I used to dislike Gladwell but I've come to have a grudging respect for him. He took an old 7 word phrase "the straw that broke the camel's back" and turned it into a full length book called "The Tipping Point." People wanted to buy it because they liked exploring this idea in more depth and Gladwell made a bunch of money while becoming famous. It's hard to argue with success like that. I would never have thought that "the straw that broke the camel's back" needed further elaboration.
Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
271–280 of 305 posts
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#272Yep. I switched career fields at 36, stayed for 14 years and then switched career fields again at 50. Still in this new career field but just changed companies in August at 52.
It took me a relatively long time (6 to 9 months) to land this new job. I'm pretty sure my skills weren't where they needed to be as a software developer played more of a part than my age for other companies to not hire me. I had some great interviews but it all worked out. Really happy with the new company.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#273I switched from System Engineer to Software Developer when I was 40.
I need to make another jump now when I'm 50. You should be fine when you're 43. Just try to keep a lid on the imposter syndrome for a few years. Try not to be inflexible as well. And change up little things that you do from time to time. Try programming in an IDE if you've never done it. Try a new programming language. Change the shell you use. Whatever. Don't necessarily hop on the latest greatest trends on HN headlines since that can be exhausting, but there's lots of well worn technologies out there to stretch yourself with.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#274If you think you're smart enough and good at learning, do it!
Whatever field you're planning to get into you'll be competing with a lot of non experts. Sure, you probably won't outclass people with the same IQ who've been doing it for longer - but who cares?
Let's talk examples: The reason tons of people from other professions can become devs and be competitive in a couple of years is because: A. A huge chunk of lifelong professional developers are terrible B. Even well paying jobs don't require you to do that much, it's the same crap over and over
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#275No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#276The Gladwell book is so bad it's laughable. It's a gross misrepresentation of the work of Anders Ericsson, with completely unfounded extrapolations. So bad it prompted Ericsson to get a non-academic writer to work with him to write his own popular science version of his work, which is titled "Peak". Outliers is the worst example I know of of popular authors bending facts to make a narrative they want to tell. In a nu…
Just curious to know about the books that are you referencing here for learning and performance.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#277In 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…
Everywhere, no matter education, wealth or resources in general. DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. DOers are those we read about all the time. Sometimes they are great other times they are not but at least they did something to find out. You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite Gladwell book to rip on is Blink. It is 296 pages long and the main point was one only needs a few moments to understand complicated things.
While I'm a huge Gladwell critic, I enjoyed that book quite a bit. But I disagree with your main point. I'd summarize it's conclusions as: 1. People make decisions very quickly -- like often in under a second. 2. These decisions are very powerful. 2a. Powerful in terms of accurately deducing things, and/or 2b. Powerfully emotional in how it sways you (not always in good ways!) 3. You can have some success in retraini…
I have no opinion on Gladwell, as I haven’t read any of his books, but I swear those 3 things seem to be covered in almost every “self-help” book I’ve read. I don’t want to blame the authors either… but it seems like everyone is getting their water from the same well (thinking fast and slow?).
I’m always down to read an authors interpretation or experience with the concepts… but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t found it harder and harder to push through.
You’re totally on point though. A lot of things are simple and obvious but only when noticed or in hindsight.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#279[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh. You can be as confident as you like, if people won't take on staff as "juniors" who are older, then the whole process of retraining - wrt career change - has been a waste of time. I've never been involved in corporate HR, I'd want advice. Similarly, if I was doing a bungee jump for the first time I'd ask someone to check my harness ... (to spell it out, you seem to be berating someone for doing a reality check,…
This is pretty much where I’m at. I’m mid 40s and been working in the marine industry for almost 30 years (yes I started that young). I’m going for a career change but I have zero experience in a corporate/modern office setting. I am also self taught. It will be a huge change, and I’m concerned that I may not be hireable. All that being said I’m still going for it as I’d like the rest of my working days actually help…
In a similar boat, only I am 31. So it's been 10 years at sea.