OUTLIER’S REACTION PAPER The book „Outliers‟ is basically are success stories wherein Malcolm Gladwell, a renowned writer, gives practical explanations of how extraordinary people gain success. The stories situated in the book always involve different aspects of success such as the environment, patience and hard work, coincidences and other things happening around. Basically, the ideas give „common-sense‟ answer to the question. These people have succeeded because of the things that surrounds them and not just only by themselves. As stated “It makes a difference where and when we grew up”, this clearly explains that a person don‟t achieve success not only by himself but it matters on the situations and opportunities that lies around him. Gladwell investigates place, time and culture of these success stories in order to come up with practical explanations behind it. This also includes the relevant events that happened in certain period of time where these people are part and been to these events. So in other words, these people have been to certain event in their lives that made them succeed. Gladwell thought of these idea to see the logic about being successful or not, in this case is by asking where these people came from. One way Gladwell explains it is by determining the important events in certain period of time which are based on patterns of birthdates of a group of people such as the Canadian hockey team, Czechoslovakian National Junior Soccer team and the people behind today‟s technology, MAC and PC. There are many different stories that Gladwell shared in order to produce one perspective of defining success. And, this all comes to one conclusion what‟s behind success. 10,000 Hour Rule The 10,000 hour rule is my most favorite part of the book, where it explains patience and hard work. These are the most important things that I believe about success. Practically, we need practices in order to make things perfect and in order. It‟s a universal idea of how things became successful with more practices you do to be closer to perfection and success. There are thousands of stories behind success that involves practicing and perseverance. From the „Outliers‟, especially with the musicians in the stories, it will take a lot of practices and experiences to produce series of great performances. The Beatles – Lennon and McCartney started playing in 1957 but became known in the U.S. in 1964, which they took seven years to succeed. To compare it with other genre, Smashing Pumpkins started playing in 1988 in Chicago, Illinois; they succeeded in the U.S. in 1992 and entered the international music industry in 1995. Charice Pempengco started to join singing contests at the age of 7, and joined hundreds of it before she performed in Star King in Korea at the age of 14 where Ellen DeGeneres discovered her in YouTube, and she started her international career with David Foster at the age of 15. Her success became unstoppable, but it took years of experiences in order to gain her continuous success. You can actually compare a lot of stories to 10,000 hour rule, this is very common to every success stories around the world. That‟s why this is the idea I believe and appreciated most. Decoded Numbers

Gladwell presented many arguments regarding years, birth-dates, numbers and patterns. And basically, this numbers does show something and it‟s about success. But what I am trying to figure out is if there are millions of numbers of combinations that can be presented by anyone and Gladwell actually showed only about 10 or 20 sets of numbers and dates in tables to prove this logic, and basically this can just occasional and coincidences in my opinion. I do actually believe in his investigations as presented in the book, but it was actually rare and likely can be occurred in just some point in time. In other way, if we compare other set of numbers in the same procedure, these are just a few samples and would be good as basis for success. For example, the birth dates of Chicago Bulls in NBA during the time of Michael Jordan where they became phenomenal and very famous because of winning six championships in 8 years during the 1990‟s and they also won the finals over Utah Jazz in 1998 which is the one of the most popular game in NBA. Below are the rosters for Chicago Bulls in 1997-1998. Technically, you cannot see any pattern except that all of them are born between 1961 to 1974 and above 90% went to college. And also the hall of famer trio, Jordan, Pippen and Rodman do not have anything in common with their birthdates and where they studied. Gladwell actually showed patterns in certain stories but there‟s still a lot of success that does not have any methodological patterns. In my opinion, this can still be considered but not a good perspective for success.
No. 22 0 30 24 35 9 23 25 53 7 5 13 33 91 8 34 Player Keith Booth Randy Brown Jud Buechler Scott Burrell Jason Caffey Ron Harper Michael Jordan Steve Kerr Joe Kleine Toni Kukoc Rusty LaRue Luc Longley Scottie Pippen Dennis Rodman Dickey Simpkins David Vaughn Bill Wennington Pos F G F-G G-F F G-F G-F G C F G C F-G F F F C Wt 226 190 220 218 255 185 195 175 255 192 210 265 210 210 248 240 245 Birth Date 10/09/74 05/22/68 06/19/68 01/12/71 06/12/73 01/20/64 02/17/63 09/27/65 01/04/62 09/18/68 12/10/73 01/19/69 09/25/65 05/13/61 04/06/72 03/23/73 12/26/63 Exp R 6 7 4 2 11 12 9 12 4 R 6 10 11 3 2 10 College University of Maryland New Mexico State University University of Arizona University of Connecticut University of Alabama Miami University University of North Carolina University of Arizona University of Arkansas Wake Forest University University of New Mexico University of Central Arkansas Southeastern Oklahoma State University Providence College University of Memphis St. John's University

Source: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CHI/1998.html

The Geniuses As we take a look on the American Nobel-prize winners, Educational background can be a good basis of success especially in the field of intelligence and science. This shows that the scholastic stage of an individual can give major contribution in his or her own life. Education is primarily a foundation to ones knowledge and capabilities because it is where we actually

develop ourselves. As we take a look on the process of admitting student in certain universities, it will take you a lot of intelligence to get in the prestigious schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. Same as here in the Philippines, it is no doubt that some of the best companies are being biased in selecting their employees when majority of their officers and managers are La Sallians, Ateneans and U.P graduates. Technically, these schools are known of producing intelligent and competitive employees and professionals. Also in the universities, there are distinctive culture, specialization and reputation where you can see it with the graduates of those schools. Success can also tell where you graduated or where you came from; because the scholastic period of an individual is actually the stage that develops a person‟s knowledge, attitude, behavior and discipline. The Legacy Same as with where ones person studied, other environments besides school are also a factor of success. Same as with the concept of where we develop ourselves, success can be determined were we grew up like the stories in Harlan Kentucky, The Rice Paddies, The Plane Crashes, KIPP and Jamaican Story. In the Philippines, now we are known to be good singers. It is because of the two phenomenal international singers from our country, Lea Salonga and Charice Pempengco. As what we can observe in Filipino culture, Filipinos do actually love music especially singing. Compared to other countries, Filipinos sings a lot like in Churches, while doing something at home, during celebrations and other occasion that we have. Also, most Filipinos love videoke that is why the sales of Magic Sing are remarkable at a time. As a result, there are a lot of talented singers here in our country. Legacy is something one person used to. It has been planted to its personhood and as he grows up, it will always be part of his life. Practically, the book “Outliers” tells us that success can not only held and acknowledged by the person himself but also the time, place and culture where he belongs. The stories were amazing, but it doesn‟t give much inspiration to the readers. Although, the most important thing to learn from this book is that success can be achieve in many ways. Success is by genetics but it is by where and when you grew up. Gladwell did actually open the mind of the readers by redefining the way we understand success.