An outlier is a person that has come very far because of specific circumstances. The entire book is an analysis of what makes an outlier. According to Gladwell, the reasons that makes an ordinary person an outlier, are a group of circumstances, one of them is the effect that the environment in which a certain person lives has in the individual. Other reasons could be just luck, ten thousand hours of practice of the activity or thing that you want to succeed, etc.

We believe that what Gladwell says is correct based on a few examples that show us this situation, you could be lucky, and be in the right place at the right time like Joseph Pullitzer, he got to meet the people that helped him start his steps in journalism, because he started to play chess with them, this is a truly example of pure luck, coincidence or whatever you want to call it, he certainly was in the right place at the right time.

Another example is Steve Jobs he did not receive any college education, but he was motivated to succeed so he took one class about typography and from then on he worked over ten thousand hours and today he is the president of Apple. Well here are two examples of hard work and dedication.

We consider that those ten thousand hours of practice depends on many things is not necessarily as Gladwell says. You could have the mentioned amount of hours of practice and not be an outlier. Many people have had over ten thousand hours and yes, be good at what they do, but not necessarily the best at it.

Besides of the hours of practice your culture has also an effect on you. Gladwell says that jews has come as far as they have, because they have an unique talent of it. For instance the jews are so hard working because long time ago they were a very conservative culture and they couldn´t go out as much as everyone else, so the only thing to do for them was work, and that characteristic seems to still live on them. For example if you grow up in home of photographers or artists, you will have a tendency for artistic things. The thing with culture is that is that it defines who you are, like the pilots and airplane crashes, your surroundings will define you.

If we take into account this three statements that the author has raise us we probably would have an outlier.

For example imagine a person that has ten thousand hours of practice, comes from a family of doctors and is lucky enough to meet the chief of surgery, that person has the potential to be an outlier. Does it has to be this way? No, it also depends on what the person wants.

Gladwell seems to believe that everything happens because of a reason that not neccesarilly depends on the person. But we believe that in order to become an outlier or just be very good at something the person must really want it and really work for it. Not everything is up to luck it is also about the decisions made by the person.

BY AYMARA DIAZ AND BEATRIZ PELLICER