Success is the Disease of Me: Gladwell's Response

The quote, “success is the disease of me,” actually comes from Mindset by Carol Dweck, not from Outliers. It’s hard to say whether or not Gladwell would agree with this statement or not. Throughout his book, he mostly talks about how people become successful, but he never really talks about how they reacted when they reached their goal. However, Gladwell’s writing hints towards a negative response to this quote.

            

In his book Gladwell talks about many different ways people can become outliers, which, in this book means successful. He first talks about the Matthew Effect. This is basically about people are blessed with an early success, and because of that early success they are given more opportunities to improve themselves. An example Gladwell mentions is hockey players. A study was done that showed how a lot of the professional hockey players are born in the early months of the year: January, February, and March. This is because the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1^st. As a result, the children born in the early months are a lot more mature, and therefore better hockey players than the kids who were born later on in the year. Since those kids were better, they were put onto all star teams which allowed them to have better coaches, better teammates, and they were able to play much more games per year. This is all very interesting, but what happened once those players became very successful? Do they use that as a reason to keep trying? Or do they start to feel the pressure and start to lose confidence? Gladwell never addresses any of these issues, so it is unclear how he would feel about success at this point.

            

However, later on in the book, Gladwell starts to talk about a man named Chris Langdon. He first talks about how smart he is. He talks about his IQ, a game show trivia game he won, and many other things to attribute his extreme intelligence. But then Gladwell goes on to explain why he fails. He makes the point that IQ isn’t everything and that people must possess other skills in order to be successful. When he talks about Langdon’s failure, it almost seems as though he is looking down on him because he wasn’t able to succeed. It also seems like Gladwell thinks Chris Langdon’s life is already over; that just because he didn’t finish college, he cannot succeed in life. By using all this information, and by analyzing Gladwell’s writing style, it is obvious that he cares a lot about success, and I do not think he believes the quote, “success is the disease of me.” In fact, it seems that Gladwell sees success as a reward for taking advantages of talent and opportunity, not a disease that will ruin your life.

            

Moreover, I believe Gladwell disagrees with Carol Dweck’s quote. He thinks of success as more of an end point after putting forth a lot of time and effort, therefore being a rewarding outcome. If he would observe the lives of people who have had success, he might take on a different opinion. But right now it seems like Gladwell views success as nothing but a positive experience. 

Natural

 Am I a natural at something? That is a very hard question to answer because I first have to think about what it means to be a natural. Is there any such thing as a natural? Can you really just do something for the first time and be great at it? I don’t think you can. I think you can have talent, and it may take less hard work to be good at something, but I don’t think someone can be good without work or practice.

            

For example, some people may say that I am a natural at sports. I played varsity basketball, soccer, and tennis all through high school, and I was pretty good at them. But how did I become good? Did I just decide to go out for the teams in 9^th grade and end up being a “natural”? No. I had played tennis since I was six, basketball since I was five, and soccer since I was four. I had been going to practices for them basically all of my life, and I had put in a lot of hard work.

            

Another thing people may think I am a natural at is school. I have always gotten straight A’s, and I have always scored pretty well on the standardized tests. But I don’t think I was born with that ability. I knew just as much as the other kids when I first came to school. I think it had more to do with how hard I tried and listened in school. If I would not have listened or done my homework, than I wouldn’t have been able to get the good grades.

            

Something I would never be considered a natural at is art. I am just not good, and I have never been able to draw anything. I believe most people who are good at art were born with the ability. I’m sure there have been a few individuals who have worked extremely hard in order to be an artist, but most artists were born talented.  For example, when I was younger, I would always try to draw pictures, and they always turned out terrible. On the other hand, my friend Amy could draw very well, and she always won the different contests for our school. Amy and I had the same amount of experience, but she was just naturally good at art, and I was not. However, if Amy stopped drawing and I practiced every day, I would eventually pass her because of the effort I was putting forth.

            

Moreover, I believe some people may have more talent than others when it comes to certain things, but that doesn’t always matter. If someone with talent never practices, and someone without talent practices every day, who will be more successful? I believe the one who practices every day will be, and that is why it is important to work hard no matter how good you are at something. Because eventually, relying on your talent will not be good enough when you compare it to the people who are putting in massive amounts of time and hard work.

Michael Jordan

In this video Michael Jordan talks about his failures. He states the number of shots he missed, and he talks about all the times he was chosen to take the game-winning shot and missed. I think this commercial takes place as Michael is walking out after a game, and it seems like he just lost. The setting allows the viewers to see that everyone, even Michael Jordan, goes through low points in life.

The whole point of this video is to show that everyone has failures in their life. And the way you become successful has to do with how you deal with those failures. Do you keep trying like Michael Jordan? Or do you give up every time something doesn't go your way? Michael may have missed many shots and lost games, but if would have given up those failures, then he wouldn't be the legend we know today.

Marita's Bagain

Marita is a young girl from the Bronx who was lucky enough to be chosen to attend KIPP Academy. KIPP Academy is a school created for under-privileged children in order to give them a chance at a great education. This school is known for turning normal kids into great math students, and a lot of them go on to some very elite colleges and universities. However, this success doesn't come without a cost. These young students (around 12 years old in Marita's case) have to be in school from 7:25AM to 5:00PM, and if they choose to do extracurricular activities, they could be at school until 7:00PM. Marita gets home from school and usually will do homework for 3 or 4 hours, working up until 9:00 or 10:00PM.

So it's obvious that Marita did make a bargain. She gave up her old friends, her old school, and her whole life in exchange for a rigorous schedule that will give her a chance to get into a good college and eventually have a great career.