The 10000 hours rule

Share This Post

10/9/20

*The 10000 hours rule*

*Outliers*: The Story of Success is a wonderful book written by Malcolm Gladwell in 2008.

In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success.

To support his thesis, he examines why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year,

how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth,

how the Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history,

how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world,

how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making,

and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes.

Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule”, claiming that the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours.

The principle holds that 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” are needed to become world-class in any field.

When psychologists talk about deliberate practice, they mean practicing in a way that pushes your skill set as much as possible.

10,000 hours works out to be around 20 hours per week for ten years.

Ten years is a long time but 20 hours a week isn’t so bad especially when you consider the average person watches 20 hours of television or spends 20 hours on the social media every week.

This too shall pass,

Focus on your 10000 hrs of deliberate practise to master and achieve success in your chosen field and stay blessed forever.