Malcolm Gladwell’s Biography and His Works Essay Example

decided to quit and take a life decision into perfecting his craft of journalism by putting in hours and hours of work. He later describes it as a handful and difficult at first but as he progressed, so did his skills. He decided to write business related articles as his passion because he thought it made more sense talking about it that fashion which is talked about everywhere (Gladwell, p.7).

As time passed by, he began gaining fame from various articles that he wrote. Two of the most prominent articles that gained fame and made him attain recognition are “The Tipping Point and “The Cool hunt.” These two articles made him gain the interest of the readers as they were interested in the content of his work as well as the concern wich it gave. He also wrote articles for a sports website where he incorporated his unique writing style that always engrossed the readers. Later in 2002, Malcom Gladwell decided to take a different approach in his journalism by bringing in the concept of Talent writing (Duhigg, p.75). This basically focused on individual’s life story from a humble beginning where they started with nothing, to the success that they have in the present. He decided to focus mainly on organizations where these individuals were making tremendous headway in business life.

The main aim of the business article was to magnify the various strategies and unique talent that organizations have incorporated to become successful. His article was however not biased in the sense that it focused mainly on both sides of the coin, mainly the successful and the failures. He also focused on the methods that people

use to climb the corporate ladder as well as the tricks used to attain various major positions in the organizations they work in. His focus was mainly of the mastering of talent as he concluded by stating that the most successful companies are those that reward mastering and experience leaving out other reasons. This is because it takes time and diligence for an individual to claim mastership of a craft (Gladwell, p.7).

Malcom Gladwell wrote five influential books that mainly consisted of inspiring articles and stories of individuals that have succeeded immensely. These books include:

• The Tipping Point- This mainly focused on crime rates and their surprising reduction. It also focuses on various articles written on aids, and he researched on how easy it is to get it without even expecting it. The name of this book is based on the Aids epidemic where it escalates into an individual’s system until nothing can be done concerning it.
• Blink- Mainly focuses on a decision that people make without thinking correctly and thus leads to various disasters in life.
• Outliers-mainly focuses on the position of an individual and the reason behind what motivates them to achieve success.
• What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures- This mainly focuses on various mythical stories that act as metaphors to real life situations.
• David and Goliath-Was written with the main focus on How an ordinary person defeats the odds to become successful in the end.
• David and Goliath By Malcom Gladwell

Introduction

Gladwell’s most prominent best seller books, ‘David and Goliath’ focuses on the outcomes and achievements of people less likely to achieve massive success or overcome something that is seen as impossible. These

major and impossible situations are usually viewed as Goliath, a reference from a story in the Bible where David slew a giant by the same name. The term David is used to describe the underdogs or ordinary people destined to achieving great things. The terms are mainly metaphors of description to issues faced on a daily basis.

It is interesting to discover the amazing results from the reports and conclusion that Gladwell brings forth in his book. He brings forth various aspects that may not seem to make sense at first, but upon critical assessments of his work, the concepts explain in them become clearer. David and Goliath bring the belief that various challenges are there to enhance our potential for the survival of various impossible situations like a building collapsing and yet people are discovered not to have been afraid of the whole situation. Although his approach for problems enhancing our skills makes sense, it is something that not many people want to hear or even follow (Donadio, p.112).

The aspect of Civil Rights is mostly portrayed in this book when the author tries to explain the various achievements that were done by ordinary people through illegal means (Gladwell, p.75). He as well attempts to paint a picture of the situation with the aim of letting the readers understand the difficulties and impossibilities that most people had to face at that time. This forced most people to result to various methods of slyness that the weaker people had to go through in order to emerge as strong in the end. Gladwell also tries to speak to parents indirectly on how most parents fail in their duties

to empower their children with the necessary traits and beliefs especially when things go wrong in the process (Gladwell, p.125).

In addition to this, Gladwell portrays a sense of hope for the ordinary person by trying to make his readers see that anything done with determination can be achieved by persistence and diligence. In other words, he tries to decipher the meaning of hardships by suggesting that they are there to build character as well as make an individual grow stronger (Donadio, p.112). This notion in most regard does not make sense to most people as there is no explanation as to why hardships occur and why they come at unexpected times. Despite this, one thing remains clear. And that is perseverance is the key to success (Gladwell, p.75). As much as most of what Gladwell wrote that did not make much sense, it remains to be clear that when hardships occur, an individual is forced to be resourceful and think beyond their capacity so as to make the necessary ends meet. The results of this activity in most cases leads to success and growth in the process.

A quote from Gladwell in the book ‘David and Goliath’ is however asked as a concern and a thought to him as to why most people assume that another person that may not have the same opportunities as another is inferior to them of at a disadvantage (Gladwell, p.55). Under normal circumstances, this may very well be true, that a person that is born or living under conditions that do not look promising, in fact, are at a disadvantage. The assumption is that having the necessary resources and skills

make one better than the other that does not possess any of these. All these assumptions are under normal circumstances true and make sense but to assume such is wrong.

Gladwell gives an example of a character in his book that was a very resourceful and influential in Hollywood. He begins to assess his life from his humble past where his family had very little in their possession causing them to suffer due to lack of resources and money. After he assesses his past, later on, he reaches the climax of the story where the character was tired of his lifestyle and decided to work hard to achieve more than enough. This acted as a motivation catalyst to the character to succeed so that his children would not have to go through the same situation he was forced into. He later concludes by portraying his life in the present whereby he says that the character became wealthy in the fullness of time that he has the kind of money his children would not need to look for work outside.

It is motivating to see that achievement is as a result of a person’s hard work and determination that should be taught to their children as well so as to continue the legacy of being better than their father (Donadio, p.112). Gladwell tries to explain this fact by painting a picture of the children and their spoiled lifestyle because they now have everything they wish for, as they do not care to think of anything worth their sweat. This is where the aspect of parenting comes in. The example depicts certain lessons that parents should teach their children.

The cycle of life is not as easy as it looks and children need to be taught to depend on themselves so that if the resources were taken away from them, they would be able to work hard and accordingly to gain it back (Thaler et al.,p.231). The story for the book above portrays various lessons that need to be addressed accordingly as Gladwell tries to explain that at times these difficulties are of benefit to people so that they can realize their full potential.

Another aspect that Gladwell tries to explain is the aspect of miss-belief in one’s self which causes high rates of low self-esteem and causes various aspects of crimes to occur. He tries to emphasize this fact by directing a question of dyslexia about a child. This is one of the rhetorical questions that he uses to explain this fact when he says, “do you want dyslexia to fall upon your child?”(Gladwell, p.75). An individual that has dyslexia is most likely to commit multiple crimes that will land them in jail/juvenile programs.

By asking the reader whether he would want his child to develop such a disease, he instills a sense of fear and awareness to the audience of the consequences of dyslexia. Despite the warnings that he tries to put out to the reader regarding dyslexia, he is also of the opinion that it can become a positive thing in the process to motivate an individual to turn their life around. Gladwell explains that individuals with dyslexia usually have issues and disadvantages with reading. Thus they result to learning other skills to compensate for it. He explains this thought in his book

by saying, “what is learned out of necessity is more powerful that the learning that comes quickly (Gladwell, p.216).”

Blink By Malcom Gladwell

In the book “Blink” however, we see certain different aspects of life being portrayed in the human life cycle. One of the most common ones being Love. Love in this book is brought to light when an individual sees a person for the first time without realizing that it is indeed not real in the beginning. Certain traits associated with this include romance being the top most traits. It is exuded during love at first sight and consumes an individual from all logical thinking in the process. Gladwell then tries to emphasize this fact by saying that “it is an automatic feeling that occurs in the sub-conscience of the admirer.” In other words what he is trying to say is that that part of the brain fails to function logically at this point. He further tries to explain that this feeling can, in fact, be controlled with practice over time (Duhigg, p.69).

It is interesting to see from the tone of voice he uses in the book as that of disbelief and ridicule to the fact that human being is actually out of their minds if they can be controlled by love at first sight. There are instances in the book “Blink” where Gladwell expresses disbelief when the character in the book buys an artifact that the thought was valuable in the beginning and had to have it. The unfortunate thing is the fact that it turned out to be something that that was just too out of date and fake.

It is interesting to note

his opinions of first impressions of things and people and why it is not wise to judge things by the first sight (Duhigg, p.69). This is portrayed by a portion of the book that was explaining an activity that was being undertaken by various lecturers in a classroom. They were introduced to various videos that taught on how to improve teaching methods as the best ways of assessments regarding progress. This explains the realization that an individual is not who they are perceived to be unless tested otherwise. It is also interesting to see how Gladwell portrays ridicule in the practice of various therapists and councilors. He does this by trying to figure out how insane it is that therapist is of the idea they can base predictions of an individual’s life (Grazer et al.,p.56).

It is interesting to see that Gladwell identifies the various issues that happen in the day to day live of an individual. The writes about the difficulties that face businesses today, to matters that have to do with marketing as well as aspects that affect the future progress of individuals. He incorporates various success stories of the major organization today.

Like one of the previous books that he wrote, namely “Tipping point,” Blink possesses the same characteristics of making the weaknesses of various aspects of life in a brighter light with the aim of making it aware that there are actual issues that need to address drastically. The previous book talks about AIDs as an epidemic and Gladwell tries to understand how easily it can come about without the expectation of a person and how this disease can eat up someone’s life

up to the tipping point where nothing can be done. This example assists immensely in the in the understanding of the techniques used by Gladwell to bring forth the urgency of various aspects of life that people fear to talk about or even address.

In addition to this, Gladwell is well known for his aggressing and fearless style of writing where he uses various rhetorical aspects to bring a point across and make it clear to the reader (Grazer et al., p.56). This, in turn, portrays as a sense of authority in his work especially when he addresses issues that are barely mentioned in the contemporary world today. Another reason why there is an official stand is the fact that there is the use of fictional stories that accompany a particular point that is attempted to be put across (Grazer et al., p.56).

A major disadvantage in Blink Is the fact that there is not the visible structure of arguments but rather an addition of information that possesses various insightful anecdotes. This brings a certain aspect of uncertainty to the whole text and leaves a reader wanting to know more..

Works Cited

1. Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. London: Penguin, 2006. Internet resource.
2. Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants. , 2013. Print.
   Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change It. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2012. Internet resource.
3. Donadio, Rachel. The Gladwell Effect. New York Times.Sunday Book Review, 2006.Internet source.
4. Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. , 2015. Internet resource.
5. Thaler, Richard H, and
   

Cass R. Sunstein. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Internet resource.