Flagged: it's a fun little post, but it's repeating the key claim that Gladwell made in his new book, which appears here in 3 other top-page stories right now, and it's not adding anything new other than the title.
How To Be Fucking Awesome
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#124 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you will be fucking awesome.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#134 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you will be fucking awesome.
No. At 4 hours a day, you'll need 2500 days. [6.8 years]
If you did it full time (40 hours a week), you'll supposedly be fucking awesome in 4.8 years.
If this were true, I should be an awesome programmer. But I know I am not yet one. Far from it. So I call bullshit. (Some popular 'fucking awesome' programmers for reference: Steve Yegge, RMS, John Resig)
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#14I found this really interesting, because we covered this exact topic in a psychology course that I took while in university, and I think that it is often mis-quoted / mis-used. The conclusion that was drawn from scientific research was that the vast majority of experts all shared a common trait - they all had at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice (not that anyone who practiced for 10,000 hours would definitely be an expert). Deliberate practice was defined as practice which: has a goal / task that relates to improved performance, there are explicit instructions as the the best methods of improvement, there is immediate feedback on the performance, and the person repeatedly performs these actions. Obviously his isn't leisurely practice like playing catch in your backyard if you're a baseball player. The experts also didn't practice for 1 hour per day for 30 years like someone in the comments mentioned; the average was about 4 hours per day if I remember correctly. The research had also noted (much like the Matt Maroon article) that this does not mean, for example, that ANYBODY can play in the NBA. What they are really pointing out is that those who are in the NBA probably had at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. They also noted that some fields of expertise (such as the NBA) have built-in physical constraints (ex: height) which must be considered. Their study actual dealt with the field of music (violin playing, specifically) which has fewer constraints than something like basketball, and the results were significant.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#15Another equally important thing is choosing your battles: you have to not only work hard, but work hard at the right things . I could practice basketball for 10,000 hours, but there's no way I could do it professionally. You have to figure out what your natural abilities are, and work hard in those areas.
If you had spent 10,000 hours practicing basketball you would probably be better than anyone you know at the game. Granted if your short or old there are limits but a tiny fraction of the populous really focus on getting better for 10,000 hours.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#164 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you will be fucking awesome.
No. At 4 hours a day, you'll need 2500 days. [6.8 years] If you did it full time (40 hours a week), you'll supposedly be fucking awesome in 4.8 years. If this were true, I should be an awesome programmer. But I know I am not yet one. Far from it. So I call bullshit. (Some popular 'fucking awesome' programmers for reference: Steve Yegge, RMS, John Resig)
Are you really spending that much time trying to get better or are you mostly doing the same things over and over again. One of my favorite sayings: "I don't want someone that has the same year of experience repeated 10 times I want 10 different years of experience."
PS: If your in the top 5% of coders most people will consider you fucking awesome.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#174 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you will be fucking awesome.
No. At 4 hours a day, you'll need 2500 days. [6.8 years] If you did it full time (40 hours a week), you'll supposedly be fucking awesome in 4.8 years. If this were true, I should be an awesome programmer. But I know I am not yet one. Far from it. So I call bullshit. (Some popular 'fucking awesome' programmers for reference: Steve Yegge, RMS, John Resig)
It's 10000 hours of deliberate practice, not mere activity, that's necessary according to this theory. Deliberate practice requires that you're constantly challenging yourself and attacking more ambitious goals. The conversion ratio on paid work for very few jobs is anywhere close to 1.0; a job where it's 0.5 would generally be considered excellent.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#18Another equally important thing is choosing your battles: you have to not only work hard, but work hard at the right things . I could practice basketball for 10,000 hours, but there's no way I could do it professionally. You have to figure out what your natural abilities are, and work hard in those areas.
I think the difference between athletic and intellectual endeavors is that the genetic factors necessary for reaching the highest levels are fairly well-understood, and also known to be very rare. By contrast, we don't know how rare potential great writers or programmers are; they might be fairly common. If there is a natural basis for greatness in these fields, we don't have any way of testing for it.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#19Anyone read the new Malcolm Gladwell book that this is based on? Is it any good? A lot of his books seem half-finished. He points out something (Blink: your intuition is more powerful than you realize, and not well-understood) but never gets around to explaining why the phenomenon exists.
Is this one worth reading?
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. At 4 hours a day, you'll need 2500 days. [6.8 years] If you did it full time (40 hours a week), you'll supposedly be fucking awesome in 4.8 years. If this were true, I should be an awesome programmer. But I know I am not yet one. Far from it. So I call bullshit. (Some popular 'fucking awesome' programmers for reference: Steve Yegge, RMS, John Resig)
Are you really spending that much time trying to get better or are you mostly doing the same things over and over again. One of my favorite sayings: "I don't want someone that has the same year of experience repeated 10 times I want 10 different years of experience." PS: If your in the top 5% of coders most people will consider you fucking awesome.
I've been coding since I was 11 (like many people here). I am 29 now. I'd say that I've been trying to get better than myself all the time. I don't think one would do the same things again and again unless it is a sad day job.
All I am saying is that may be 10,000 hours is not enough.