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The Myth of 10,000 hours

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Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#11

Post by senthil_rajasek »

reallydontask wrote: post #8
hirundo wrote: post #2

I haven't read the book, but what I heard about it second hand is that 10k hours is about mastery, not success. You can be a master without being successful and visa versa. But mastery sure improves your odds of success. Of course 10k hours doesn't guarantee mastery either. I've put in that much on the golf course and still suck at it.

IIRC, the book talks about "deliberate" practice being the key.

Sorry no, ironically Outliers never once mentions "deliberate" ( I checked the index) but refers to the paper by K. Anders Ericsson et al., The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#12

Post by helpPeople »

The 10k rule got me started programming when I was 17.

I don't have a billion dollar app, but I use programming at work to increase my value tremendously.

I want to challenge this with having a low value skill, like playing sports, doing 10k hours, and seeing if the person could make 50k a year.

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#13

Post by j45 »

10k hours on anything will likely make you as good as you can be at something.

Whether or not that is enough to become success depends on one's own ego and attachment to realizing if they're focusing on the better thing or not.

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#14

Post by latencyloser »

hirundo wrote: post #2

I haven't read the book, but what I heard about it second hand is that 10k hours is about mastery, not success. You can be a master without being successful and visa versa. But mastery sure improves your odds of success. Of course 10k hours doesn't guarantee mastery either. I've put in that much on the golf course and still suck at it.

I've heard it's also important to distinguish _practice_ as separate form of _doing_. Without knowing anything about your golf habits, so not intending to criticize, but to use as an example: 10k hours of _playing_ golf is quite different from 10k hours of _practicing_ golf and the latter would, from what I understand of the distinction, have a more appreciable outcome. As you said though, mastery and success are not necessarily correlated.

An example from my life being: I spent much of my youth "practicing" guitar (guided lessons, learning theory, improving my abilities in different techniques) while my peers simply "played" and the difference in our skill levels (from a purely technical perspective) was noticeable. However, I still never had a successful music career :) whereas I can think of at least one of my peers who "merely played" that's since made a living off their abilities.

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#15

Post by j45 »

hirundo wrote: post #2

I haven't read the book, but what I heard about it second hand is that 10k hours is about mastery, not success. You can be a master without being successful and visa versa. But mastery sure improves your odds of success. Of course 10k hours doesn't guarantee mastery either. I've put in that much on the golf course and still suck at it.

Reading it should be important, or one may fall prey to interpretations of someone else's interpretations.

I never understood much I heard about golf until I tried it and realized what worked about it for me: it's something to do outside while going for a good walk and talk.

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#17

Post by corodra »

hirundo wrote: post #2

I haven't read the book, but what I heard about it second hand is that 10k hours is about mastery, not success. You can be a master without being successful and visa versa. But mastery sure improves your odds of success. Of course 10k hours doesn't guarantee mastery either. I've put in that much on the golf course and still suck at it.

It's the same whenever a medical research paper says theres a slight correlation to eating something and cancer rate.

Like people who eat berries are like 10% less likely to get cancer. That gets interpreted as berries cure cancer.

People love blowing things out of proportion.

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#18

Post by dyarosla »

rasengan wrote: post #16

“Working hard does not guarantee you will be successful, but I guarantee all successful people worked hard.” - Coach Kamogawa of Morikawa’s life novel, Ippo.

In a similar vein,

‘Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard’

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#19

Post by Voxoff »

Whether mastery or success is the end, the rule emphasises quantity of time over quality of time.

AFAIK 'quality of time' discussions are restricted to mentions of 'deliberate' practice. That's critical, since if someone can (sorry..) 'work smarter, not harder' then it devalues the 10k rule. Not even to mention luck

Re: The Myth of 10,000 hours

#20

Post by willyg123 »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #11
reallydontask wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the book talks about "deliberate" practice being the key.

Sorry no, ironically Outliers never once mentions "deliberate" ( I checked the index) but refers to the paper by K. Anders Ericsson et al., The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...

Ericsson wrote a book to correct the record. The book's lede is essentially "Gladwell bastardized my research to fit a narrative that would sell books."

https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-eb...

It's a good read.

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