http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?emc=eta1&_r=1
I recently read this article, entitled "What Drives Success?" It discusses the many ethnic and cultural groups known to strive in America, from Asians to Cuban-Americans, Jews to Mormons. What drives their success? How do these groups rise above struggles or situations in which they are placed? The author designates three significant factors: a superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control. The significance of these factors reminds me of another book I read, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which also talks about cultural, socioeconomic, and societal factors that contribute to success.
The most interesting part of the article was how the combination of superiority complex and insecurity equally contribute to success, which, when you think about it, actually makes sense. At first, the superiority complex gives a child confidence to succeed, and the insecurity curbs the child's hubris and arrogance. This balance of confidence allows a child to know his ability, yet also to be modest about the extent of that ability; this dynamic is intriguing, and the article covers it extremely well. It is also interesting to see how different cultures achieve this dynamic in order to succeed.
I agree with what you said Eli, and I'd just like to bring up another part of the article that I read that I found to be very interesting. It said that not every person within a cultural group can achieve success, even if that group has all three of these traits. But, the author mentioned that if that group can produce even four out of ten highly successful people, they will be a far more successful group than those that produce one out of twenty, which is a much more common figure. This means that no matter what culture you're from, there's no guarantee you will be successful, even if all three traits that lead to success are present.
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