Gladwells Factors: Individual's Success As An Opportunity

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Outliers
Success has been defined by many authors but Gladwell introduces a different idea and understanding of success. According to Gladwell, success is not necessarily hinged or dependent on one’s talent or as Gladwell puts it “individual merit” (17). Success to him is something far much deeper and with a lot of factors involved. He follows this up by stating that “people don’t rise from nothing.” He continues to explain his stance by stating that, “we owe something to parentage and patronage” (19). Success is simply the product of carefully aligned factors which people seem to be oblivious about.
One of the factors that Gladwell mentions as a factor that contributes to an individual’s success is opportunity or opportunities. Gladwell believes that the notion that “it is the best and the brightest who effortlessly rise to the top is much too simplistic” (30). He continues to explain how Hockey players are often given head starts which seem to propel their careers. This does not mean they are best or the world expects them to be the most successful, but the opportunity given to them helps them to at least strive to achieve greatness.
The second factor that influences success is timing. Here, Gladwell uses the example of Maurice Janklow to explain how success and timing are linked. Janklow’s entry into the writing-paper industry “could not have been worse” and this was simply because of bad timing (133). In another economic juncture, Janklow would have made a fortune but his timing was off.
Thirdly, effort is also among the factors that can affect success. A perfect example of how effort impacts success is the story of Borgenicht. Gladwell explicitly says that, “and in his work, there was a relationship between effort and reward: the longer he and Regina stayed up at night sewing aprons, the more money they made the next day on the streets” (149). Coupled with the other factors, effort does have a direct influence on one’s success.
The fourth factor is upbringing which according to Gladwell guarantees one success from a young age or a life of struggle. He explicitly states that “when and where you are born, what your parents did for a living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing were” can indeed shape one’s life (175/176...