Trough of the curse the earth history, there has been many individuals known as great and successful people. All these individuals have defined success in different ways. At the interview, Bruce Lee is explaining how he taught his students, and how he wanted them to be. He trained students how to defend themselves during attacks, or when they are facing anger. He believed that natural instinct and control are combined, and it is very hard for individuals to express themselves honestly. He believes that if people can express themselves honestly and can become one with the moment, and can train their mind, and they match themselves with the situation they can be successful people, like he says empty your mind, be formless, be shapeless like water. In Bruce Lee’s world, when you can be honest, be yourself and more importantly respond to problems instead of reacting is a big success.

Michael Jordan is another extraordinary person. He defines success learning from failure. If you fail do not give up and keep trying and trying to be successful. Like, the geometric variables, trials fail and fail and fail, but there is always success, even the probability of success can be very small, but it is never zero.

           There are different groups that I meet with in my weekly or monthly life. First group is my family members and my first cousins and second cousins. The second groups are my coworkers. Third group is my American friends, which I hang out with them on weekends at bars or any other parties. Forth, my mathematics and Actuarial science classmates. 

My family is the most important discourse community that I belong to. For Assyrian, the most important thing is to save our culture and language, so we assyrian most of the time get married to Assyrian. That is how we Assyrian have saved our language and our culture for over 7000 years. In my family, at home everyone speaks Assyrians, even all my cousins that were born in the US they have to speak Assyrian. There is no excuse if someone speak English or any other language in home. Speaking Assyrian is “ Mandatory” If we have family re union, no one can use bad words in front of others because is so disrespectful. The younger must respect alders. When the older walking into the door the younger have to get up and show their respect.  Most of my family members help each other a lot. All of my older family members have the same goal of raising healthy, educated and beneficial people for the society. In addition, they want us to be helpful and honest to each other because we are the same blood. Our membership is just being family, someone might be Assyrian, be a friend, but we never consider them as a family members, and someone can get the membership in my family either to get born in our family or get married to one of our family members. My family members just get married to either Assyrian or just white Christian. No any other religious is allowed to get into our family. If one of my family members get married or fall in love with Muslim or another non Christian person his or her family membership get revoked. Everyone including myself would hate that person , and that person  need to change his or her name, and we pretend that that person is dead for us.  Usually, the older and more knowledgeable people have the authority of our family. Even if we do not agree with it for sake of our parents and the respect we have we usually fallow the

roles.

All the groups that I belong to are very different and they interpret the world differently. For my family all is important is to live peacefully with each other and help each other and rise good kids. At my work place all is important is customers’ satisfaction and happiness and making money as much as they can.  My math classmates just study more to learn more, and my actuarial classmates just think about passing the actuarial exam. I behave and even dress differently when I am in different groups.

Malcolm Gladwell introduces us to the 10,000 hours rule in chapter 2. He says that certain studies have shown that individuals that master the skill set in their profession have at least ten thousand hours of practice under their belt. Gladwell also points out that you must have a supportive family that encourages you to continue to practice. Since ten thousand is such a huge amount of time it would be hard for someone to reach that time without being in some sort of special program. These special programs allow individuals to get more practice with the best equipment and the best teachers available. Gladwell isn’t saying that if you practice ten thousand hours you’re going to be a profession hockey player, the best musician in the world, or the most successful computer programmer. But that seems to be the number the most successful people in certain professions have hit before they found their stride. There is no doubt that the people he uses as examples are very talent, smart and hard working. He also points out that in order for someone to have a chance to reach such a number they need a great amount of support and encouragement from their family and or friends. Even with talent and support and encouragement the individual still needs opportunity. Opportunities are presented from the year you were born, to where you grew up, and who you know. Gladwell outlines how being born in a certain year and being a certain age helped Bill Joy and gave him better opportunity. Joy didn’t have to program with punch cards, he was able to use a time sharing system. I do agree with Gladwell that everything needs to line up perfect and one must be presented opportunity to make the most of something. There is no way to argue the research that he uses and the breakdown of the information proves his point. Even though the individuals he talks about are very smart and put in hard work to get where they’re, they still needed ten thousand hours, they still needed opportunity, and they still needed support and encouragement. But to their credit they grabbed that opportunity and made the most of it. Lots of people are given opportunities and choose to do nothing with them. So even if someone puts in the ten thousand hours and was born in the right year in the right place with a supportive family it’s still up to that individual to make the right choice and choose to capitalize on that opportunity and not just let it slip away or wait for something to be handed to them because they put in that many hours and feel that they are owed something for it.  

    

    According to Gladwell the Outlier is a scientific expression that phenomenon lies outside of their every day experience. The outlier book is about those who achieve extraordinary things, and the ways that those people can accomplish such a success. Gladwell in the Outliers indicates that for so many people success is defined working hard, talent, perusing their goals, exceeding expectation placed on them, and people see success as a personal quality. However, through out his observation of the hockey game and other evidences, he believes that we should get away from the idea that people are born with intelligence and luck. Success is beyond that. There are other factors that play into it such as the place that you were born, your family, and your cultural upbringing. Individuals that surround the successful person also share some importance and impact that person in ways they are unaware of. Gladwell’s inspection of hockey tries to prove that other things factor into being successful besides hard work and talent.

     Gladwell’s research has shown that high percentages of professional hockey players were born in the beginning of the year in January, February or March. The kids that were born in the second half of the year have less opportunity to make into the team because they are not as physically and mentally developed as the kids that were born in the first half of the year. People have the wrong impression that theses kids are just born to be hockey stars. In addition, sociologists think that success is not just talent is actually accumulative opportunities and advantages. Successful people are given a little opportunity when they are younger, and it helps them to improve and be better than their peers. The success from those subtle opportunities prepares them for the bigger opportunities that come from take advantage from smaller chances.

     Another factor is the system and rules that are set up benefit those that have little bit more talent. The system has advanced leagues and honor programs that identify these opportunities. But this has a negative impact on ordinary individuals, they become very passive and accept the fact that they cannot be hockey player or be successful. Gladwell’s observation does not apply to just hockey; it applies to every day life. The system and rules should be balanced so that everyone has an equal chance to achieve success no matter what month you were born in and your talent.

         I do agree with Gladwell that the term self-made man is thrown around. He uses the example of Jed Busch saying he is a self-made man, but in reality he is not a self-made man; he is a person that come from money and was awarded opportunities based on his families success.