Outliers Precis #1

Part 1 of Malcom Gladwell's two-part book, Outliers, entitled Opportunities explains to us that success deals no more with an individual's talent or ambition than the opportunities given to him or her in life. In this section that spans pages 15-158, Gladwell brings truth to the mirages of success-- that it is random and only of innate ability and ambition. Explaining why not even all geniuses turn out wealthy and successful, or why the majority of Canadian hockey players are born in a specific part of the year, or why success may seem to fit according to racial schemes, he proves that they are all merely results of a combination of strokes of "luck", opportunities, practice and circumstances of an individual's background. As we find out, what we define as success is a result of something far greater than the mere actions of an individual, but the actions of his parents or even grandparents, the time and place of his upbringing, his practice in a specific field, inherited skills and simply, his luck.