Outliers by Malcom Gladwell Essay

In Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers, his goal is to convince the reader that â€Å"people don’t rise from nothing† and that â€Å" we do owe something to parentage and patronage. † Although certain people’s success requires prerequisites of talent and knowledge. I agree with Gladwell that it is not solely because of these talents that these people are successful. However, their success most often is dependant on one’s past good fortune. For example, when or where one was born and raised, one’s cultural background and family legacies, one’s schooling, and many other factors, create opportunities for success where these talents can be utilized. Although some people are thought to have risen from nothing or to have gone from rags to riches, the fact is no one is capable of creating their own success without the help of others and good fortunes along the way. In this passage, a point that Gladwell points out is that success can be created by parentage and patronage, hidden advantages and opportunities, cultural backgrounds and family legacies. An example of the importance of one’s cultural backgrounds and family influence is the way we are raised. Our parents, as our first teachers have a big role in who will become in our lives; they teach us how to interact with other people, how to act in certain situations and how to present ourselves to others. The different religious and cultural backgrounds of our parents, and also the way our parents were raised have an enormous impact on the way our parents raise us. As a parent, the balancing of strictness, pressure, giving, loving, helping, and withholding, among other factors can be difficult, with the question being what balance is the best to raise a child. Because we are all raised in different ways everyone has different views on how to raise a child based on their knowledge of how they were raised. This proves that the way we are raised can make the difference in our success. An example of how parentage and patronage play a role in one’s success is sometimes evident in schooling. Everyday people acquire things they may not deserve because of their family and who they may know. A very common example of this is the use of legacies for admission into a university. Students use their parental legacies at schools all the time and depending on the school this can have an impact on the student’s admission to the school. Another strategy applicants use to help their admission into a school is to search for someone to write their recommendation letter that will have the most amount of influence on the admissions office. Another example of how â€Å"whom you know† can make the difference in one’s success is when looking for jobs. If your aunt, father, grandfather or friend owns or works at a successful business and they help you get a job, sometimes right out of college even if you aren’t as qualified as someone else who wants the job. This way, you are getting an opportunity that you wouldn’t have had otherwise that could make the difference of your success. Therefore, everyday instances like using legacies to get into college, inquiring jobs because of nepitism, or even getting moved up to an honors class because your mom called the school can create success for our futures. In this excerpt from Malcom Gladwell’s The Outliers, Gladwell makes the point that success requires help from others and good fortune to get ahead and become successful. I think whether we realize it or not we are always using advantages we have to get ahead in our own lives, in order to set us up for a more successful future.