i would try not to fall prey to an entirely "rationalist" perspective here
you cannot predict the future and success is dependent at least as much on "luck" as it is on expertise
Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
41–50 of 305 posts
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#42First, the 10k hour rule doesn't mean people are terrible and then suddenly become experts. They are getting better the entire time. I would argue the large majority of working professionals are nowhere near experts at their jobs for the simple fact if someone is any good they tend to get promoted to a new job. Second, I know many people who switched careers. You have plenty of time at nearly any age if you are willi…
>for the simple fact if someone is any good they tend to get promoted to a new job
It's nowhere near that simple. "Too good at x in X to promote to y in X, where X is a career path and y is a stage above x" is fairly common.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#43it's not the number of hours you put in - it's how you practice.
you can get very proficient quickly if you apply insights to your performance to identify your shortcomings and address those.
and similarly you can spend 30k+ hours learning something and be merely mediocre.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#44I switched from a career in software development to creative producing in films and television. I make less pay and I am not the most skilled compared to others in the industry. I have some knowledge but I have lots to learn. Thanks to Covid none of the projects I have worked on have gone into production. But they will next year and I will have opportunities to learn then.
I am no master. But I enjoy the job and I am happier. I made the switch at 36.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#45The hours rule is nonsense. You can of course change career at 43. However, while we are all born with relative potential, intellectual capacity and more importantly, personality play significant factors.
Intellectual capacity doesnt change much until past about 70 and it's tied to long term diet, lifestyle and external factors. Personality is also largely plastic past the age of 6. It can shift over time, and this is one of the advantages of youth, you are still malleable.
Age beings to rob this from you as routine and habit starts to build up parts of your brain. Change takes time. 43 is still young in the grand scheme of things, particularly in 2022, but you must question if the change you want is simply your personality being novelty-seeking or the grass being greener elsewhere.
One good reason is if your personality fit has been bad to your current work.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#46The youtuber Veritasium recently did a video on the 10,000 hour expert.
Summary: you need 4 things to become an expert.
From comment with timestamps:
5:00 Repeated attempts with feedback. 6:47 Valid environment. 11:23 Timely feedback. 13:50 Don't get to comfortable.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA
Comment link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA&lc=UgwrcQiQhReOd...
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#47You can switch careers many times and at any age , you can even take up a new job without making a career out of it, simply to experience the work and to either get some insight (if, say, you're designing an app) or to help out some people who are short handed.
That said, there are really only two criteria for sliding into a new job area:
* people that will actually hire you | allow you to work along side them,
* your ability to not be a dead weight and to assist in at least the TA | fetching food and drink | cleaning away tools and cables | etc dogsbody roles.
It takes a long time to master many trades, it takes far less time to take part at the lowest levels and to start learning.
My background is folk that take pride in being jack of all trades master of none, I've specialised a little and can count myself jack of many trades, 'master' of a few.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#48There's an obvious elephant in the room here which is not discussed. 10k hours might let you master something (and even that claim is questionable like others have mentioned) but why do you need to be a "master" to switch careers?
Being better at (say) web development than all the other people in your company that have other skills immediately makes you valuable in a specific way and starts your career shift. You can build up on that over the years.
There are ways to reconfigure your life other than by "Switching". More gradual ways to ease into another career exist and can be worthwhile. Everything comes with a cost though so make sure you're willing to pay it.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#49don't ever do, say, or think anything because of malcolm gladwell
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Love Derek and his aphorisms and came here to share the same.
Btw Any take on this? https://sive.rs/h Just discovered it. Love this quote and it seems fitting here - "Many books believe they know how you should live. But each book disagrees with the next. In “How to Live”, each chapter believes it knows how you should live. And each chapter disagrees with the next."
Yup, good one for a light read and thinking about the world