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

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.

Malcolm Gladwell never claimed you could mastery anything in 10k hours. That is just what people thought he said. But yes, the research is all around defined fields with expert coaches guiding the way.

There is a much better lesson to take from practice theory, and that's the skill curve. You might see it and think "oh it takes 10,000 hours to become a master". But it only takes 10 hours of practice to become better at something than literally almost everyone at any task. And in 100 hours of practice you would be considered a worthy peer in almost any community. 1000 hours will make you a respected professional in any trade.

You can apply it to any life skill. You could learn a new musical instrument every 6 months, you could be a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician. You could make learn a new way of fabricating things. Any sport, any dance. I applied it as a programmer, dabbling in compilers, operating systems, machine learning systems, web systems, games, various languages and paradigms. Now as the CTO in a small company my "expertise" in all of these fields makes me able to talk along with every team, no matter what they're working on.

You could be good enough in anything to impress a friend by practicing anything for 3 months. Not saying it's easy, real practice hurts your brain, not every day job leaves you with enough brain juice at the end of the day. But maybe you could practice in the morning.

When I was in college I had been playing guitar on and off for maybe 10 years. I didn't like practicing much and was mostly just playing the same bits and riffs for fun. There was a youtube hype around a guy called Andy McKee who played technically challenging pieces with a really cool vibe. I didn't even attempt it, considering it above my skill level. My housemate who hadn't touched a guitar in all his life, bought a $30 guitar and practiced for 3 months. By the end he could play the full song good enough for it to actually sound good and impress basically anyone. I'm pretty sure he could make some money playing on a street corner just playing that 1 song over and over again.

edit: the bootcamp I used to teach at trains junior developers from scratch in about 500 hours. If you pair them with a good mentor, employing them for about 500 hours more, and you'll have perfectly good software developers capable of maintaining and extending any existing product you have in your portfolio.

Gladwell is a soldier in the imperial arsenal. His books are disgusting because they mislead and confuse. I promise you it doesn’t take 10k hours to achieve whatever he thinks. It might take that long if you are going in alone with no mentor. But if you are then yes it’s too late. To become an expert. But who cares about being expert? Being good at your job doesn’t matter as much as being courteous and becoming friends with the people you interact with. Job proficiency just proves you don’t know anybody so you have to try and compensate by being an expert. You can only be an expert in games like basketball and chess. They wont divulge their secrets that they worked hard for unless you’re their son. Our system is a long drawn out affair filled with time eating classes and training that isn’t necessary. The European gentry planned it this way so that they could come over and take jobs quickly while we spent our time in school or stupid jobs like healthcare. They do this in all areas of the economy.

YES!!

If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic.

That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted).

And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT.

The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time.

Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.".

So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.).

Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it.