In “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell uses real world examples to show that the success of people can be affected by many factors which can be out of one’s control. He does this through using examples such as the birth dates of professional sports teams. In the book, the author shows how the majority professional hockey and soccer players were born in a specific part of the year. These players outnumber the players who were born in any other part of the year. One cannot control their own date of birth, meaning if someone wants to be a professional hockey or soccer player, if they were not born near the specific part of the year where other players were, they would automatically be put at a disadvantage compared to the people who are born in the advantageous part of the year.