This puts the ten-thousand-hour rule in a completely different light: The reason that you must put in ten thousand or more hours of practice to become one of the world’s best violinists or chess players or golfers is that the people you are being compared to or competing with have themselves put in ten thousand or more hours of practice. There is no point at which performance maxes out and additional practice does not lead to further improvement. So, yes, if you wish to become one of the best in the world in one of these highly competitive fields, you will need to put in thousands and thousands of hours of hard, focused work just to have a chance of equaling all of those others who have chosen to put in the same sort of work.
It didn't read that way in Outliers, where he implied there was a linear relationship between practice and ability, without preconditions. When confronted, he had to offer a clarification clause that the rule only applied to those who already did 10,000 hours, but that thousands of more hours are needed. Suuure whatever you say, Gadwell.
Gladwell himself readily admits he stretches facts and makes up other concepts out of whole cloth in the name of entertainment, making his books essentially fiction.
And if 10,000 is just a made-up number, then is he even saying anything of value? It takes thousands of hours to become an expert at something. Wow! Really? Who knew!?
Yes, that was my point-Gladwell takes the utterly obvious (in this case) and makes it out to be profound. Its like saying its amazing that so many junior officers in World War 1 were senior officers in World War 2.
I wonder if we're missing the point of Gladwell. Gladwell doesn't, as far as I know, pretend to be a world-class psychologist at the cutting edge of popular research. I'm not sure many university departments would take him all that seriously.
What he's an expert at doing is wrapping quite esoteric concepts up in a language that people can understand, relate to and discuss. For instance, he offers the Cliffnotes version of an answer to the question 'So how much work did I have to put in to become an expert at something' or 'How did containerization change world trade?.' He does this better than almost anyone, and his theories are tied to actual research (which sets him apart from the 'this sounds about right' of the likes of Seth Godin.)
If he doesn't offer enough precision and clarity for you, consider that his audiences are themselves well below the 10,000 hours threshold in the subjects he tends to opine on.
Yeah, Gladwell talks endlessly about this on basically every podcast that asks him on, and he tries very hard to clarify that his "10,000 rule" was illustrative, not to be taken literally, as in "9,999... 10,000! Okay I've mastered this!"
Which means he is stating "practice a lot and you'll get good."
Which would be obvious if it wasn't also false. You also need to be practicing the right things in the right way and evolve what you practice as you develop.
If you put a person in a room with a piano and had them futz with it for 10,000 hours they will end up much worse than someone who has a dedicated coach, sheet music and proper exercises.
Pretty much everything Gladwell posits is just some folksy wisdom pretending to be fresh insight wearing a shoddy Einstein wig.
I quite like Rory Sutherland's quote on McDonalds (which he applies to other things) for this kind of effect: 'The great thing about McDonalds is that you have a cast iron guarantee that it's not going to be completely shit.'
Sometimes the art is knowing how much is good enough.
The problem is he fundamentally misrepresents most research and backs it up with "just so" stories that feel true but we have no reason to believe are representative.
Feel-good snake oil sells a lot of books and is fun to read but it isn't doing science or public edification/knowledge any favors.
I don't care if it's oversimplified. The 10,000 hour rule is brilliant for getting people past the difficult stages of learning a new skill. Can't play guitar? It's not because you were born without musical talent...it's because you haven't put in your time yet. Get to work. People aren't born playing guitar. They learn to play guitar...through practice...lots and lots and lots of practice...10,000 hours of practice!
For me, this realization was life-changing. And yes, I learned to play the guitar at the age of 40 after reading Outliers because I then had faith that with enough hours of hard work that I could do it. And I did. And now playing music is one of my greatest pleasures in life.
While I understand your point, the danger in this over simplification is that it encourages brute forcification. If 10k hours were only enough, our typing speed would keep increasing. But that's not the case; to improve you need to be challenged with a higher skill level requirement. For example, if you're at 100 WPM, use a typing tutor that requires 110. Otherwise you'll just stargnate.
Upvoted. Its easy to forget, he is a journalist, albeit a very glorified one - not a scientist, although it's easy to see how he is often confused as one.
Sure, but they're limited by not being experts in the subject matter they are reporting while at the same time attempting to distill it down into accessible language for the lay reader.
Just because someone is proclaimed "expert" doesn't mean they are good at what they do. This is especially true for the softer fields that Gladwell writes in.
At the end of the day it's up to you to determine if what you are reading is accurate. And if you don't have the tools, resources, or time to do so, you trust in experts at your own risk.
To some extent you're right and I see your point, but this is also a false dichotomy. Gladwell can be whatever he wants to be. He may be rooted in science, but let's be honest, 10,000 is a fairly arbitrary number. If the world couldn't figure out that 10,000 hours wasn't scientific, we may have a larger problem.
I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities.
> I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet.
This is because 'skeptic' content is by far the most cost effective to produce. You're piggy backing off someone else's fame, and the only demand you're making of your readers is that they not read the original source material for themselves, which isn't exactly a difficult sell.
I think that perspective of exhaustion with contrarianism is part of the problem. There an excellent quote, which is "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."
It is really really easy for someone to write some BS (online or in print). Books and newspapers do it routinely. Blogs do it every day. And of course people on online forums do it every second. Unless you just write "You're wrong," it usually takes a lot more effort, volume, and words to refute the BS.
So yes, it is often intellectually easier for people to be contrarian, but only because there is so much BS out there to refute. And it still takes more effort and volume to do so.
> I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities.
Let me be the first to say I agree. And I'm a contrarian!
It just can't be possible that every discrepancy deserves the effort to refute and correct, and we're biologically trained to approximate as a matter of priority.
Pinker is not a great example as a popularizer of science. He writes scientific books in layman's terms like The Language Instinct (which itself sometimes drifts off scientific canon into one explanation he favors over another in disputed areas). He also writes books like The Better Angels of Our Nature which are much more loosely connected to science in which he gives his opinion on human nature, politics, society etc.
I agree with the Language Instinct since it sticks with our current scientific understanding of how the brain scientifically and mathematically creates grammar. I disagree with much of The Better Angels book since it contradicts many anthropological and archaeological studies of human societies.
You can read Marshall Sahlins, Lewis H. Morgan, Eleanor Leacock or others.
One thing they say is the hunter-gatherer bands of 10,000 years ago (or the small handful which remain in the world's remaining wilderness today) are not as bad as they say.
One thing is - the men in some of these bands work less than 40 hours a week. So in some respects, they are better off than a lot of people here (in some respects worse off).
The basic idea is against the Panglossian idea that Voltaire talks about in Candide - that we're currently living in the best possible economic/political/etc. system. One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth.
People didn't need a strong government to keep them in check 10,000 years ago, 20,000, 30,000 when they were painting buffalos in caves and so forth.
>One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth.
Pinker never says anything like this I can remember and it doesn't even sound like something like something he talks about. Could you point out something that lead you to this interpretation?
>I agree with the Language Instinct since it sticks with our current scientific understanding of how the brain scientifically and mathematically creates grammar. I disagree with much of The Better Angels book since it contradicts many anthropological and archaeological studies of human societies.
So you agree with "The Language Instinct" because it supports the prevailing view and you disagree with "The Better Angels..." because it doesn't. Why the appeal to authority? Why not judge the books on their arguments and evidence?
> because it supports the prevailing view and you disagree with "The Better Angels..." because it doesn't.
No, I said the Language Instinct talked about science and the brain, and Better Angels talked about political questions. One is scientific, one is polemic.
Pinker refers to Noam Chomsky in his scientific books, and he is an author of similar note. Chomsky writes mathematical formulas to describe human and computer languages, which are widely used - so there is no argument to their validity (unless you have some logical proof that Chomsky normal form can not describe context-free grammars). Chomsky also writes in other books about what he thinks about Israeli foreign policy - which is political and polemic.
I don't know how much more I can explain how there is a difference between an error-free mathematical proof and a controversial political opinion. They are apples and oranges.
You're misrepresenting what Pinker is saying in "Better Angels". His claim is that violence globally has declined and he backs that up with quantified data and argument. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not disagree that there probably are some remote cultures that are less violent but it doesn't detract from his larger point.
A larger part of my confusion is that I'm doing some massive revision -- call it a refactoring -- of my worldview. Not an absolute overturning, but tossing off massive amounts of cruft, teasing out the odd bits of real truth, and digging further for more connections.
Many of the more insightful authors I could name simply aren't very well known. Many aren't in the hard sciences, though some (again, Smil delves there) are. Generally I'd point very hard at many of the folks associated with the Santa Fe Institute (Geoffrey West, W. Brian Arthur, David Krakauer, Sander van der Leuuw, J. Doyne Farmer), and others.
Since I'm reassimilating and assessing, a lot's up in the air.
I'd considered a few other names, mostly older -- Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. I'd give slightly stronger cred to Asimov than Sagan, I think Asimov was more grounded in science, while Sagan tended to get a bit fuzzy. Though I also give Sagan serious credit for his attacks on bullshit and pseudo-science.
To a large extent though I'm mining more distant authors -- the past 250-300 years. Adam Smith (though largely revising my "conventional wisdom" assessment of him), Charles Darwin (quite possibly the most significant scientist of all time), Newton, Aldo Leopold, Howard and Eugene Odum, Alfred Lotke, William Ophuls (though more politics).
Completely agree on Asimov. I spent a quite a bit of my childhood reading anything that was written by Asimov that i could lay my hands on. I always felt so much in awe at the kinds of things he'd make me think about. I'll have to check out the Sante Fe Institute stuff - thanks for the recommendations!
Except Gladwell didn't "get us wrong". People who read Gladwell and misinterpreted it "got us wrong". Gladwell has spoken repeatedly and clarified his book statements, Though if you read it closely there isn't much clarification needed.
I am confused by the comment. You think the researchers whose work Gladwell based his book on are WRONG about Gladwell getting it wrong, even though they explain the problems fairly well and you haven't addressed any of the specific points? Curious to know what qualifies you to know they have the wrong interpretation of their own work... have you even read it, or do you feel qualified to say this based on a reading of Gladwell alone?
Also, Gladwell has repeatedly "clarified", but if he didn't "get it wrong" why would there be a need to do this?
"Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance.
In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I'be seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some coBS piracy, just the nature of these things.
To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
"Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance.
In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I've seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some conspiracy, just the nature of these things.
To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
People may not do it consciously, but it is a defense mechanism used to understand why they cannot do something. I recently had a huge argument with some friends about drawing. They said some innate talent was needed to which I said no, practice is all that is needed. Anyone can take some classes, and spend time to become passable at something like drawing.
Greatness is where practice and innate talent intersect.
I've definitely seen counterexamples to this, regarding drawing. Some people are visual thinkers, and some, despite thousands of hours of attempts, aren't.
There is such a thing as innate talent. Do you think anyone can be a world class physicist or mathematician with 10,000 hours practice? What about sprinters, programmers or entrepreneurs? I certainly don't. Not any of the above. I think people who achieve a high level of performance have almost certainly put in a lot of practice, but the reason they keep practicing is they have some natural aptitude for what they're practicing.
Gladwell's myth is comforting to our present elites who claim to have gotten where they are via hard work, and keeps the peace with the rubes.
Do you know anyone who has practiced drawing for, literally, thousands of hours and is not competent at it? I find that difficult to believe. There are people who can't form mental images, but that is considered a neurological condition (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894). I believe such people may never be competent at drawing, but that's not usually what people mean by "visual thinker."
Personally, I think people put too much emphasis on "natural talent." There may be such a thing, but yes, I think that dedicated, deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent" in the long run. But, I'm not entirely convinced "natural talent" is a thing. I'm unsure what is real and what is perceived and cultural myth on this subject.
Right. Programming is also a terrible example. I think anyone who is not mentally handicapped would become an excellent programmer with 10k hours of practice.
That's three and a half years of a 9-5 if you work 7 days a week. 5 years if you work 5 days a week. And I mean work to learn not work to put out a sub par product.
I was into BMX when I was young, and really wanted to learn how to manual (coasting on the back tire). I practiced this every day for 6 months, I got to being able to manual about 30 feet on a good run. One day, my friend who was a natural athlete but had no particular interest in BMX decided to give it a try. He had it figured out within an hour. It was pretty clear that 10,000 hours would get him a hell of a lot further than it would get me, and that it was time to divorce myself from any aspiration of becoming a professional, or even competent BMX rider. I rage quit. Natural talent is huge.
Do you know how many hours he put into athleticism before that day? If you are a clutz like me, you probably did an hour less of athletic activity every day of your life than someone with an aptitude. Aptitude plants a seed that grows.
Agreed with your sentiment. What makes Fricken say his friend is a "natural athlete"? Is it just because Fricken did not see his friend practice athletic activities since being very young, or did Fricken's friend really excel at athletics without any practice? There are a lot of examples of athletes crossing over from one sport to another, because their prior sport's skills transfer well. I wouldn't say they are a "natural" at the new sport.
>Personally, I think people put too much emphasis on "natural talent." There may be such a thing...
It's comforting to think that we are all capable of greatness. That doesn't make it so. It seems easier to accept with physical prowess. Do you think any amount of practice will bring me, an average Joe, even remotely close to the sprinting abilities of Usain Bolt? Clearly he was born with a physique that I was not. It's plain to see and so, natural physical talent is not something that is hard to accept. Why would natural mental talent be any different?
btw: i'm a high school teacher. I see the difference between gifted, middle of the road and ... um how to put it kindly, academically challenged individuals all the time. It may not be very PC, but there are loads of dummies among us and there's not much they can do do lift themselves up to even basic levels of intelligence. And just to be clear I'm not talking about the intellectually disabled.
> deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent"
No. It will only beat out natural talent that never bothered to hone the same skills. Combining natural talent with practice is simply unbeatable and no amount of deliberate practice will allow you to reach the same heights.
This is patently obvious with physical ability. Why so hard to accept the same with mental ability?
My main reservation with these discussions is how much unsubstantiated claims there are, based on anecdotes. You're assuming such a thing called "natural talent" exists, and ascribing success to it. There are other plausible explanations.
are you suggesting there is no variability between people with regard to intelligence or ability to learn? if all other human traits show variability (height, strength etc) what makes intelligence special?
No. I am suggesting that what people call "natural talent" is just general intelligence and learning ability. I think that when people use the term "natural talent", implicit is talent at a particular task, which I suspect is not a real thing.
OK, so you don't believe human abilities are statistically distributed. This is a fashionable political statement these days. It's also been proven completely false.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I know a woman who has been trying to be a representational painter for 10 years. The first time I saw a picture in her studio which was decent, it was her husband's first attempt at a portrait (he'd never used a paintbrush before).
You may think natural talent doesn't count; but you can only think this because you've never been exposed to a sport, game or skill where someone had 4 sigma of natural talent on you.
Outright denying Gladwell's theory is comforting to pseudo-intellectuals in fields like programming who like to think that they're special or hyper logical.
What about the many people who are passionate and who do practice quite a lot but don't really take it that much further. For example, in track and field there are people who are really into it and who run all the time. Or any of the other hobbies that people are into but they never get better than certain levels.
The human brain is an amazing thing, and the particularly amazing thing about it is that it's a very general-purpose thinking and learning machine. It's this generality and the ability to learn that allows people to become programmers, entrepreneurs, physicists or mathematicians, and large amounts of time spent practicing is what enables the specialisation.
But the interesting part is they all started out with essentially the same hardware, and I don't believe there is any part of the brain where you will find a 'natural' aptitude for entrepreneurship, or programming or whatever. Evolution just gave us a general purpose tool that can be moulded to whatever purpose.
First, congratulations on learning the guitar, I'm really happy that it brings joy to your life.
However, research in the area of expert performance shows that when it comes to this practice, not just the amount, but the type of practice matters tremendously. How practice is done is such a major factor in improvement that taking the 10,000 hour rule by itself is like solving physics problems with the formula F = a instead of F = ma.
Research in the area shows that performers usually plateau after reaching competence, which is the point they no longer struggle with regular operations. At this point, automaticity takes over, which for example is the reason that whilst most people can walk, few get consistently better at it despite walking a lot. This means, that out of the 10,000 hours put into learning the task, 9,000 are potentially wasted.
In order to leave plateaus, one needs engage in "deliberate practice", a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson. It's presence, or lack thereof has been shown across a wide variety of disciplines between masters and people who are merely good after having spent similar amounts of time on practice.
Deliberate practice is practice where you consciously strain for a point that is just outside your current skill level. In the case of musicians for example, it can manifest as slowing down a song to a crawl until every note is hit in the right way, and then slowly speeding up or slowing down again at the line where one starts making mistakes.
My point is that whilst the 10,000 hour rule is useful for setting time expectations to become a master at a task and helps illustrate how expertise is attainable for all of us if we put in the time and work, it lacks predictive power for whether you will become great at something after spending this amount of time.
For a hobby, this may only result in some wasted practice time getting to competence(I've eyeballed this at about a factor of 2 doing some testing learning the piano, unscientific, I know), which is perfectly fine. You're doing it for fun. Pain periods and all.
For an occupation, however, it can lead to endless grief. You've read about the 10,000 hour rule, you want to become very good, but after a year of work, you don't ever become significantly better. You sit there, grasping at the problem, but it's elusive, like you're wildly tweaking screen settings things to fix a kernel bug.
I am also oversimplifying a bit for brevity here, but there's some books on the topic. For an in depth review, there's the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance"[0].
For a lighter book more along the lines of Outliers, theres "The Talent Code"[1] by Daniel Coyle. AFAIK, both draw from the Cambridge book.
Both of them are worth a look, the 10,000 hour rule might tell you "I can do it", but these will tell you "How to do it".
Good post, but one nitpick: the author of the submitted piece made a point that the 10,000 hour was for music students at about 20 years old who were not yet masters.
I like the 10,000 hour rule as an order of magnitude estimation. Somewhere between hour 5001 and 49999, you become very good, given the right kind of practice. It's an acceptable heuristic for that, and research throws up similar numbers in a range of fields.
With focused, deliberate practice, I'm hoping I crack the electric guitar in 5001. :) But seriously, I know it's the journey that's more important - the heuristic really does give me confidence when I look at where I am and where I want to be.
One thing I found with psycho-motor skills like the guitar or piano is that slowing it down significantly at the start is really helpful. I downloaded a metronome app onto my phone and I'd start out at a rate of 10 BPM (which is agonizingly slow), and then bump it up in 10 BPM, and then 5 BPM increments. The other thing I'm thinking about is getting a skilled spotter, because early on your error correcting feedback mechanisms aren't all that great. Whilst I could focus on hitting the right keys at the right time, things like posture and how I hit the keys were things where I couldn't differentiate between good and bad. Might as well start out with good form.
Yes, from everything I've read, the key to grasping a new motor skill is to break it up in chunks and then to really slow it down. This has worked for me, and the interesting thing I noticed is that if I don't break it down and do it slowly, the level of frustration from doing it even for a short while tempts me to end the session right there.
If you can get a skilled spotter, or a coach who knows his/her stuff, nothing like it! I have to rely on myself unfortunately, and am very grateful for the super materials that I've found for learning the guitar. Like you, I am focusing on the fundamentals and patiently letting my skills build up. 2 years into it I am happy to say that it's looking good!
Thank you for the reference to the Cambridge Handbook. Having read The Talent Code and Talent Is Overrated, both of which I recommend, I look forward to this one as well.
It takes a bit of time to go through, the chapters take me about a day if I take notes, and it's 40 chapters, so I'm personally only up to chapter 15 right now.
IMHO there are certain tasks where the rule is more applicable, and others were it isn't. I think music and athleticism involve flow states and muscle memory, whereas math and writing tend to be more cognitively demanding and involve more structure and rules, and you either have the talent to do well or you don't, and such talent tends to manifest at a very early age. The 10000 hours is the amount of practice that allows an already talented person to possibly compete at the world-class.
He didn't oversimplify it, he simply misstated it.
10,000 hours will make you an advanced student in a very competitive field, if you are the kind of person who will put in long practice into that field. It might still be a question of musical talent; the students in question would certainly be the ones born with talent.
Further, it's dedicated practice, not noodling around and not performing.
Finally, 10,000 hours isn't any kind of magic number. It wasn't enough to make those students masters, and I would bet that you haven't put in anywhere near that many to achieve a level of skill that satisfies you.
About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.
> About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.
Everybody knows they need to practice. But at least for me, the 10,000 rule set my expectations properly. Knowing that "practice" means 20 hours a week for 10 years helped me get past the temptation to quit when things aren't so easy in the beginning.
> Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.
There's a bunch of people who say they can't math, or paint, or play instruments, or learn a foreign language, etc etc. They don't seem to know that all they need is better lessons and lots of practice.
And when the (now withdrawn) "Sheep and goats" programmer study gets quoted here it feels right to some people, because we've all seen people who just can't fizzbuzz.
We may have known it, but lots of us don't seem to have taken it to heart.
When I read Outliers, I never took the 10,000 hour rule literally and I don't think Gladwell wanted us to. It put in perspective what we all knew and that's what contributed to it's popularity -- it gave us a common vocabulary to refer to when talking about "lot of practice". To quote from the article "The rule is irresistibly appealing".
Music isn't a single skill, it's a big collection of skills, many of which build on others. 10,000 hours may get you to a point where you can play the instrument you've been practising but you might still be a total beginner at music theory, composition, conducting, recording, etc.
When we describe someone as a master or a professional, it's assumed that they've mastered more than just the mechanics of playing an instrument, since all of the most well known names in music have multiple skills developed at a high level.
Everyone seems to get hung up on "mastery" or being a professional. Well guess what? You know what made me more receptive to music theory lessons? Thousands of hours of guitar practice. Practice feeds on itself. Once I was proficient with the physical basics of the guitar, I naturally reached out to all of the YouTube lessons on theory. The theory that now seems very straightforward would have been lost on me as a beginner.
This is not supported by the data. All it says is that the very best practices more than the extremely good. There is no evidence that prolonged practice leads to exceptional performance.
You seem to be arguing semantics more than nuance. You aren't trying to say that practice doesn't matter. Right? Instead, it is debatable how much it differentiates the absolute best from those just below?
If so, I think the "No evidence" is a bit strong in this case. We may lack what would commonly be considered "proof" but there are good indications that practice matters.
The 10,000 hour rule does more damage than good. Guitar is a perfect example to illustrate why.
a) It doesn't take 10,000 hours to be halfway decent at guitar. If all you want to do is be able to strum the chords for most popular music, you should be able to do that in way less than 10,000 hours.
b) Even 10,000 hours isn't going to turn you into Stevie Ray Vaughan or Walter Becker. There's lots of guitar players out there with way more than 10,000 hours who are damn good and still aren't those guys. The 10,000 hour rule as Gladwell presents it makes people believe that time investment is key in developing a skill and that's just not true for all skills.
c) 10,000 hours is such an arbitrary number as to be totally meaningless. As guitar perfectly illustrates, it's almost never going to be the right number. For most people who just want to be able to strum some Beatles tunes, that's way too much time. For people who want to be Yngwie Malmsteen, it's not enough.
But it's not just guitar, most skills are like this. The 10,000 hour number is totally meaningless. How much time you need to invest into a skill depends on what your goals are with that skill, and also how good you are at related skills that feed into that ability already.
The 10,000 hour meme needs to be taken out back, hit with a shovel and buried. It's awful.
The idea of the 10,000 hour rule has been quite a motivation for me, but you do put your arguments very well.
Like most people I've never taken the 10,000 hours as an absolute yardstick, just that you will be rewarded in proportion to the effort you put in. Of course, it's hard to slap a slick rule name on it when put that way.
I started two years, after I'd crossed 50, with the same conviction. Outliers, The Talent Code and Talent Is Overrated were what inspired me. I believe there is natural talent, but it's much rarer than we like to believe. Perseverance and knowing how to learn are much more accessible to the general population and that's what I'm betting on. Like you I am drawing my greatest happiness playing the guitar. I'm still some ways from mastery, but I am making good and measurable progress.
The author agrees with Gladwell that to become pretty "good" at anything you will need to work hard at it(10K hrs). But the theme of the book is 'outliers', and Gladwell over simplifies saying that all it takes to be an outlier is 10000 hrs of work - which is not the case apparently, some people achieved this without as much effort and it is likely some people require a lot more effort than 10K hrs to be "as" good and considering that, it is not really clear what the outlier benchmark cutoff hrs is.
The underlying message which Gladwell conveys that to be outlier at anything, all you need is 10,000 hrs of work does not seem to hold true for all individuals in all fields.
Malcom Gladwell is a great story teller, but a terrible researcher. I had sworn to never buy another book by him even before seeing this news. He's BSing too much.
What bothers me so much is that his father is both an excellent teacher and researcher so he should have a good role model. I took a course from his father during my undergrad.
Of course there's no hard-coded number of required 10.000 hours of practice, but Gladwell just simplifies the process of excelling on anything: Lots of practice with some other things depending on the field. That's enough for me.
I always mention this guy [1] whenever this topic comes into the discussion. It has tangible aspects, you can see the improvement in his paintings along with the number of years passed, it's a journal.
O for the day when the 10,000 hours rule is replaced by the 10,000 unique mistakes rule - because if you had the swarm knowledge of the mistakes others have made before you (if you weren't the first making mistakes towards some goal), you would learn from negative examples probably at least as fast as by independent effort. You could even control it: p = tau * mistakes + (1 - tau) * independent effort
People take the 10,000 hours "rule" entirely too seriously.
Gladwell himself admits 10,000 hours is rather arbitrary. The point is still important though, as far too many people start a new skill and are disheartened by their lack of ability before putting in serious practice.
It might seem obvious that practice is necessary for most skills, but people forget it all the time. For example, when I'm teaching people programming they're quick to think themselves failures when they see the giant gap between their abilities and my own. What they don't realize is that I've been doing it for over a decade and, in fact, was much worse than them at first. [0]
[0] In fact, I probably only did HTML for my first whole month of "programming." One major advantage of learning things as a kid is that there's no pressure to be good.
Exactly! I grew up thinking school is "my thing" and when I saw people with other skills (music, drawing, acting, cooking, etc.), that must just be "their thing". Yes, people have natural strengths and aptitudes, and there are some things that I know I'm just not inclined for, but it is a very empowering feeling to believe that I can choose to dedicate my time to learning a new skill and become proficient at it. At the same time, the "rule" also should tell you that each new skill you pursue has a serious opportunity cost, so choose carefully!
After all, a message that gives hope to the dullards who buy his books that they too can covet the skills of geniuses with just enough practice, is an appealing one.
It's easy to take the 10,000 rule too literally and never end up excelling. Take for example, my Grandpa who's been learning English for over 20 years, whose proficiency level has been at a sad plateau for greater than a decade, despite subscribing to a "How to Learn English" program daily. What he isn't doing is going out and failing, speaking, and deliberately focusing on areas that he's terrible at. He's become too comfortable at learning English and not practicing with intent.
I think we can all conjure up examples like these in our everyday lives. The casual Dad who plays tennis every weekend but hasn't won a Round Robin tournament ever. Or the entrepreneur that jumps from idea to idea, never really following through and taking a risk.
Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot posing as a "scientist" (because of his hair I guess?) Every book he writes is just anecdotes with a vague thesis. Practicing stuff makes you good? Thanks for the insight.
It's feel-good science-iness like those crap games that "exercise your brain". It's just marketing.
Anders Ericsson's deliberate practice theory, from which the 10,000 hours idea came, has also been critiqued in other ways. See this special issue of Intelligence for some articles, and below is a sort of summary: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01602896/45
His work tends to focus on narrow areas of performance: chess, music, etc., where rote learning, memorization, drill, and repetition are the main keys, unlike 'messier' areas like research, engineering, teaching, and the like. But even within those narrow domains, his theory isn't sufficient to explain performance, individual differences, and expertise (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...). There are so many exceptions to the rule (like child prodigies http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... ), so many domain differences (like he is acknowledging now in the target article). He ignores the last 30 years of research in cognitive psychology. For example, persistent misconceptions and bad habits that prevent us from learning and making significant progress in both conceptual and physical domains.
His theory ignores genetic factors that influence performance and expertise (see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... or just watch a game of basketball), and ignores the role of IQ (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...). The data does not support Ericsson's theory, and his arguments have errors and contradictions (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614...).
10,000 hours is nice whole cozy number. But it's not about 9,000 hrs or 11,000 hrs. You have to keep at it for an extended period of time. That's where passion and innovation helps you sail thru.
The other thing which is often implied is that once you're a master of a particular field, that financial success will necessarily follow.
This is not the case. Being a master in your field does improve your odds to a certain point and it can certainly get you a high income. But to actually become wealthy, you need more than skill/talent.
Once you get in the top 0.1% of your field, the level of talent/competition is so extremely high that it becomes literally impossible to differentiate skill levels between individuals (even experts in that field can't do it) - Beyond this point, to progress further, you have to rely on either luck or social connections. The hard part is that you have to keep practising/learning like crazy just to maintain your approximate 'ranking'.
Thankfully, at that skill level, influential/wealthy people might recognize your talent and may actually bother to answer your emails if you craft them correctly. But yeah, you'd better have damn good emotional intelligence/soft skills because beyond that, it's all about social scheming and manipulation.
The #1 most famous person in a given field is rarely the #1 in terms of skill level - They probably rank somewhere in the top 1% or maybe in the top 0.1% (if the field is particularly meritocratic) but it is unlikely that they even make the top 1000 list.
The meritocracy factor is probably relatively strong in fields like maths and science (research) but extremely weak in fields like acting, painting or music. It's related to the degree of subjectivity in each field. But I think even in science and engineering, there is a lot more subjectivity involved than most people would admit.
The key to success is having intersecting skills. It's much easier to (for example) be both a pretty good developer and a pretty good business guy than it is to be the best developer, yet the former will often make more money.
This, of course, isn't exclusive to software. The social scientist who is actually also great at mathematics will be able to make much more compelling grant requests than the average one who has muddled numbers and poor analysis.
'Success' is the core topic behind Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers: The Story of Success". If you read the book, you will see that the word "success" is used in a capitalist context which in most cases should be interpreted as 'financial success' - That is the most common interpretation.
So when he invokes Asian successes in math just on the front flap, he's talking about money? When he talks about Major Junior A league of Canadian Hockey, that's about money, too, even when he says you can't buy your way in? Bill Joy talking about his own proficiency in his sophomore year of college?
The book exists in a capitalist context, sure, but the stories are not dependent on it by my reading.
"an hour of playing in front of a crowd, where the focus is on delivering the best possible performance at the time, is not the same as an hour of focused, goal-driven practice"
A different study tested students on their ability to make clay pots. Some students were scored on the quality of each pot. Others were only scored based on quantity.
The students that emphasized quantity were able to make better pots by the end of the study. By aiming for quantity over quality, they were able to deliver both.
Performing puts a lot of pressure on you and a more direct focus on the mistakes and triumphs that count. I wouldn't be too quick to disregard how valuable it could be, because it forces you to follow through and work on all the important things.
I tried to find the original source of the quality-vs-quantity pottery class story a while back. I think it originates in the book "Art and Fear" but in that book it reads like a parable rather than a factual event. (And it's definitely not a study in that book.)
Well, I checked with one of the authors of "Art and Fear", and it turns out that the quality-vs-quantity pottery class is a true story, except it wasn't a ceramics class as written, but a university level photography class! They changed it to pottery in the book because they had too many photography examples already.
Gladwell is a well-known hack and has a terrible reputation in journalist circles for the shilling he did for tobacco companies while being paid handsomely for it.
Reputation among journalist circles is worthless if Jonah Lehrer can get a job at any newspaper after being outed as a faker and a plagiarist. He can and it is.
As far as I can tell Gladwell has "oversimplified" nearly every subject he touches, because he is more interested in pumping up his image than in doing meaningful work.
He just did a show on how going to Bowdoin instead of Vassar is eeevil because Bowdoin feeds students really well and only has 13% of students on the highest level of financial aid, whereas Vassar food (according to the show) gives students diarrhea but has a 23% number. The argument was just supremely stupid but if you don't listen too closely he sounds smart. Or I should say, he sounds smart to the naive and bad-at-math variety of socialists (a category in which I don't lump every socialist btw).
Yes, Gladwell simplifies things. That doesn't make him wrong.
I listened to the financial aid episode on Revisionist History. Why do you think it is supremely stupid?
Money spent on facilities absolutely limits the financial aid budget at institutions. This has a real effect. The average debt of Vassar students is $8k lower than Bowdoin for a reason. [0] [1]
Well for one, the numbers don't work. The idea that if Bowdoin just served students the same crap food as Vassar their financial aid programs would be equalized doesn't hold water.
Also, the notion that cutting student services back to the point that many of Vassarh interviewees spoke of a laxative effect is somehow humanitarian doesn't hold water.
The idea that if Bowdoin, which has one of the more generous financial aid systems of the elite schools, has to hit a certain percentage of aid or is somehow immoral, also doesn't hold water.
They pretended to the Bowdoin interviewees -- which did not include anyone who could have rebutted -- that this was only about food, while Vassar's highest officials were interviewed about their humanitarian goals.
Bowdoin's financial aid approach is certainly different. For instance, they tend to give 100% of the gap for any student who qualifies, and this has been going on for some time. Vassar doesn't do it this way, but increasing financial aid somewhat for students who were only partially qualifying was touted by Gladwell as some kind of revolution.
By the way, the State school based in Portland, ME also gives surf and turf dinners...
How not? If you're claiming that the numbers don't work, please explain how reducing expenditures on luxury services couldn't free up additional money for financial aid.
You're nitpicking. Obviously, by itself serving better food is not by itself exclusive evidence of "evil." Princeton serves better food than either Vassar or Bowdoin, but also does an even better job with financial aid.
I don't think Bowdoin is "immoral" any more than I think someone who only donates 20% of their income (vs. 30) is "immoral." The point is that, at the margin, spending a dollar on financial aid is more moral than spending a dollar on fantastic food.
The specifics of Bowdoin food vs. Vassar food really don't matter to me. The general point is totally valid though: spending on luxury services absolutely takes dollars away from financial aid.
In fact, the podcast actually got me thinking about whether the most moral thing would be for super-rich universities (ex. Princeton) to switch to need-aware admissions in reverse, with a goal of 100% of students qualifying for financial aid.
I didn't say that cutting the quality of the food wouldn't "free up resources" that could go do financial aid. Did you go to Vassar or something? Are you going to ignore the various other point I made regarding the poor level of journalism here?
e.g. is it "nitpicking" to point out that Gladwell gave the two college vastly different levels of research and opportunity to address his concerns?
Direct quote from Gladwell. "The food at Bowdoin is actually a problem. A moral problem." I'm sorry I don't see the caveat he made about how this really wansn't his point.
It's a moral problem to spend marginal dollars on food rather than financial aid. Do you disagree?
I do agree that it was sloppy of him to not include an interview with financial aid people from Bowdoin. I actually would be interested to hear them explain why they have higher indebtedness than Vassar.
> I didn't say that cutting the quality of the food wouldn't "free up resources" that could go do financial aid. Did you go to Vassar or something?
No, I actually went to the horrible NYU (on a full ride, though). I just feel strongly that aggressively offering outreach and financial aid to low-income students is one of the primary moral responsibilities for elite universities.
"It's a moral problem to spend marginal dollars on food rather than financial aid. Do you disagree?"
Of course I don't agree. At what point do you determine that you've gone far enough, with the above stated principle? It's a bankrupt line of reasoning, based on the reduction of a budget with thousands of line items to dumbed-down sound bytes. Does it even bother you that you have mentioned no rational basis for drawing the line anywhere?
Why does there have to be a clear line to make the marginal argument valid?
For individuals, I will state: spending a marginal dollar on charity is more moral than spending a marginal dollar on luxuries.
I don't have a clear answer to where the line lies, even for myself. I try to keep giving until the marginal luxuries which I give up have greater utility than the utility I gain from donations. Admittedly, this is not exact or imprecise. My giving is strongly affected by my mental health (one of the best ways I've found to get out of a depressive spiral is to go on a donation spree).
However, I don't think this lack of precision undermines the notion that charitable giving is more moral than luxury spending.
As far as I can tell Gladwell has "oversimplified" nearly every subject he touches, because he is more interested in pumping up his image than in doing meaningful work.
I'm sure he's interested in his image but I think mainly he wants to tell a good story and doesn't mind cutting some corners to do so. He's a very good story teller and naturally his priorities line up that way.
I feel like we're saying the same thing with a different tone. Yes, he tells stories, i.e fictions, i.e. places entertainment and narrative qualities ahead of facts.
As other have pointed out, Gladwell didn't "oversimplify" but rather seriously misconstrued the research on expertise/practice.
Gladwell had a chance to reiterate his view on the 10,000 hour rule in (I believe) an episode of the Tim Ferriss podcast. The point he said he was trying to make wasn't that it took some arbitrary number of hours to become good at something, it was that you need a lot of outside support to get good at things. If you're trying to rack up your 10k hours, you're not going to be able to also have a full time job, keep up with kids, or a house or any of the other responsibilities of adult life.
153 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 236 ms ] threadThis puts the ten-thousand-hour rule in a completely different light: The reason that you must put in ten thousand or more hours of practice to become one of the world’s best violinists or chess players or golfers is that the people you are being compared to or competing with have themselves put in ten thousand or more hours of practice. There is no point at which performance maxes out and additional practice does not lead to further improvement. So, yes, if you wish to become one of the best in the world in one of these highly competitive fields, you will need to put in thousands and thousands of hours of hard, focused work just to have a chance of equaling all of those others who have chosen to put in the same sort of work.
And if 10,000 is just a made-up number, then is he even saying anything of value? It takes thousands of hours to become an expert at something. Wow! Really? Who knew!?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/malcolm-gladwe...
in other words, if you're smart enough to challenge my assumptions, don't read my books.
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/peak/
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/malcolm-gladwell/
What he's an expert at doing is wrapping quite esoteric concepts up in a language that people can understand, relate to and discuss. For instance, he offers the Cliffnotes version of an answer to the question 'So how much work did I have to put in to become an expert at something' or 'How did containerization change world trade?.' He does this better than almost anyone, and his theories are tied to actual research (which sets him apart from the 'this sounds about right' of the likes of Seth Godin.)
If he doesn't offer enough precision and clarity for you, consider that his audiences are themselves well below the 10,000 hours threshold in the subjects he tends to opine on.
He does pretend to be presenting facts, and he's still on the hook for being wrong a lot of the time.
Which would be obvious if it wasn't also false. You also need to be practicing the right things in the right way and evolve what you practice as you develop.
If you put a person in a room with a piano and had them futz with it for 10,000 hours they will end up much worse than someone who has a dedicated coach, sheet music and proper exercises.
Pretty much everything Gladwell posits is just some folksy wisdom pretending to be fresh insight wearing a shoddy Einstein wig.
Sometimes the art is knowing how much is good enough.
Feel-good snake oil sells a lot of books and is fun to read but it isn't doing science or public edification/knowledge any favors.
For me, this realization was life-changing. And yes, I learned to play the guitar at the age of 40 after reading Outliers because I then had faith that with enough hours of hard work that I could do it. And I did. And now playing music is one of my greatest pleasures in life.
Both are fine. One is meant to be motivational, and one is meant to inform the public about science.
Gladwell's reputation is one of a science-based author which brings with it extra scrutiny.
I've struggled to articulate my dislike of Gladwell, but you've done it accurately here.
At the end of the day it's up to you to determine if what you are reading is accurate. And if you don't have the tools, resources, or time to do so, you trust in experts at your own risk.
http://www.alternet.org/story/155770/is_malcolm_gladwell_ame...
I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities.
This is because 'skeptic' content is by far the most cost effective to produce. You're piggy backing off someone else's fame, and the only demand you're making of your readers is that they not read the original source material for themselves, which isn't exactly a difficult sell.
It is really really easy for someone to write some BS (online or in print). Books and newspapers do it routinely. Blogs do it every day. And of course people on online forums do it every second. Unless you just write "You're wrong," it usually takes a lot more effort, volume, and words to refute the BS.
So yes, it is often intellectually easier for people to be contrarian, but only because there is so much BS out there to refute. And it still takes more effort and volume to do so.
Let me be the first to say I agree. And I'm a contrarian!
It just can't be possible that every discrepancy deserves the effort to refute and correct, and we're biologically trained to approximate as a matter of priority.
It took me 9987 hours to learn that.
I agree with the Language Instinct since it sticks with our current scientific understanding of how the brain scientifically and mathematically creates grammar. I disagree with much of The Better Angels book since it contradicts many anthropological and archaeological studies of human societies.
One thing they say is the hunter-gatherer bands of 10,000 years ago (or the small handful which remain in the world's remaining wilderness today) are not as bad as they say.
One thing is - the men in some of these bands work less than 40 hours a week. So in some respects, they are better off than a lot of people here (in some respects worse off).
The basic idea is against the Panglossian idea that Voltaire talks about in Candide - that we're currently living in the best possible economic/political/etc. system. One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth.
People didn't need a strong government to keep them in check 10,000 years ago, 20,000, 30,000 when they were painting buffalos in caves and so forth.
Pinker never says anything like this I can remember and it doesn't even sound like something like something he talks about. Could you point out something that lead you to this interpretation?
So you agree with "The Language Instinct" because it supports the prevailing view and you disagree with "The Better Angels..." because it doesn't. Why the appeal to authority? Why not judge the books on their arguments and evidence?
No, I said the Language Instinct talked about science and the brain, and Better Angels talked about political questions. One is scientific, one is polemic.
Pinker refers to Noam Chomsky in his scientific books, and he is an author of similar note. Chomsky writes mathematical formulas to describe human and computer languages, which are widely used - so there is no argument to their validity (unless you have some logical proof that Chomsky normal form can not describe context-free grammars). Chomsky also writes in other books about what he thinks about Israeli foreign policy - which is political and polemic.
I don't know how much more I can explain how there is a difference between an error-free mathematical proof and a controversial political opinion. They are apples and oranges.
Stephen Jay Gould, Isaac Asimov, Sir Patrick Moore, or Vaclav Smil strike me as better examples, drawing from personal experience.
I'm actually having a fair bit of trouble coming up with a good example of a contemporary scientific author I'd recommend unhestitatingly. Hrm.
A larger part of my confusion is that I'm doing some massive revision -- call it a refactoring -- of my worldview. Not an absolute overturning, but tossing off massive amounts of cruft, teasing out the odd bits of real truth, and digging further for more connections.
Many of the more insightful authors I could name simply aren't very well known. Many aren't in the hard sciences, though some (again, Smil delves there) are. Generally I'd point very hard at many of the folks associated with the Santa Fe Institute (Geoffrey West, W. Brian Arthur, David Krakauer, Sander van der Leuuw, J. Doyne Farmer), and others.
Since I'm reassimilating and assessing, a lot's up in the air.
I'd considered a few other names, mostly older -- Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. I'd give slightly stronger cred to Asimov than Sagan, I think Asimov was more grounded in science, while Sagan tended to get a bit fuzzy. Though I also give Sagan serious credit for his attacks on bullshit and pseudo-science.
To a large extent though I'm mining more distant authors -- the past 250-300 years. Adam Smith (though largely revising my "conventional wisdom" assessment of him), Charles Darwin (quite possibly the most significant scientist of all time), Newton, Aldo Leopold, Howard and Eugene Odum, Alfred Lotke, William Ophuls (though more politics).
It's complicated.
Also, Gladwell has repeatedly "clarified", but if he didn't "get it wrong" why would there be a need to do this?
In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I'be seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some coBS piracy, just the nature of these things.
Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the...
To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I've seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some conspiracy, just the nature of these things.
Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the...
To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
Greatness is where practice and innate talent intersect.
There is such a thing as innate talent. Do you think anyone can be a world class physicist or mathematician with 10,000 hours practice? What about sprinters, programmers or entrepreneurs? I certainly don't. Not any of the above. I think people who achieve a high level of performance have almost certainly put in a lot of practice, but the reason they keep practicing is they have some natural aptitude for what they're practicing.
Gladwell's myth is comforting to our present elites who claim to have gotten where they are via hard work, and keeps the peace with the rubes.
Personally, I think people put too much emphasis on "natural talent." There may be such a thing, but yes, I think that dedicated, deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent" in the long run. But, I'm not entirely convinced "natural talent" is a thing. I'm unsure what is real and what is perceived and cultural myth on this subject.
That's three and a half years of a 9-5 if you work 7 days a week. 5 years if you work 5 days a week. And I mean work to learn not work to put out a sub par product.
It's comforting to think that we are all capable of greatness. That doesn't make it so. It seems easier to accept with physical prowess. Do you think any amount of practice will bring me, an average Joe, even remotely close to the sprinting abilities of Usain Bolt? Clearly he was born with a physique that I was not. It's plain to see and so, natural physical talent is not something that is hard to accept. Why would natural mental talent be any different?
btw: i'm a high school teacher. I see the difference between gifted, middle of the road and ... um how to put it kindly, academically challenged individuals all the time. It may not be very PC, but there are loads of dummies among us and there's not much they can do do lift themselves up to even basic levels of intelligence. And just to be clear I'm not talking about the intellectually disabled.
> deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent"
No. It will only beat out natural talent that never bothered to hone the same skills. Combining natural talent with practice is simply unbeatable and no amount of deliberate practice will allow you to reach the same heights.
This is patently obvious with physical ability. Why so hard to accept the same with mental ability?
> And just to be clear I'm not talking about the intellectually disabled.
below basic levels of intelligence, but not intellectually disable?
Then what are you talking about? Perhaps you are talking about kids who have squandered their potential, or had it squandered by others.
You may think natural talent doesn't count; but you can only think this because you've never been exposed to a sport, game or skill where someone had 4 sigma of natural talent on you.
I could argue that having a some innate talent helps to keep people practicing, but it is certainly not required to become okay at something.
But the interesting part is they all started out with essentially the same hardware, and I don't believe there is any part of the brain where you will find a 'natural' aptitude for entrepreneurship, or programming or whatever. Evolution just gave us a general purpose tool that can be moulded to whatever purpose.
Maybe, maybe not. https://en.wikipedia.aorg/wiki/Empathizing–systemizing_theor...
However, research in the area of expert performance shows that when it comes to this practice, not just the amount, but the type of practice matters tremendously. How practice is done is such a major factor in improvement that taking the 10,000 hour rule by itself is like solving physics problems with the formula F = a instead of F = ma.
Research in the area shows that performers usually plateau after reaching competence, which is the point they no longer struggle with regular operations. At this point, automaticity takes over, which for example is the reason that whilst most people can walk, few get consistently better at it despite walking a lot. This means, that out of the 10,000 hours put into learning the task, 9,000 are potentially wasted.
In order to leave plateaus, one needs engage in "deliberate practice", a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson. It's presence, or lack thereof has been shown across a wide variety of disciplines between masters and people who are merely good after having spent similar amounts of time on practice.
Deliberate practice is practice where you consciously strain for a point that is just outside your current skill level. In the case of musicians for example, it can manifest as slowing down a song to a crawl until every note is hit in the right way, and then slowly speeding up or slowing down again at the line where one starts making mistakes.
My point is that whilst the 10,000 hour rule is useful for setting time expectations to become a master at a task and helps illustrate how expertise is attainable for all of us if we put in the time and work, it lacks predictive power for whether you will become great at something after spending this amount of time.
For a hobby, this may only result in some wasted practice time getting to competence(I've eyeballed this at about a factor of 2 doing some testing learning the piano, unscientific, I know), which is perfectly fine. You're doing it for fun. Pain periods and all.
For an occupation, however, it can lead to endless grief. You've read about the 10,000 hour rule, you want to become very good, but after a year of work, you don't ever become significantly better. You sit there, grasping at the problem, but it's elusive, like you're wildly tweaking screen settings things to fix a kernel bug.
I am also oversimplifying a bit for brevity here, but there's some books on the topic. For an in depth review, there's the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance"[0].
For a lighter book more along the lines of Outliers, theres "The Talent Code"[1] by Daniel Coyle. AFAIK, both draw from the Cambridge book.
Both of them are worth a look, the 10,000 hour rule might tell you "I can do it", but these will tell you "How to do it".
[0][https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handb...] [1][https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0...]
If you can get a skilled spotter, or a coach who knows his/her stuff, nothing like it! I have to rely on myself unfortunately, and am very grateful for the super materials that I've found for learning the guitar. Like you, I am focusing on the fundamentals and patiently letting my skills build up. 2 years into it I am happy to say that it's looking good!
10,000 hours will make you an advanced student in a very competitive field, if you are the kind of person who will put in long practice into that field. It might still be a question of musical talent; the students in question would certainly be the ones born with talent.
Further, it's dedicated practice, not noodling around and not performing.
Finally, 10,000 hours isn't any kind of magic number. It wasn't enough to make those students masters, and I would bet that you haven't put in anywhere near that many to achieve a level of skill that satisfies you.
About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.
Everybody knows they need to practice. But at least for me, the 10,000 rule set my expectations properly. Knowing that "practice" means 20 hours a week for 10 years helped me get past the temptation to quit when things aren't so easy in the beginning.
Otherwise, as you say:
> advanced student in a very competitive field...
There's a bunch of people who say they can't math, or paint, or play instruments, or learn a foreign language, etc etc. They don't seem to know that all they need is better lessons and lots of practice.
And when the (now withdrawn) "Sheep and goats" programmer study gets quoted here it feels right to some people, because we've all seen people who just can't fizzbuzz.
We may have known it, but lots of us don't seem to have taken it to heart.
When we describe someone as a master or a professional, it's assumed that they've mastered more than just the mechanics of playing an instrument, since all of the most well known names in music have multiple skills developed at a high level.
If so, I think the "No evidence" is a bit strong in this case. We may lack what would commonly be considered "proof" but there are good indications that practice matters.
a) It doesn't take 10,000 hours to be halfway decent at guitar. If all you want to do is be able to strum the chords for most popular music, you should be able to do that in way less than 10,000 hours.
b) Even 10,000 hours isn't going to turn you into Stevie Ray Vaughan or Walter Becker. There's lots of guitar players out there with way more than 10,000 hours who are damn good and still aren't those guys. The 10,000 hour rule as Gladwell presents it makes people believe that time investment is key in developing a skill and that's just not true for all skills.
c) 10,000 hours is such an arbitrary number as to be totally meaningless. As guitar perfectly illustrates, it's almost never going to be the right number. For most people who just want to be able to strum some Beatles tunes, that's way too much time. For people who want to be Yngwie Malmsteen, it's not enough.
But it's not just guitar, most skills are like this. The 10,000 hour number is totally meaningless. How much time you need to invest into a skill depends on what your goals are with that skill, and also how good you are at related skills that feed into that ability already.
The 10,000 hour meme needs to be taken out back, hit with a shovel and buried. It's awful.
Like most people I've never taken the 10,000 hours as an absolute yardstick, just that you will be rewarded in proportion to the effort you put in. Of course, it's hard to slap a slick rule name on it when put that way.
The underlying message which Gladwell conveys that to be outlier at anything, all you need is 10,000 hrs of work does not seem to hold true for all individuals in all fields.
I always mention this guy [1] whenever this topic comes into the discussion. It has tangible aspects, you can see the improvement in his paintings along with the number of years passed, it's a journal.
[1] http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php/870-Journey-...
Gladwell himself admits 10,000 hours is rather arbitrary. The point is still important though, as far too many people start a new skill and are disheartened by their lack of ability before putting in serious practice.
It might seem obvious that practice is necessary for most skills, but people forget it all the time. For example, when I'm teaching people programming they're quick to think themselves failures when they see the giant gap between their abilities and my own. What they don't realize is that I've been doing it for over a decade and, in fact, was much worse than them at first. [0]
[0] In fact, I probably only did HTML for my first whole month of "programming." One major advantage of learning things as a kid is that there's no pressure to be good.
http://greyenlightenment.com/the-iq-wars/
I think we can all conjure up examples like these in our everyday lives. The casual Dad who plays tennis every weekend but hasn't won a Round Robin tournament ever. Or the entrepreneur that jumps from idea to idea, never really following through and taking a risk.
It's feel-good science-iness like those crap games that "exercise your brain". It's just marketing.
His work tends to focus on narrow areas of performance: chess, music, etc., where rote learning, memorization, drill, and repetition are the main keys, unlike 'messier' areas like research, engineering, teaching, and the like. But even within those narrow domains, his theory isn't sufficient to explain performance, individual differences, and expertise (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...). There are so many exceptions to the rule (like child prodigies http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... ), so many domain differences (like he is acknowledging now in the target article). He ignores the last 30 years of research in cognitive psychology. For example, persistent misconceptions and bad habits that prevent us from learning and making significant progress in both conceptual and physical domains. His theory ignores genetic factors that influence performance and expertise (see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... or just watch a game of basketball), and ignores the role of IQ (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...). The data does not support Ericsson's theory, and his arguments have errors and contradictions (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614...).
This is not the case. Being a master in your field does improve your odds to a certain point and it can certainly get you a high income. But to actually become wealthy, you need more than skill/talent.
Once you get in the top 0.1% of your field, the level of talent/competition is so extremely high that it becomes literally impossible to differentiate skill levels between individuals (even experts in that field can't do it) - Beyond this point, to progress further, you have to rely on either luck or social connections. The hard part is that you have to keep practising/learning like crazy just to maintain your approximate 'ranking'.
Thankfully, at that skill level, influential/wealthy people might recognize your talent and may actually bother to answer your emails if you craft them correctly. But yeah, you'd better have damn good emotional intelligence/soft skills because beyond that, it's all about social scheming and manipulation.
The #1 most famous person in a given field is rarely the #1 in terms of skill level - They probably rank somewhere in the top 1% or maybe in the top 0.1% (if the field is particularly meritocratic) but it is unlikely that they even make the top 1000 list.
The meritocracy factor is probably relatively strong in fields like maths and science (research) but extremely weak in fields like acting, painting or music. It's related to the degree of subjectivity in each field. But I think even in science and engineering, there is a lot more subjectivity involved than most people would admit.
This, of course, isn't exclusive to software. The social scientist who is actually also great at mathematics will be able to make much more compelling grant requests than the average one who has muddled numbers and poor analysis.
How and where is this implied?
The book exists in a capitalist context, sure, but the stories are not dependent on it by my reading.
A different study tested students on their ability to make clay pots. Some students were scored on the quality of each pot. Others were only scored based on quantity.
The students that emphasized quantity were able to make better pots by the end of the study. By aiming for quantity over quality, they were able to deliver both.
Performing puts a lot of pressure on you and a more direct focus on the mistakes and triumphs that count. I wouldn't be too quick to disregard how valuable it could be, because it forces you to follow through and work on all the important things.
It may be true but there's no evidence for it.
He just did a show on how going to Bowdoin instead of Vassar is eeevil because Bowdoin feeds students really well and only has 13% of students on the highest level of financial aid, whereas Vassar food (according to the show) gives students diarrhea but has a 23% number. The argument was just supremely stupid but if you don't listen too closely he sounds smart. Or I should say, he sounds smart to the naive and bad-at-math variety of socialists (a category in which I don't lump every socialist btw).
I listened to the financial aid episode on Revisionist History. Why do you think it is supremely stupid?
Money spent on facilities absolutely limits the financial aid budget at institutions. This has a real effect. The average debt of Vassar students is $8k lower than Bowdoin for a reason. [0] [1]
[0] http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...
[1] http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...
Also, the notion that cutting student services back to the point that many of Vassarh interviewees spoke of a laxative effect is somehow humanitarian doesn't hold water.
The idea that if Bowdoin, which has one of the more generous financial aid systems of the elite schools, has to hit a certain percentage of aid or is somehow immoral, also doesn't hold water.
They pretended to the Bowdoin interviewees -- which did not include anyone who could have rebutted -- that this was only about food, while Vassar's highest officials were interviewed about their humanitarian goals.
You can see a response from Bowdoin officials here. https://www.boston.com/news/education/2016/07/15/bowdoin-col... [FIXED LINK]
Bowdoin's financial aid approach is certainly different. For instance, they tend to give 100% of the gap for any student who qualifies, and this has been going on for some time. Vassar doesn't do it this way, but increasing financial aid somewhat for students who were only partially qualifying was touted by Gladwell as some kind of revolution.
By the way, the State school based in Portland, ME also gives surf and turf dinners...
How not? If you're claiming that the numbers don't work, please explain how reducing expenditures on luxury services couldn't free up additional money for financial aid.
You're nitpicking. Obviously, by itself serving better food is not by itself exclusive evidence of "evil." Princeton serves better food than either Vassar or Bowdoin, but also does an even better job with financial aid.
I don't think Bowdoin is "immoral" any more than I think someone who only donates 20% of their income (vs. 30) is "immoral." The point is that, at the margin, spending a dollar on financial aid is more moral than spending a dollar on fantastic food.
The specifics of Bowdoin food vs. Vassar food really don't matter to me. The general point is totally valid though: spending on luxury services absolutely takes dollars away from financial aid.
In fact, the podcast actually got me thinking about whether the most moral thing would be for super-rich universities (ex. Princeton) to switch to need-aware admissions in reverse, with a goal of 100% of students qualifying for financial aid.
e.g. is it "nitpicking" to point out that Gladwell gave the two college vastly different levels of research and opportunity to address his concerns?
Direct quote from Gladwell. "The food at Bowdoin is actually a problem. A moral problem." I'm sorry I don't see the caveat he made about how this really wansn't his point.
I do agree that it was sloppy of him to not include an interview with financial aid people from Bowdoin. I actually would be interested to hear them explain why they have higher indebtedness than Vassar.
> I didn't say that cutting the quality of the food wouldn't "free up resources" that could go do financial aid. Did you go to Vassar or something?
No, I actually went to the horrible NYU (on a full ride, though). I just feel strongly that aggressively offering outreach and financial aid to low-income students is one of the primary moral responsibilities for elite universities.
Of course I don't agree. At what point do you determine that you've gone far enough, with the above stated principle? It's a bankrupt line of reasoning, based on the reduction of a budget with thousands of line items to dumbed-down sound bytes. Does it even bother you that you have mentioned no rational basis for drawing the line anywhere?
For individuals, I will state: spending a marginal dollar on charity is more moral than spending a marginal dollar on luxuries.
I don't have a clear answer to where the line lies, even for myself. I try to keep giving until the marginal luxuries which I give up have greater utility than the utility I gain from donations. Admittedly, this is not exact or imprecise. My giving is strongly affected by my mental health (one of the best ways I've found to get out of a depressive spiral is to go on a donation spree).
However, I don't think this lack of precision undermines the notion that charitable giving is more moral than luxury spending.
Does morally upstanding Vassar lack fancy architecture and highly-paid administrators?
> In retrospect this week's episode of https://t.co/2Mqc5Dwr4V should have included a trigger warning for Bowdoin grads.
This is not the writing of someone who is honestly investigating social justice issues. This is a pot-stirring self-promoter.
I'm sure he's interested in his image but I think mainly he wants to tell a good story and doesn't mind cutting some corners to do so. He's a very good story teller and naturally his priorities line up that way.
As other have pointed out, Gladwell didn't "oversimplify" but rather seriously misconstrued the research on expertise/practice.