Gladwell vs. Dweck

In the first year seminar justice system, the students are represented by two separate, yet equally importanat books, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Mindset by Carol Dweck. These are their stories...

Okay so the whole cheezy rip off of the Law & Order opening sounded better in my head, but it gets the point across. Like the police and attorneys, these two books function by themselves with individual purposes, but at the same time, when put together, it makes life better for everyone, (except for the criminals and people who have to pay the lawyers ridiculous amounts of money). Both books deal with life, and in a way how to make life better, they both have parts that support each other, but also parts that oppose each other.

First, the similarities. Both books talk about success and how to grow into a successful person. Both of them do this by analyzing countless anecdotes, ranging from young hockey players in Canada, to the Boston Red Sox, to a young girl who's life turns upside down when she is admitted into the KIPP Academy. They both also address possible failures too. Gladwell discusses Christopher Langan (pg 69) who had all the potential in the world, but just didn't have the resources to take advantage of it. Dweck talks about chef Bernard Loiseau (pg 37) who lost it all after one bad review, including his life.

Both authors also emphasize ways to achieve this success. Gladwell outlines the 10,000 hour rule (pg 35) where someone must work 10,000 hours to fully master their craft, for in\stance, the Beatles, playing countless shows in Hamburg before making it big. (pg 47) Dweck focuses on the concept of the growth mindset, if you're always looking to achieve more, and to work more, eventually you will grow. For instance Jim Marshall (pg 33) who returned a fumble 66 yards for a touchdown... the wrong way. He used it to his advantage though and it allowed him to grow and he played a ridiculous second half.

There are differences though. To Gladwell, the key to life is success, you're nobody if you don't succeed in life. Dweck on the other hand emphasizes growth, which can lead to success as well, but that's just something extra. Gladwell believes that success is tied to what resources you have and how you utilize them, while Dweck focuses on using the success (or lackthereof) as a way to push yourself to grow even more. In Gladwell's eyes, Marita could have had the biggest growth mindest in the world, but needed KIPP academy to take advantage at all and have a chance to get out of poverty. (pg 250) Dweck looks at crybaby/Tennis player John McEnroe, (pg. 31) and showed how he was trapped in a fixed mindset, had he been in a growth mindset, he could've been one of the legendary greats of the game.

The two books are very connected, they both present great ideas. I fell like if you could take the best parts of each book and combine them together you would end up with the ultimate key/guide to success. They both present the same ideas, just with their own opinions mixed in. Which, isn't a bad thing, because otherwise it'd be two of the same book, and who'd really want to read it twice?

Success? a disease?

"Success is the disease of me" is a very interesting quotation. Its borderline paradoxical. You're combining success, which is something that almost everyone in life wants, with disease, which I can't think of any disease that, yes, I'd love to have that. The opposition is what makes this quote so memorable though. It's a statement that is very open to interpretation though. Does it mean that all success, or is it like the whole "too much of a good thing," concept? People have differing opinions on this.

We know that Gladwell is borderline obsessed with success, look at his book, it has success in the title. It's jam packed with stories of how people became successful. The only story about an unsuccessful person was basically to prove a point that he should've been successful.

So how would Gladwell respond to the statement, "Success is the disease of me?" First he would probably see it as an opportunity to write a new book, or at least a sequel to outliers. The he would probably laugh at the notion. As noted earlier, success is like crack to Gladwell, he can't get enough of it. Telling him success is bad is like telling a surgeon that he shouldn't perform that heart surgery he's about to perform, they'd both call you crazy. To him, success is like hollywood, there's no such thing as bad success. Look at one of the examples Gladwell uses, the Beatles. Yes, they were one of the greatest bands in the history of music, but eventually they split up, three of them went on to have decent solo careers (poor Ringo...), even being elected into the Rock and Roll hall of fame as solo artists, but how much of that success do you think came from being associated with the Beatles? Getting success off of a name, is that really the "right" kind of success? to Gladwell, it doesn't matter, its still success.

To me, I think there can be bad success. If you didn't work to get it, it will get you in this false sense of believing that you can do anything with little effort. Also success where the ends don't justify the means. Congradulations, you're successful, but how much did you throw away, how many people did you step on to get that 15 minutes of fame? Was it worth it? If its hard earned success, then more power to you, you deserve what you got, and it'll make you a better person in the long run anyway. Sometimes the success isn't even the most important part, its what you pick up along the way that counts.

So basically, success is good, Gladwell will back that up by writing 285 pages about it. It can be a bad thing though, it can get to your head and affect you, or its sometimes just not worth what you have to do to get to that point.

Am I a natural?

I'll admit it; I really struggled with this one. The concept of a natural can even be taken a few different ways. To me, I view a natural as someone who can excel at something with little to no work/practice/preparation.

There are some exceptions, most athletes are usually required to practice, which helps them get even better, but when you look at guys like LeBron James, Lionel Messi, or Michael Phelps. You can tell even from a young age what they were going to do in life. They were all exceptionally gifted, blessed with God-given talent and attributes that allowed them to thrive in their given field.

I think one of the key aspects is that concept of God-given talent. You've heard all the rags-to-riches stories about how people worked their tails off working at their craft over and over, and eventually rising up to become a star. All three of the above athletes, by the time they were 13 they were blowing their competition out of the water, they didn't need all that working to turn nothing into something.

So in the short version, being a natural comes down to having some God-given talent to go on and using work/practice to supplement that. Which then brings the question, am I a natural at something? Honestly, even in just the past few days I've had this argument multiple times, and every time I find myself on the same side, saying no.

Maybe it's because to me I see "being a natural" as a bit of an ego inflator, I feel it would make me sound conceited if I said I was. Trust me; I have about 20 pages of text messages arguing this point to death. People argue all the time that I'm just a natural at school that everything comes so easily to me. It really doesn't though. I work my butt off studying, doing homework, and surviving through much stress filled episodes. There's a lot of luck involved. Do I think that I was just born like this? Not a chance. I just do what I do and hope it all works out.

Some say that my lackadaisical, float through school lifestyle would constitute that of a "natural"- all play and no work. Me, I think it’s a combination of luck and hard-work. God-given ability? Not really, so I'm going to finish this kind of depressing blog post by casting my ballot saying no, I'm not a natural.

The tale of Micheal Jordan

Micheal Jordan is always regarded as one of the the greatest basketball players of all time. He won 5 MVP awards, 6 NBA championships and saved an alien race from enslavement (seriously, go watch Space Jam if you have no idea what I'm talking about), even though he did have some god-given ability (I mean did you see how long of a wingspan he had on that final dunk of space jam), it didn't all come naturally to him. He had to work extensivly to become that good. Along with all that work though came many failures (I mean did you see his baseball career?). This commercial emphazizes these mistakes of his. He's shows that not even "the great one is perfect," and admits to his faults, but also alludes to how these faults have made him such a great player because they pushed him to work even harder which in turn made him a better player, or as Kanye West would say, "Th-that don't kill me can only make me stronger."

The scene is very dark, he's wearing all black clothing. It created a very dark and depressing scene, which is set up to oppose the always energetic (and always tongue sticking out) Jordan. This shows a more serious and down to earth version. I'm not saying he wasn't serious when playing the game, but it was a different kind of serious. It exposes that other side of MJ, his "fault" side. There's tons of people taking his picture. It reflects how things can change so fast that everyone one minute will be taking pictures of you for being a star, the next for being a failure. The thing with Jordan though even when the media and paparazzi began labelling him as a failure (see Washington Wizards career) he was still going out there every night with a mindset to prove all of them wrong, and to still grow even better.

Michael Jordan has always had a chip on his shoulder, from being cut by his high school team to being drafted 3rd, behind a guy who dropped out of the NBA 2 years later to be a horse trainer, to all the doubts that he could get back to that elite level after the death of his father. He's always taking that adversity and used it to turn into a better player.

But I'm going to leave you with one last image to show how hard of a worker MJ is, and yes, it used Space Jam. Think about the very first scene. Where little MJ is outside working on his jumper at like 10 at night, even though there was some hollywood magic, it shows how hard he works because I would have a hard time believing that never really happened.

Marita's Bargin

Marita was a 12 year old girl living in the poor area of the Bronx. She was given an opportunity to leave her old school and attend the KIPP academy. They went to school from 7:25 am to 5 pm, 9 and a half hours a day.They covered every topic under the sun. They even went to school on weekends and summer breaks, but for a shorter time. The rest of her day usually consisted of about 3-5 hours of homework.

I don't see it as much of a bargain as a trade. She got to go to this great school to get the top education around, which she knew would help down the road, but she had to pretty much give up a large part of her childhood for this opprotunity. She even said, "all my friends now are at KIPP," which her old friends were pretty much her last connection to "the old her"

Basically she had to give up her childhood and grow up on the spot. When I hear a daily schedule of wake up at 5:45, go to school 7:25 to 5, go home and do homework until you pass out around midnight, I don't think of a twelve year old, I think, that was literally my schedule last year (okay, so really school ended at 2:15 but extracurricular stuff kept me until 5 pretty much every day). I think of 12 year olds and its recess and fun, with maybe a little spelling homework on the side.

So basically she gave up her childhood pretty much as an insurance policy on her future, so that she could have a good education and go on to bigger things in life.

Random thought, I wonder how long thier recess was....