The 10,000 Hour Rule

I've always been fascinated by extraordinarywas program, program, and program; it was his
people, and what makes them who they are. Is itobsession. He went there at night, he went there
born talent? Is it innate ability? Is it pure genius? Ison the weekends, and at it would be a rare
there something that separates world expertsoccasion where he and his friends did not
and geniuses from ordinary people, in whichprogram for 20 or 30 hours a week.
ordinary people cannot achieve no matter howBetween 8th grade and the end of his high school
hard they try?senior year, these 5 years, he experience with
A couple months ago, I went to the bookstoreprogramming in a time-sharing terminal, he had
and there was a book that caught my eye, evenexperience working in C-Cubed offices, he had
though it was only in white cover with black fontexperience working at a computer center at the
and a simple bronze star on the top right handUniversity of Washington for ISI (Information
corner. It was the title, which you've may haveSciences Inc.) working sometimes from 3 to 6 in
heard before, called Outliers - The Story ofthe morning, and he had experience working for a
Success - by Malcom Gladwell. Before fallingtechnology company TRW as a programmer.
asleep yesterday, the book was on my desk andPeople who hear that anybody who purposely
I just flipped through it, rereading one of thedrops themselves out of Harvard is insane, but
most insightful chapters that I have come acrossthe people who make these kind of decisions
in a while, called the 10,000 hour rule.know what exactly they're doing. They know
The chapter describes the journey process ofsomething that millions of people don't know. By
how one becomes a world class expert. A worldthis time, when Bill dropped out as a Harvard as
class expert can be generally defined as someonesophomore, he had already been programming
who is widely known for being the top of thenonstop for seven years. To say that he wasn't
class, for being the best, for being able toconfident to start his own software company
perform in ways that separates them forfrom his lifetime passion, rather than studying
everybody else, especially at an age that no onemore in school, would be something insane not to
expects them to.do for a person like him.
For example, it talks about how there was studyAnd what do the world's best violinists, the
on comparing average violinist students, to goodBeatles, and Bill Gates have in common? Yes,
violinist students, to the best violinist students -they are the best at what they do, they are
students who had potential to be world-classfamous, and most of the times, they are
soloists.wealthy, but for a reason. These people spend
At the age of five, these students all practicedhours practicing, starting from a young age, and
around 2 to 3 hours a week, about 20 to 30by the time they hit their early twenties, they
minutes a day. At the age of eight, while thehave accumulated a period of practice time that
average to good students were still practicing atmost other people never even come close to -
about the same pace, the best ones started to10,000 hours.
excel, playing at 6 hours a week by age nine,This is the number that experts say it takes to
about 45 minutes a day. Then they startedreach true mastery. And all these people either
playing 8 hours a week by age twelve, about 1took advantage of a lucky opportunity given to
hour a day, 16 hours a week by age fourteen,them at the time or created their own
about 2 hours a day, and at the age of twenty,opportunity through endless practice - something
they were hitting 30 hours a week, about 4 hoursthat upon first glance no one would know until it
a day, just on playing a musical instrument.they demonstrated their talents.
It goes on to talk about the Beatles, arguably oneSo what can the 10,000 rule teach us? It teaches
of the best rock bands in history. It tells the storyus that if we want to be the best at something,
about how, before they came to the Unitedat the top of our game, it's not about special
States that they had been already playingtalent. It's about putting in the hours and hours of
together for seven years. This was a period ofpractice until it is something that just becomes a
time of where they started out as a high schoolpart of us.
band into a popular public band. But it all startedAnd even if we are at an age when we think it's
out with a lucky opportunity through connectionstoo late, it's really never too late to learn
of random people that brought them from playingsomething new or become extremely good at
London to playing for the strips clubs of Germany.something. All of the people above started out
For example, in Liverpool, London, the Beatles hadtaking about thirty minutes a day doing
only done 1 hour sessions for public, but insomething, which increased to an hour a day, then
Hamburg, Germany, they had to play many timestwo hours a day, and so forth.
for 8 hours sessions, 7 nights a week. Usually,From composers such as Mozart, to legendary
they played about 5 to 6 hours per night onchess players such as Bobby Fischer, these genius
stage everyday. Before even going to America,didn't start out as genius. They took about 10
they had already performed lived about twelveyears of 10,000 hours to become who they are.
hundred times - way more than many bands getStudies show that there's no such evidence that
to perform on stage in their entire careers."genius" most of us think are born with magical,
The chapter talks about currently the wealthiestinnate talent. They just practice much, much,
person on the planet today - Bill Gates. How hemuch more than everybody else who's doing the
came to make a software program that almostsame thing.
every single person on the planet who owns aAn ordinary person may see an expert as
computer uses - Windows - isn't a form of geniussomebody "out of reach", but an expert sees an
work, but of incredibly amount of work to gettingordinary person, and knows exactly how much
to getting to that point.hard work they put into it to be where they are.
Bill got the opportunity to use learn programmingSo I guess the question is, everybody who wants
on a time-sharing computer system in 8th grade,to be "the best," who wants to be a guru, a
something that most Americans did not evenmaster, a expert, to be at the top, are they
have access to at this time, which was aroundwilling to seriously put in the commitment, the
the late 1960's, since it had just been invented.work, the training; all this to accumulate about
During a seven month period as a high school10,000 hours of practice to be at the top, to be
student, Bill averaged eight hours a day and seventhe best, to be the next genius?
days a week in the computer room. All he did