Outliers

"Outliers"

In the work "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell, childhood is portrayed as the path, randomly taken by individuals that will guid the, to success.

The childhood of successful people is one of the most important times for their success. The importance of childhood is based on the environment and the opportunities people get. For Example: Professional hockey players are mostly born in the first half of the year. When born in the first half of  the year, kids, in general, are bigger and taller than the kids born in the second half (because at younger ages 6 months or even less make a big difference). Because these kids are taller and bigger, they get more training opportunities (because teams pick them over the smaller kids). By the time the other kids grow (kids that were born on the second half of the year), the kids that were born first have almost 4 years more of training, therefore at the time professional teams are interested in recruiting, the older kids have the absolute highest chance of being better at that time.

The time, socially, when successful people were born is also a very important factor of their success. One of the big examples described in Gladwell's book, is that one of one of the most successful person in our time, Bill Gates. Gates was born in a time where technology was growing, specially technology involving programing (computers). A computer programming program was growing in his High School. That gave Gates the chance to practice more than most people in the United States. Then After high school, his university had one of the few computer in the country. Gates spent a lot of his time through his early ages programming. That advantage over everyone in the country gave him the chance to be one of the best programers ever known.

In conclusion, Outliers described the importance of the path taken by people in their childhood. Even though childhood guides an individual to be successful or not to be successful, the factors that guide anyone to success are mostly random and cannot be modified.