Malcolm Gladwell Essay

Words: 504
Pages: 3

From reading chapter one, I strongly agree with Malcolm Gladwell’s argument on how there are many complex factors that plays into becoming successful and being considered the outliers. I was very surprised but found it very true that cut off dates for schools and sports gives advantages to kids who are born between January to April and disadvantages to kids who are born between May to December. As I look back to the time I lived in Japan it made sense why I was the smallest one on the team and school. I was born in February 4th 1998, but the cut off dates for school in Japan was different since school starts in mid April, which made me few months younger than most of the kids. The soccer club I played for were also separated into teams …show more content…
Although Gladwell’s point is true that how kids who are born early in the year are given better opportunities and have better chance accelerating their abilities in anything they do, I believe that there are bigger external factors that plays into becoming successful such as passion, love, environment that kids grow up in and competitive attitude. For example, I grew up in a house where my neighbor was a soccer player who was the same age which allowed me to play soccer with him almost anytime I wanted. My friend Naoto and I were always the best players in our grade ever since we joined soccer team together on the same day. Even though we were both born later year in Japan, February and March, we were moved up to a team with kids who were a grade older than us because I believe that the love and passion for our sport never held us back from accelerating and mastering our skills. Recently I reaffirmed my view on being born earlier in the year in the United States is an advantage because the soccer team I play for allowed me to play another year after graduating high school because the league’s age group is separated by years that kids are born. This allowed me to play at a high level of coaching and practices to prepare myself better in college soccer where other players in my grade have to jump into a new team or in