 hours into an activity and when youre not in the right area to do so, it wont be as possible for you as it would be for someone else; you need

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to be able to achieve these 10,000 hours to truly meet success. Practice isnt the thing you do once youre good. Its the thing you do that makes you good (pg. 42). Another part of looking at where people are from is seeing what they would have been groomed to grow up to be and what they would have been exposed to from a young age. If someone lives down the street from a fire station and has grown up their whole lives around fire fighters and knows details about the lifestyle, their motivation to become a successful fire fighter will be higher than someone else who hasnt been as exposed. Different places in the world value different occupations and goals differently. One does not choose where they are born in the world and thus what they are exposed to at a young age is predetermined. Ones economic status is something that can be the difference in their life compared to anothers. Its about the opportunities you were exposed to at a young age, not necessarily about how much monetary money you possess. Children who were born into well off families were taken to dance lessons, put onto soccer teams, and kept busy. They were taught that they had a skill that was unique and could make them successful. One of the well-off children Lareau followed played on a baseball team, two soccer teams, a swim team, and a basketball team in the summer, as well as playing in an orchestra and taking piano lessons (pg. 103). As Gladwell has shown with this statement, if a child showed any type of special interest in a particular activity they did, their parents made sure they were put in every type of extracurricular service that could allow them to expand on this interest, thus beginning that childs 10,000 hours. A child from a family that doesnt give him these types of opportunities has to start his 10,000 hours later in life which could be the difference of him being successful or not. The opportunities one is given as a child shapes them as they go on in their lives. Finding their passion and what they are individually good at younger is crucial in such a competitive world. When discussing the

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difference between how classes are taught Gladwell points out that, the sense of entitlement that he has been taught is an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world (pg. 108). Being told that you could simply be whatever you wanted to and then being supplied with the means to achieve that goal is prevalent in higher classes. Being born into a well to do family is something no one has control over, which backs up my belief that success is a predetermined factor of life. Alexs mother is teaching that he has the right to speak up- that even though hes going to be in a room with an older person and authority figure, its perfectly all right for him to assert himself (pg. 106). If a child is taught to speak up and assert their concerns, because their opinion matters, they will carry this type of confidence throughout their life. They will have the speaking skills to say what they think and assert themselves instead of staying quiet. Some children are taught that they are not to assert themselves around adults, because they are a child. As they get older and become working adults they have this same mentality towards their superiors. They do not have the confidence to voice an opinion or make themselves known. This could cause them to miss out on certain opportunities that could lead them to success. The way you were taught at a young age has a direct affect on the way you act as you get older and are out in the professional world. In life you have to have the confidence to speak up and tell your boss about an idea you have in order to make yourself seen and to advance. This isnt an attribute that most people are born with; its something they have to be taught starting at a young age. The value in teaching ones child this type of thinking is mainly placed on the middle- and upperclasses, thus giving their children an advantage. Different people are given different opportunities that push them towards a goal. For some its a person in that particular field who is willing to take them under their wing and teach

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them the way. For others its getting that job they had trained and worked so hard for to promote them up the professional ladder. An opportunity can even be as small as living near a prestigious dance school as a young child when you have a dream of becoming a ballerina. Everyone has opportunities throughout their life, but its not just about getting an opportunity, but getting the right one. Only few are given the opportunities that lead to the road of success. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call accumulative advantage (pg. 30). Accumulative Advantage is referring to a series of opportunities that someone gets over another person that continues to put them ahead and further in their goal of success. In the book Gladwell talks about the Hockey Players and how because some are born in a certain part of the year they are put on the teams earlier, beginning their 10,000 hours earlier, and then becoming NHL players. Having the right opportunity, like in this example, can be the determining factor between working for a rich CEO and being that CEO. Throughout ones school years you are taught that if you believe in yourself, work hard enough, and never give up that you will achieve all of your dreams and goals. Gladwell completely tears through this idea saying instead that one has to almost have been groomed from birth for success. That not everyone is going to achieve their wildest dreams no matter how hard they try. From this novel I concluded that success is predetermined. That one is given the right opportunities, born in the right economical status for their particular goal, born in the right area, and has had the right goals instilled in them. Success, like most things, is a process where different things have to be crossed off the list in order to achieve it. When one is predetermined for success they obtain all of the means to check off every criterion on the checklist of success.