The 10,000 hour rule

If you want to master something, whether it is piano, dance, sports, programming or music, you should be putting in 10,000 hours of practice, which is roughly equal to three hours a day over the course of ten years!

I came across this book, Outliers by Gladwell Malcom a few days ago and thought it is worthy of sharing. The author is referred to by some people as a person revolutionizing the way we think.

His book Outliers is a wonderful book focusing on successful people and how they got to it. When we hear about successful people most of us think that they are successful because they are more intelligent than the rest of us. Most of the times, even though intelligence does have a major role to play in determining success, its more correlated with the chances your given, your environment, where you were born and when you are born and how hard you are willing to work. 

I am not going to go into details in the book, just pointing out to the most impressive points he made. 

Malcom stress the importance of hard work by using a theory known as the 10,000 Hour rule. The 10,000 hour rule is that mastery at anything, be it music, sports, programming is dependent upon 10,000 hours of practice, which is roughly three hours a day over the course of ten years!

Malcom uses excellent examples to illustrate his theory. Those are the stories of exceptional individuals who are able to log in these critical practice hours and become successful beyond our wildest imagination.  

First there was the Beatles, who before making it big, managed to get 10,000 hours of practice while playing in Hamburg. Other similar bands had only a fraction of that experience and never made it to the top.

For Bill Gates it was the lucky break of being born at the right time and getting the gift of a computer terminal in junior high. He acquired a computer terminal at his school which was quite rare in 1968 and he program non-stop for the next few years. This was once in a life time opportunity considering they don’t have personal computers at that time. Luck played a crucial role in his success by allowing him significant programing practice time that only a few others had during a critical time in computer history. 

The other parts of the book focus on culture and success, for instance how the Chinese got to be so good at mathematics – this is also quite a good read. 

Malcom goes on to stress that success follows a predictable course, and that it is not the brightest that succeed. Nor it is simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. He says it is a gift. Outliers are people who have been given opportunities – and who have had the strength and the presence of mind to seize it. He does not disregard innate ability of an individual, stress that hard work is a crucial thing for success and points that timing, circumstance, and cultural heritage play an often overlooked yet critical role in determining who becomes successful. 

What I learned from this book is to do our part in giving our loved ones and society a chance for success and to give them the necessary motivation to work really hard. Having the right environment for learning, going to the right schools, having access to the right facilities and resources as well as providing them with the mental attitude to work hard would be key factors in helping them to succeed. 

And if you want to succeed do not forget to log in your 10,000 hours!