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The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

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Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#61

Post by bencollier49 »

Lxr wrote: post #57
comboy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most part of the talent is that your brain likes doing given thing. You enjoy it. That is, unless somebody is forced to, she's unlikely to spend 10K hours on something she doesn't like. "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do." - Bob Ross But it doesn't mean that anybody can achieve anything. Just that one can become a master in a field in which he's happy to pu…

> I'm yet to meet a great coder who wouldn't enjoy coding. Maybe great coders like it so much because they are good at it. It would be reasonable from an evolutionary point of view to focus on what we are better than others at. At university I have seen people get into a field on the basis of an unexpected excellent grade and conclude they love it, and reject whole fields as stupid and uninteresting after failing - w…

Doing something well releases dopamine - isn't that why doing something that you're good at is recommended as being good for mental health and to relieve stress?

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#63

Post by jdietrich »

Swizec wrote: post #38
paulpauper wrote: post #28

Gladwell did a bait and switch, in his book first ignoring the role of talent, and then when pressed for more details, clarifying that the 10,000 hour rule applies to those who already have talent but then practiced 10,00 hours to hone such talent. http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc... I think the amended version of '10,000 hours' is closer to being correct, and probably not the one the publ…

I'm sure you can attain mastery in anything by practicing for 10,000 hours. Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. The caveat is that you will not be the best. You might not even be world class. Or even national class. But you are going to be better than somebody who practiced only 1,000 hours no matter how talented they are. What people forget is that at the very high levels of achievement in any fie…

>Difference between 1st, 2nd, and 10th comes down to talent and a bit of luck.

In a sufficiently competitive field, the difference between 1st and 10,000th comes down to talent and luck.

Chess is incredibly instructive in this respect. Some players soar through the rankings in their teens with remarkably little effort; some battle on for years with little to show for it. Some very promising players just run out of talent and hit a hard ceiling on their rank, while others keep finding room for improvement.

I agree with the broad thrust of the linked article - there's a real cruelty to the 10,000 hour rule.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#64

Post by hardwaresofton »

Could people stop just reading one thing and then living their lives by it?

Whether it's Myer's Briggs, or 10,000 hour rule, or some other self-help book with a reasonable premise -- I feel like most of the time it's just some reasonable premise taken to an extreme.

Yes, if you want to be good at something, you'll have to practice a lot. Yes, practicing mindfully is better than just putting in hours. Yes, there are different kinds of people and you can (sometimes) broadly characterize them. I find it hard to respect people that read points like those, take them to the extreme, and then it becomes their sole mindset for 6/12 months until the next thing comes along.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#65

Post by skywhopper »

I haven't read Outliers, but I've always understood the "10,000 hour rule" as a means of expressing the fact that all meaningful skills take years practice to truly become an expert. It's _necessary_, but not necessarily sufficient. Did Gladwell actually assert that 10,000 hours is sufficient for anyone to become an expert at any skill in Outliers? Or is that just a convenient way to misinterpret the book and the rule to be able to write snarky articles like this one?

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#66

Post by Clubber »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #64

Could people stop just reading one thing and then living their lives by it? Whether it's Myer's Briggs, or 10,000 hour rule, or some other self-help book with a reasonable premise -- I feel like most of the time it's just some reasonable premise taken to an extreme. Yes, if you want to be good at something, you'll have to practice a lot. Yes, practicing mindfully is better than just putting in hours. Yes, there are d…

The quickest path to success is having rich relatives and friends. Everyone should just pursue that.

All joking aside, even if they are placebos (and Myer's Briggs certainly is), whatever it takes to motivate people towards excellence to me would be a positive.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#67

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

If the rule is wrong then it's really good news! At least for my mental state, as I've spent countless hours practicing music in a span of 15 years and still play worse than some of the self-taught beginners with 3-4 years of experience. It's depressing and is already becoming an obstacle in motivating to practice further.

If the rule stands, it means it's my fault: I'm not motivated enough, not passionate enough, not smart enough to organize my practice routine. It's what I'm thinking today and what hurts my self-esteem. If the rule's wrong that would be a relief, as it means it's not completely my fault.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#68

Post by saalweachter »

wvh wrote: post #43
chpmrc wrote: post #18

This assumption that you either excel at something or you should just do something else is as dumb as saying that you either become a billionaire or you might as well live on the streets. Just because marketing the top 1% is easier doesn't mean the rest is crap. Just because you won't be the next Bill Gates doesn't mean you shouldn't start (and enjoy building) your own software company. Even the 10k hours theory does…

I agree, and I'd like to add that what one does with/after those 10000 hours matters too, i.e. the individual factor. There's not just a large range between all-or-nothing, but there are many different "alls" too. As an example: I am a good guitar player. I've put in probably close to 10000 hours. But lots of guitar players can play and come up with things I never could. And lots of guitar players can't play or come…

Feynman told a story about his "one extra trick". He ascribed a certain amount of his mathematical prowess to simply knowing an uncommon integration trick that most of his colleagues did not. So when they failed to solve an integral, they would bring it to him, and some of the time, using his one extra trick, he would solve it, dazzling everyone.

Which is not to say that his one extra trick was particularly powerful, or widely applicable, but it was unusual, and it produced a difference in ability. Maybe Feynman couldn't solve more integrals than his colleagues, but he could integrate different ones, which made him useful and "smart".

Which in turn brings up the nature/nurture question of genius: to what extent is genius a matter of "innate" skill (in this case, that arises either from the circumstances of your birth or life) and how much of it is a quirk of your education, the one extra trick you learned (or didn't) that make you approach problems in a way different than your peers?

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#69

Post by tim333 »

The article and Gladwell rather skip over that a lot of success is down to being better than the competition so the hours required should depend on how good the competition is. So to be expert at the violin may take 10,000 hours but being say a blockchain expert may take less as your competition haven't been studying it since childhood.

"The amazing thing is we did so well while being so stupid. That’s why you’re all here: you think that there’s hope for you. Go where there’s dumb competition" - Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner.

Re: The 10,000-hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth

#70

Post by xyzzy4 »

Lxr wrote: post #57
comboy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most part of the talent is that your brain likes doing given thing. You enjoy it. That is, unless somebody is forced to, she's unlikely to spend 10K hours on something she doesn't like. "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do." - Bob Ross But it doesn't mean that anybody can achieve anything. Just that one can become a master in a field in which he's happy to pu…

> I'm yet to meet a great coder who wouldn't enjoy coding. Maybe great coders like it so much because they are good at it. It would be reasonable from an evolutionary point of view to focus on what we are better than others at. At university I have seen people get into a field on the basis of an unexpected excellent grade and conclude they love it, and reject whole fields as stupid and uninteresting after failing - w…

I've thought I was good at coding since middle school. Of course my code actually sucked back then, but at the time I thought I was really good. So I kept doing it on and off throughout my life.
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