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Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

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Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#171

Post by sophacles »

danesparza wrote: post #75
itsoktocry wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 10000 hour rule is nonsense You should probably read a bit about the "rule" before calling it nonsense. It's vague, flexible, and refers to attaining mastery in some skill. Nowhere is it implied you'll be a world champion chess player after 10,000 hours. It says practice will make you better at something. That's hard to dismiss.

Agreed. Bobby Fisher got there in less than 10 years. https://problogservice.com/2012/03/15/what-malcolm-gladwell-... The problem is, Gladwell never said you needed 10,000 hours to be an expert, you need 10,000 hours to be a phenom. To be so freakishly awesome, to be such a standout among your peers, that sometimes your first name is enough to tell people who you are: Peyton. Tiger. Venus. Kobe. Oprah. But in the mea…

I need 500g of flour to make bread. That doesn't mean I can make bread with just 500g of flour.

You are trying to say that someone claiming 500g being necessary to making bread is hogwash because it doesn't also talk about the salt and water (etc).

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#172

Post by smilindave26 »

Tim Ferris' thoughts on the 10k rule (https://genius.com/Tim-ferriss-what-about-the-10000-hour-rul...), including "how do you define mastery?" and "are there ways to more efficiently master something?"

How much of what you currently know can you relate and apply to becoming an expert in your new career? There might be more than you expect.

As far as being more efficient, learning from someone who has the experience you seek can make a huge difference. I'm a mainly self-taught guitar player, and I spend a lot of time identifying problems with my technique and inventing little practice routines to work on correcting them. I enjoy this process, but I know I'd save a lot of time if I worked more with people who could easily identify issues with my playing and already know best practice routines to correct 'em.

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#173

Post by elforce002 »

This resonates with me on a deeper level. You have one life. That's it. You have 3 choices:

1- You succeeded trying it.

2- Neutral outcome (still a win).

3- You fail. Failing at something will only teach you how to do it better or at its worst, leave you at the bottom of the barrel. The only thing you have after that is to get up and keep moving forward.

The other side of that would be regret. Regret has to be the worst feeling in the world. The "why I didn't do it" thought will hunt you for the rest of your life.

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#174

Post by TruffleLabs »

See this article

The “10,000-hour rule” was debunked again. That’s a relief.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/th...

"Which is why I find these debunkings of the 10,000-hour rule to be a complete relief. Because implied in the rule (at least, to me) is a deeply self-deprecating message: that if we fail to achieve greatness, it’s our own damn fault. And what screw-up would forgo greatness?"

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#176

Post by xyzwave »

ghaff wrote: post #141
mattjaynes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to continue the Grace Hopper example... Remember that she transitioned to computing from being a Mathematics professor at Yale, so she was able to leverage her previous training into the new career. Try and do the same if you can. Leverage what skills you've already gained to switch into a career where they are a big advantage. Then you are starting nearer to those already in the field, not the beginning.

>Leverage what skills you've already gained to switch into a career where they are a big advantage. Absolutely. In many cases, there are often a wide range of related/adjacent jobs that are significantly different in various ways but can nonetheless be a fairly natural transition. (Though key word can . I've seen examples that worked and examples that didn't.) On the other hand, I'll go back to school and get a Maste…

Harder, how so?

And even if harder, wouldn’t it still be a productive means towards the end of moving into that field?

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#177

Post by f1shy »

I know people that were programmers or in the IT branch, now are pilots. Also know pilots (extremely good ones) that left, and started doing different things, from having a shop, to selling land (real state).

It is never late! Just try. Failure is not trying.

Btw no sure if that is your case, but this remembers me of the story:

One guy was in a train visibly uncomfortable. At every stop, he was totally annoyed, and each stop worst. Other guy ask him why is he in such discomfort. “You see, I bought the ticket wrong, I’m going in the wrong direction. At each stop I think of stepping out, but that would mean losing the ticket completely!”

If you are doing something not fulfilling, doesn’t matter how much you have invested. Stop and take the right direction.

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#178

Post by astroalex »

An anecdote: my mother dropped out of law school when she was younger. She finally went back to law school in her 50's, graduated, and is now a practicing lawyer in a field she is passionate about.

Taking the time to go to law school was definitely a risk and a cost. It definitely was not easy for her. But it's absolutely possible, probably more so than most people believe for themselves.

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#179

Post by aristofun »

As soon as you buy in to any concept, idea or a myth — it (or rather your subjective interpretation of it) starts manifesting in your real life with real consequences.

If you truly want to achieve some goal — you'd rather find and absorb any examples of other people achieving similar goals, and filter out everything else.

Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?

#180

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #152
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #86

In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it…

I agree with some points of it. However, some people (loosely correlated with age but not strictly) have more unavoidable responsibilities than others. For a very prosaic example, a person without mortgage and kids, all other things equal will have inherently less responsibilities than one with mortgage and kids (while both still have options in principle). Empathy is a massive skill I've been learning late in life;…

It doesn’t significantly change my advice and was actually already factored in my answer. Your obligations are your own. If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question.

It’s not about empathy. My point is that inherently there are no advices to be had on life choices. Just do what you want to do, decide to try or decide you don’t want to. There are no right and wrong general answers here. A bunch of strangers on the internet can’t give someone permission or an excuse.

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